The Mocking-Bird

Related poetry:

1. The Mocking-Bird In mirth he mocks the other birds at noon, Catching the lilt of every easy tune; But when the day departs he sings of love, His own wild song beneath the listening moon....
2. Never Again Would Bird's Song Be The Same He would declare and could himself believe That the birds there in all the garden round From having heard the daylong voice of Eve Had added to their own an oversound, Her tone of meaning but without the words. Admittedly an eloquence so soft Could only have had an influence on birds When call or […]...
3. The Bird of Paradise Here comes Kate Summers, who, for gold, Takes any man to bed: “You knew my friend, Nell Barnes,” she said; “You knew Nell Barnes she’s dead. “Nell Barnes was bad on all you men, Unclean, a thief as well; Yet all my life I have not found A better friend than Nell. “So I sat […]...
4. On The Grasshopper And Cricket The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper’s-he takes the lead In summer luxury,-he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with […]...
5. Let me be to Thee as the circling bird Let me be to Thee as the circling bird, Or bat with tender and air-crisping wings That shapes in half-light his departing rings, From both of whom a changeless note is heard. I have found my music in a common word, Trying each pleasurable throat that sings And every praised sequence of sweet strings, And […]...
6. Bird Sanctuary Between the cliff-rise and the beach A slip of emerald I own; With fig and olive, almond, peach, Cherry and plum-tree overgrown; Glad-watered by a crystal spring That carols through the silver night, And populous with birds who sing Gay madrigals for my delight. Some merchants fain would buy my land To build a stately […]...
7. When I was a Bird I climbed up the karaka tree Into a nest all made of leaves But soft as feathers. I made up a song that went on singing all by itself And hadn’t any words, but got sad at the end. There were daisies in the grass under the tree. I said just to try them: “I’ll […]...
8. A Farewell I My fairest child, I have no song to give you; No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey: Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you For every day. II Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: And […]...
9. Heritage Now the dead past seems vividly alive, And in this shining moment I can trace, Down through the vista of the vanished years, Your faun-like form, your fond elusive face. And suddenly some secret spring’s released, And unawares a riddle is revealed, And I can read like large, black-lettered print, What seemed before a thing […]...
10. The Mocking Fairy ‘Won’t you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?’ Quoth the Fairy, nidding, nodding in the garden; ‘Can’t you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?’ Quoth the Fairy, laughing softly in the garden; But the air was still, the cherry boughs were still, And the ivy-tod neath the empty sill, And never from her […]...
11. The Dragon-Fly Life (priest and poet say) is but a dream; I wish no happier one than to be laid Beneath a cool syringa’s scented shade, Or wavy willow, by the running stream, Brimful of moral, where the dragon-fly, Wanders as careless and content as I. Thanks for this fancy, insect king, Of purple crest and filmy […]...
12. Of Being is a Bird Of Being is a Bird The likest to the Down An Easy Breeze do put afloat The General Heavens upon It soars and shifts and whirls And measures with the Clouds In easy even dazzling pace No different the Birds Except a Wake of Music Accompany their feet As did the Down emit a Tune […]...
13. Enigma Come riddle-me-ree, come riddle-me-ree, And tell me, what my name may be. I am nearly one hundred and thirty years old, And therefore no chicken, as you may suppose; Though a dwarf in my youth (as my nurses have told), I have, ev’ry year since, been outgrowing my clothes; Till, at last, such a corpulent […]...
14. The Poet And The Bird Said a people to a poet -” Go out from among us straightway! While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine. There’s a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the gateways Makes fitter music to our ears than any song of thine!” The poet went out weeping – the nightingale ceased chanting; […]...
15. Bird Nesting O wonderful! In sport we climbed the tree, Eager and laughing, as in all our play, To see the eggs where, in the nest, they lay, But silent fell before the mystery. For, one brief moment there, we understood By sudden sympathy too fine for words That we were sisters to the brooding birds And […]...
16. Miss Loo When thin-strewn memory I look through, I see most clearly poor Miss Loo, Her tabby cat, her cage of birds, Her nose, her hair her muffled words, And how she’d open her green eyes, As if in some immense surprise, Whenever as we sat at tea, She made some small remark to me. It’s always […]...
17. Weird-Bird Birds are flyin’ south for winter. Here’s the Weird-Bird headin’ north, Wings a-flappin’, beak a-chatterin’, Cold head bobbin’ back ‘n’ forth. He says, “It’s not that I like ice Or freezin’ winds and snowy ground. It’s just sometimes it’s kind of nice To be the only bird in town.”...
18. Laughing Song When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy And the dimpling stream runs laughing by, When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it. When the meadows laugh with lively green And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene. When Mary and Susan […]...
19. A Minor Bird I have wished a bird would fly away, And not sing by my house all day; Have clapped my hands at him from the door When it seemed as if I could bear no more. The fault must partly have been in me. The bird was not to blame for his key. And of course […]...
20. The Oven Bird There is a singer everyone has heard, Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall is past When pear and cherry bloom went down in […]...
21. Beeny Cliff I O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea, And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free- The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me. I I The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away In a nether sky, engrossed in saying […]...
22. As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free 1 AS a strong bird on pinions free, Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America, Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee. The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not, Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long, […]...
23. Humming-bird pie the paiute indians had the bird sussed A humming bird (loaded with seeds) set out To see beyond the sun – it aimed to be frugal Rationing itself to only one seed a day – even so It ran out long before it meant to It gave up (getting nowhere and seeing nothing) – All […]...
24. My Springs In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know Two springs that with unbroken flow Forever pour their lucent streams Into my soul’s far Lake of Dreams. Not larger than two eyes, they lie Beneath the many-changing sky And mirror all of life and time, Serene and dainty pantomime. Shot through with lights of […]...
25. Spring Birds’ love and birds’ song Flying here and there, Birds’ songand birds’ love And you with gold for hair! Birds’ songand birds’ love Passing with the weather, Men’s song and men’s love, To love once and forever. Men’s love and birds’ love, And women’s love and men’s! And you my wren with a crown of […]...
26. Unknown Bird Out of the dry days Through the dusty leaves Far across the valley Those few notes never Heard here before One fluted phrase Floating over its Wandering secret All at once wells up Somewhere else And is gone before it Goes on fallen into Its own echo leaving A hollow through the air That is […]...
27. My Heart, When First The Black-Bird Sings MY heart, when first the blackbird sings, My heart drinks in the song: Cool pleasure fills my bosom through And spreads each nerve along. My bosom eddies quietly, My heart is stirred and cool As when a wind-moved briar sweeps A stone into a pool But unto thee, when thee I meet, My pulses thicken […]...
28. The Bird and the Arras By neer resemblance see that Bird betray’d Who takes the well wrought Arras for a shade There hopes to pearch and with a chearfull Tune O’re-passe the scortchings of the sultry Noon. But soon repuls’d by the obdurate scean How swift she turns but turns alas in vain That piece a Grove, this shews an […]...
29. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
30. The Summer Day Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean The one who has flung herself out of the grass, The one who is eating sugar out of my hand, Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down Who is […]...
31. Dream Song 103: I consider a song will be as humming-bird I consider a song will be as humming-bird Swift, down-light, missile-metal-hard, & strange As the world of anti-matter Where they are wondering: does time run backward— Which the poet thought was true; Scarlatti-supple; But can Henry write it? Wreckt, in deep danger, he shook once his head, Returning to meditation. And word had sped All […]...
32. George Crabbe Give him the darkest inch your shelf allows, Hide him in lonely garrets, if you will,- But his hard, human pulse is throbbing still With the sure strength that fearless truth endows. In spite of all fine science disavows, Of his plain excellence and stubborn skill There yet remains what fashion cannot kill, Though years […]...
33. Bird On The Wire Like a bird on the wire, Like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free. Like a worm on a hook, Like a knight from some old fashioned book I have saved all my ribbons for thee. If I, if I have been unkind, I hope that you […]...
34. Bird Of Hope Soar not too high, O bird of Hope! Because the skies are fair; The tempest may come on apace And overcome thee there. When far above the mountain tops Thou soarest, over all – If, then, the storm should press thee back, How great would be thy fall! And thou wouldst lie here at my […]...
35. Some things that fly there be Some things that fly there be Birds Hours the Bumblebee Of these no Elegy. Some things that stay there be Grief Hills Eternity Nor this behooveth me. There are that resting, rise. Can I expound the skies? How still the Riddle lies!...
36. Gamajun, the Prophetic Bird On waters, spread without end, Dressed with the sunset so purple, It sings and prophesies for land, Unable to lift the smashed wings’ couple… The charge of Tartars’ hordes it claims, And bloody set of executions, Earthquake, and hunger and the flames, The death of justice, crime’s intrusion… And caught with fear, cold and smooth, […]...
37. Looking For a Sunset Bird in Winter The west was getting out of gold, The breath of air had died of cold, When shoeing home across the white, I thought I saw a bird alight. In summer when I passed the place I had to stop and lift my face; A bird with an angelic gift Was singing in it sweet and […]...
38. To-Day, This Insect To-day, this insect, and the world I breathe, Now that my symbols have outelbowed space, Time at the city spectacles, and half The dear, daft time I take to nudge the sentence, In trust and tale I have divided sense, Slapped down the guillotine, the blood-red double Of head and tail made witnesses to this […]...
39. Shiva There is a hawk that is picking the birds out of our sky, She killed the pigeons of peace and security, She has taken honesty and confidence from nations and men, She is hunting the lonely heron of liberty. She loads the arts with nonsense, she is very cunning Science with dreams and the state […]...
40. The Daylight is Dying The daylight is dying Away in the west, The wild birds are flying In silence to rest; In leafage and frondage Where shadows are deep, They pass to its bondage – The kingdom of sleep. And watched in their sleeping By stars in the height, They rest in your keeping, Oh, wonderful night. When night […]...