Home ⇒ 📌Siegfried Sassoon ⇒ Thrushes
Thrushes
Tossed on the glittering air they soar and skim,
Whose voices make the emptiness of light
A windy palace. Quavering from the brim
Of dawn, and bold with song at edge of night,
They clutch their leafy pinnacles and sing
Scornful of man, and from his toils aloof
Whose heart’s a haunted woodland whispering;
Whose thoughts return on tempest-baffled wing;
Who hears the cry of God in everything,
And storms the gate of nothingness for proof.
(2 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- The Oxford Thrushes FEBRUARY, 1917 I never thought again to hear The Oxford thrushes singing clear, Amid the February rain, Their sweet, indomitable strain. A wintry vapor lightly spreads Among the trees, and round the beds Where daffodil and jonquil sleep, Only the snowdrop wakes to weep. It is not springtime yet. Alas, What dark, tempestuous days must […]...
- Thrushes Terrifying are the attent sleek thrushes on the lawn, More coiled steel than living – a poised Dark deadly eye, those delicate legs Triggered to stirrings beyond sense – with a start, a bounce, A stab Overtake the instant and drag out some writhing thing. No indolent procrastinations and no yawning states, No sighs or […]...
- To A Husband This is to the crown and blessing of my life, The much loved husband of a happy wife; To him whose constant passion found the art To win a stubborn and ungrateful heart, And to the world by tenderest proof discovers They err, who say that husbands can’t be lovers. With such return of passion, […]...
- Covering Two Years This nothingness that feeds upon itself: Pencils that turn to water in the hand, Parts of a sentence, hanging in the air, Thoughts breaking in the mind like glass, Blank sheets of paper that reflect the world Whitened the world that I was silenced by. There were two years of that. Slowly, Whatever splits, dissevers, […]...
- Marigolds With a fork drive Nature out, She will ever yet return; Hedge the flowerbed all about, Pull or stab or cut or burn, She will ever yet return. Look: the constant marigold Springs again from hidden roots. Baffled gardener, you behold New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots. Pull or stab or […]...
- Misgivings When ocean-clouds over inland hills Sweep storming in late autumn brown, And horror the sodden valley fills, And the spire falls crashing in the town, I muse upon my country’s ills The tempest burning from the waste of Time On the world’s fairest hope linked with man’s foulest crime. Nature’s dark side is heeded now […]...
- Indifference When I am dead I will not care Forever more, If sky be radiantly fair Or tempest roar. If my life-hoard in sin be spent, My wife re-wed, I’ll be so damned indifferent When I am dead. When I meet up with dusty doom What if I rest In common ditch or marble tomb, If […]...
- I Am I am: yet what I am none cares or knows My friends forsake me like a memory lost, I am the self-consumer of my woes- They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shadows in love’s frenzied, stifled throes- And yet I am, and live-like vapors tossed Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into […]...
- Farewell (II) Hill at mutual escort stop Day dusk shut wood door Spring grass next year green Prince offspring return not return We bid each other farewell beside the hill, As day meets dusk, I close the wooden gate. Next year, in spring, there will be green grass again, But will my honoured friend return?...
- Moon over Mountain Pass A bright moon rising above Tian Shan Mountain, Lost in a vast ocean of clouds. The long wind, across thousands upon thousands of miles, Blows past the Jade-gate Pass. The army of Han has gone down the Baiteng Road, As the barbarian hordes probe at Qinghai Bay. It is known that from the battlefield Few […]...
- 504. Apology to Mr. Syme for not dining with him NO more of your guests, be they titled or not, And cookery the first in the nation; Who is proof to thy personal converse and wit, Is proof to all other temptation....
- On The Death Of Anne Bronte There’s little joy in life for me, And little terror in the grave; I’ve lived the parting hour to see Of one I would have died to save. Calmly to watch the failing breath, Wishing each sigh might be the last; Longing to see the shade of death O’er those beloved features cast; The cloud, […]...
- Tempest Tossed And Sore Afflicted TEMPEST tossed and sore afflicted, sin defiled and care oppressed, Come to me, all ye that labour; come, and I will give ye rest. Fear no more, O doubting hearted; weep no more, O weeping eye! Lo, the voice of your redeemer; lo, the songful morning near. Here one hour you toil and combat, sin […]...
- Her Voice The wild bee reels from bough to bough With his furry coat and his gauzy wing, Now in a lily-cup, and now Setting a jacinth bell a-swing, In his wandering; Sit closer love: it was here I trow I made that vow, Swore that two lives should be like one As long as the sea-gull […]...
- So much of Heaven has gone from Earth So much of Heaven has gone from Earth That there must be a Heaven If only to enclose the Saints To Affidavit given. The Missionary to the Mole Must prove there is a Sky Location doubtless he would plead But what excuse have I? Too much of Proof affronts Belief The Turtle will not try […]...
- To Winter O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors: The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs, Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.’ He hears me not, but o’er the yawning deep Rides heavy; his storms are unchain’d, sheathиd In ribbиd steel; I dare not lift mine eyes, […]...
- Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
- The Beer Was Cold Enough It is amazing, while I lay in bed, I had the lines Roaring through my head like locusts on the wing, The unabashed extravagance of such a flock Of stunning words shocked me out of brittle sleep; And sleep avoids me now like something way too out of vogue, So I rise and try to […]...
- 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
- Voices Ideal and beloved voices Of those who are dead, or of those Who are lost to us like the dead. Sometimes they speak to us in our dreams; Sometimes in thought the mind hears them. And with their sound for a moment return Other sounds from the first poetry of our life Like distant music […]...
- Aloneness Loneliness and aloneness They are not the same For the shell of the mind Hears echoes of many seas It hears the calling of gulls From this savage sky And an ebbing tide Lapping the small white stones....
- The Return See, they return; ah, see the tentative Movements, and the slow feet, The trouble in the pace and the uncertain Wavering! See, they return, one, and by one, With fear, as half-awakened; As if the snow should hesitate And murmur in the wind, and half turn back; These were the “Wing’d-with-Awe,” Inviolable. Gods of the […]...
- The Dark House Dusk in the rain-soaked garden, And dark the house within. A door creaked: someone was early To watch the dawn begin. But he stole away like a thief In the chilly, star-bright air: Though the house was shuttered for slumber, He had left one wakeful there. Nothing moved in the garden. Never a bird would […]...
- It tossed and tossed It tossed and tossed A little Brig I knew o’ertook by Blast It spun and spun And groped delirious, for Morn It slipped and slipped As One that drunken stept Its white foot tripped Then dropped from sight Ah, Brig Good Night To Crew and You The Ocean’s Heart too smooth too Blue To break […]...
- Aux Imagistes I think I have never been so exalted As I am now by you, O frost bitten blossoms, That are unfolding your wings From out the envious black branches. Bloom quickly and make much of the sunshine The twigs conspire against you Hear them! They hold you from behind You shall not take wing Except […]...
- Sonnet XLI: Yes, I Will Go Yes, I will go, where circling whirlwinds rise, Where threat’ning clouds in sable grandeur lour; Where the blast yells, the liquid columns pour, And madd’ning billows combat with the skies! There, while the Daemon of the tempest flies On growing pinions through the troublous hour, The wild waves gasp impatient to devour, And on the […]...
- The Sea-Wife There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate, And a wealthy wife is she; She breeds a breed o’ rovin’ men And casts them over sea. And some are drowned in deep water, And some in sight o’ shore, And word goes back to the weary wife And ever she sends more. For since that […]...
- Dream Song 2: Big Buttons, Cornets: the advance The jane is zoned! no nightspot here, no bar There, no sweet freeway, and no premises For business purposes, No loiterers or needers. Henry are Baffled. Have ev’ybody head for Maine, Utility-man take a train? Arrive a time when all coons lose dere grip, But is he come? Le’s do a hoedown, gal, One blue, […]...
- The Greatness Of The World Through the world which the Spirit creative and kind First formed out of chaos, I fly like the wind, Until on the strand Of its billows I land, My anchor cast forth where the breeze blows no more, And Creation’s last boundary stands on the shore. I saw infant stars into being arise, For thousands […]...
- Loud And Low In The Chimney LOUD and low in the chimney The squalls suspire; Then like an answer dwindles And glows the fire, And the chamber reddens and darkens In time like taken breath. Near by the sounding chimney The youth apart Hearkens with changing colour And leaping heart, And hears in the coil of the tempest The voice of […]...
- The Old Front Gate W’en daih’s chillun in de house, Dey keep on a-gittin’ tall; But de folks don’ seem to see Dat dey’s growin’ up at all, ‘Twell dey fin’ out some fine day Dat de gals has ‘menced to grow, W’en dey notice as dey pass Dat de front gate’s saggin’ low. W’en de hinges creak an’ […]...
- Narcissus Encircled by her arms as by a shell, She hears her being murmur, While forever he endures The outrage of his too pure image… Wistfully following their example, Nature re-enters herself; Contemplating its own sap, the flower Becomes too soft, and the boulder hardens… It’s the return of all desire that enters Toward all life […]...
- I Shall Return I shall return again; I shall return To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes At golden noon the forest fires burn, Wafting their blue-black smoke to sapphire skies. I shall return to loiter by the streams That bathe the brown blades of the bending grasses, And realize once more my thousand dreams Of waters […]...
- In the Matter of One Compass When, foot to wheel and back to wind, The helmsman dare not look behind, But hears beyond his compass-light, The blind bow thunder through the night, And, like a harpstring ere it snaps, The rigging sing beneath the caps; Above the shriek of storm in sail Or rattle of the blocks blown free, Set for […]...
- A Letter to Her Husband Absent upon Public Employment My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay more, My joy, my magazine, of earthly store, If two be one, as surely thou and I, How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lie? So many steps, head from the heart to sever, If but a neck, soon should we […]...
- The Shepherd How sweet is the Shepherd’s sweet lot, From the morn to the evening he strays: He shall follow his sheep all the day And his tongue shall be filled with praise. For he hears the lambs innocent call, And he hears the ewes tender reply, He is watchful while they are in peace, For they […]...
- Lines Spoken by Miss Ada Rehan at the Lyceum Theatre, July 23, 1890, at a Performance on behalf of Lady Jeune’s Holiday Fund for City Children. BEFORE we part to alien thoughts and aims, Permit the one brief word the occasion claims; When mumming and grave projects are allied, Perhaps an Epilogue is justified. Our under-purpose […]...
- Who Goes Amid the Green Wood Who goes amid the green wood With springtide all adorning her? Who goes amid the merry green wood To make it merrier? Who passes in the sunlight By ways that know the light footfall? Who passes in the sweet sunlight With mien so virginal? The ways of all the woodland Gleam with a soft and […]...
- Ode On Indolence One morn before me were three figures seen, I With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced; And one behind the other stepp’d serene, In placid sandals, and in white robes graced; They pass’d, like figures on a marble urn, When shifted round to see the other side; They came again; as when the urn once […]...
- The spry Arms of the Wind The spry Arms of the Wind If I could crawl between I have an errand imminent To an adjoining Zone I should not care to stop My Process is not long The Wind could wait without the Gate Or stroll the Town among. To ascertain the House And is the soul at Home And hold […]...