Opals (Custance)/The Song Bird
The Song Bird
There is a garden in my soul,A garden full of singing birds,Their wings have never known controlIn any cage of words.
They come from fairy lands afar,From lands of Dawn and lands of Night,The mystic birds of fate they are:God only marks their flight.
Their wings beat round my house of Dreams,Beneath the eaves they build and sing . . .And always each one's coming seemsA strange and sudden thing!
And yesterday, ah! . . . yesterdayI flung a golden net of thoughtAcross the tangled world that layAbout me, and I caught
A song-bird with a shining crest . . .And plumage coloured like a flame—A stranger, different from the rest . . .I knew from whence he came . . .
From that grey city fair indeedTo some . . . but foul to those, too wiseWho pass her Sphinx-like smile, to readThe secret in her eyes . . .
And this bird sang a song that setMy heart a-thrill with hope and power.Earth's fruitless feverish care and fretFell from me in that hour.
"O! come again! my soul is stirred—The praise and perfume of the SpringIs in thy voice, O! passionate birdCome back to me and sing!"