Poems (Hoffman)/Wounded
For works with similar titles, see Wounded.
WOUNDED.
Once a little song bird caroledNotes of perfect ecstasy,In bright costume all apparelled,Happy as a bird could be.
Never thought of pain or danger,Made his happy song less sweet;'Till the footfall of a strangerSounded through his cool retreat.
Just a red stain on the mosses,Just a broken, shattered strain;Just a tiny wing that flutters,But will never rise again.
Lying underneath the grasses,Hidden from the sportsman's eye;Hour by hour the long day passes,Dying, still yet cannot die.
Thus one sunny day I found it,Wounded with a cruel dart;With sad silence all around it,Was the little bird—a Heart?