Poems (Tynan)/The Complaint
THE COMPLAINT
The first sound that I hear at morn In the low house where I was born Is plaint of the wood-dove forlorn, Leaning her breast upon a thorn.
All day in orchard coppices The low moan of the wood-dove is. Song-birds all singing give less bliss Than she who mourns Love's little ease.
Crickets in sunny grass a-whir, And many a bronze-winged trumpeter, All the blithe country shine and stir,And from all these I turn to her.
All noon, in the gold shade and sun, Love's litany she doth intone,Joining two lovers' names in one, That shall not join till time be done.
All the gold afternoon again She makes sweet music of her pain—Love's captive, that yet hugs her chain And of Love's whip and scourge is fain.
At night, when all the linnets keep Silence, and bats and owlets creep,Ere ever I fall to honeyed sleep, I hear the wood-dove weep and weep.