The Blue Bird (Custance)/The Photograph

by Olive Custance

For other versions of this work, see The Photograph (Custance).

THE PHOTOGRAPH

O Beauty, what is this?
A shadow of your face . . .
Where is the wild-flower grace
That Love is wont to kiss?

Where is the bird that brings
To your untroubled eyes
The blue of fairy skies,
The flash of fairy wings? . . .

O wild bird of delight,
That no white hand may hold,
Or fairest cage of gold . . .
For who would stay its flight?

The song-bird of your voice.
Whose magic song Love hears,
Trembling behind your tears,
Trilling when you rejoice . . .

(Weave nets to snare the dawn
So delicately shy . . .
You catch a butterfly
With all its colours gone.)

O Beauty, what is this?
The shadow of a rose . . .
A little ghost that goes
Oblivious of Love's kiss.

Only a shadow . . . yet
It may, in some dark hour
Recall the living flower . . .
If haply Love forget.