An Irish Blackbird

This is my brave singer,
        With his beak of gold;
Now my hearts a captive
        In his songs sweet hold.

O, the larks a rover,
        Seeking fields above:
But my serenader
        Hath a human love.

Hark! he says, in winter
        Nests are full of snow,
But a truce to wailing
        Summer breezes blow.

Hush! he sings, with night-time
        Phantoms cease to be,
Join your serenader
        Piping on his tree.

O, my little lover,
        Warble in the blue;
Wingless must I envy
        Skies so wide for you.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Dora Sigerson Shorter was an Irish poet and sculptor born in Dublin in 1866. She was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival, a movement that aimed to promote Irish literature and culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was also a close friend of W.B. Yeats and married the writer and journalist Clement King Shorter. Dora's work often dealt with themes of Irish nationalism and folklore, and she published several volumes of poetry before her untimely death in 1918.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Banagher Rhue

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

At Christmas Time

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

Cupid Slain

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

What Will You Give?

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

English

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A Bird From The West

At the grey dawn, amongst the felling leaves,
        A little bird outside my window swung,
High on a topmost branch he trilled his song,
        And Ireland! Ireland! Ireland! ever sung.

Take me, I cried, back to my island home;
        Sweet bird, my soul shall ride between thy wings;
For my lone spirit wide his pinions spread,
        And home and home and home he ever sings.

We lingered over Ulster stern and wild.
        I called: Arise! doth none remember me?
One turnèd in the darkness murmuring,
        How loud upon the breakers sobs the sea!

We rested over Connaught-whispering said:
        Awake, awake, and welcome!    I am here.
One woke and shivered at the morning grey;
        The trees, I never heard them sigh so drear.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

The Song-Sparrow.

Glimmers gray the leafless thicket
    Close beside my garden gate,
Where, so light, from post to picket
    Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate;
    Who, with meekly folded wing,
    Comes to sun himself and sing.

It was there, perhaps, last year,
    That his little house he built;
For he seems to perk and peer,
    And to twitter, too, and tilt
    The bare branches in between,
    With a fond, familiar mien.

Once, I know, there was a nest,
    Held there by the sideward thrust
Of those twigs that touch his breast;
    Though 'tis gone now. Some rude gust
    Caught it, over-full of snow, -
    Bent the bush, - and robbed it so

Thus our highest holds are lost,
    By the ruthless winter's wind,
When, with swift-dismantling...

George Parsons Lathrop

The Song-Sparrow

Glimmers gray the leafless thicket
Close beside my garden gate,
Where, so light, from post to picket
Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate;
Who, with meekly folded wing,
Comes to sun himself and sing.

It was there, perhaps, last year,
That his little house he built;
For he seems to perk and peer,
And to twitter, too, and tilt
The bare branches in between,
With a fond, familiar mien.

Once, I know, there was a nest,
Held there by the sideward thrust
Of those twigs that touch his breast;
Though 'tis gone now. Some rude gust
Caught it, over-full of snow, -
Bent the bush, - and stole it so.

Thus our highest holds are lost,
In the ruthless winter's wind,
When, with swift-dismantling frost,
The green woods we dwelt in, thinn'd

George Parsons Lathrop

Bluebird's Greeting

Over the mossy walls,
Above the slumbering fields
Where yet the ground no fruitage yields,
Save as the sunlight falls
In dreams of harvest-yellow,
What voice remembered calls, -
So bubbling fresh, so soft and mellow?

A darting, azure-feathered arrow
From some lithe sapling's bow-curve, fleet
The bluebird, springing light and narrow,
Sings in flight, with gurglings sweet:

"Out of the South I wing,
Blown on the breath of Spring:
The little faltering song
That in my beak I bring
Some maiden shall catch and sing,
Filling it with the longing
And the blithe, unfettered thronging
Of her spirit's blossoming.

"Warbling along
In the sunny weather,
Float, my notes,
Through the sunny motes,
Falling light as a feather!

George Parsons Lathrop

The Blackbird

O blackbird! sing me something well:
While all the neighbors shoot thee round,
I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground,
Where thou mayst warble, eat, and dwell.
The espaliers and the standards all
Are thine; the range of lawn and park;
The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark,
All thine, against the garden wall.

Yet, tho I spared thee all the spring,
Thy sole delight is, sitting still,
With that gold dagger of thy bill
To fret the summer jenneting.

A golden bill! ths silver tongue,
Cold February loved, is dry;
Plenty corrupts the melody
That made thee famous once when young;

And in the sultry garden-squares,
Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse,
I hear thee not at all, or hoarse
As when a hawker hawks his wares.

Tak...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Waking Of The Lark.

I.

    O bonnie bird, that in the brake, exultant, dost prepare thee -
    As poets do whose thoughts are true, for wings that will upbear thee -
            Oh! tell me, tell me, bonnie bird,
            Canst thou not pipe of hope deferred?
    Or canst thou sing of naught but Spring among the golden meadows?


II.

    Methinks a bard (and thou art one) should suit his song to sorrow,
    And tell of pain, as well as gain, that waits us on the morrow;
            But thou art not a prophet, thou,
            If naught but joy can touch thee now;
    If, in thy heart, thou hast no vow that speaks of Nature's anguish.


III.

    Oh! I have held my sorrows dear, and felt, tho' poor and slighted,
    The songs we love are those we hea...

Eric Mackay