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!
Flit, flit, o'er the fertile land
'Mid hovering insects' hums;
Fall into the sower's hand:
Then, when his harvest comes,
The seed and the song shall have flowered together.

"From the Coosa and Altamaha,
With a thought of the dim blue Gulf;
From the Roanoke and Kanawha;
From the musical Southern rivers,
O'er the land where the fierce war-wolf
Lies slain and buried in flowers;
I come to your chill, sad hours
And the woods where the sunlight shivers.
I come like an echo: 'Awake!'
I answer the sky and the lake
And the clear, cool color that quivers
In all your azure rills.
I come to your wan, bleak hills
For a greeting that rises dearer,
To homely hearts draws me nearer
Than the warmth of the rice-fields or wealth of the ranches.

"I will charm away your sorrow,
For I sing of the dewy morrow:
My melody sways like the branches
My light feet set astir:
I bring to the old, as I hover,
The days and the joys that were,
And hope to the waiting lover!
Then, take my note and sing,
Filling it with the longing
And the blithe, unfettered thronging
Of your spirit's blossoming!"

Not long that music lingers:
Like the breath of forgotten singers
It flies, - or like the March-cloud's shadow
That sweeps with its wing the faded meadow
Not long! And yet thy fleeting,
Thy tender, flute-toned greeting,
O bluebird, wakes an answer that remains
The purest chord in all the year's refrains.

George Parsons Lathrop

George Parsons Lathrop (August 25, 1851 – April 19, 1898) was an American poet, novelist, and editor. He was closely associated with the literary world of New England and was a prominent figure in the late 19th century. Lathrop was also known for his marriage to Rose Hawthorne, the daughter of famed novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, and for his efforts in editing and preserving Hawthorne's works. His contributions spanned various literary forms including poetry and prose.

George Parsons Lathrop

Before The Snow

George Parsons Lathrop, Simple Poetry

New Worlds. (Moods Of Love.)

George Parsons Lathrop, Simple Poetry

Helen At The Loom.

George Parsons Lathrop, Simple Poetry

May-Rose

George Parsons Lathrop, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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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

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

To A Bird At Dawn

O bird that somewhere yonder sings,
    In the dim hour 'twixt dreams and dawn,
Lone in the hush of sleeping things,
    In some sky sanctuary withdrawn;
Your perfect song is too like pain,
And will not let me sleep again.

I think you must be more than bird,
    A little creature of soft wings,
Not yours this deep and thrilling word -
    Some morning planet 'tis that sings;
Surely from no small feathered throat
    Wells that august, eternal note.

As some old language of the dead,
    In one resounding syllable,
Says Rome and Greece and all is said -
    A simple word a child may spell;
So in your liquid note impearled
Sings the long epic of the world.

Unfathomed sweetness of your song,
    With ancient anguish at its core,

Richard Le Gallienne

A Caged Mocking-Bird

        I pass a cobbler's shop along the street
            And pause a moment at the door-step, where,
        In nature's medley, piping cool and sweet,
            The songs that thrill the swamps when spring is near,
            Fly o'er the fields at fullness of the year,
        And twitter where the autumn hedges run,
        Join all the months of music into one.

        I shut my eyes:    the shy wood-thrush is there,
            And all the leaves hang still to catch his spell;
        Wrens cheep among the bushes; from somewhere
            A bluebird's tweedle passes o'er the fell;
            From rustling corn bob-white his name doth tell;
        And when the oriole sets his full heart free
        Barefooted boyhood comes again to me.

      ...

John Charles McNeill

On Hearing The Nightingale

Thanks for thy song, sweet Bird! thanks for thy song!
O! 'twas delightful; how have I been lost
As in a blissful dream! how has my soul
Been wafted in a sea of melody!
Scarce yet am I awake, yet scarce myself:
Still with the enchanting music's dying breath
The air is kept in motion, and conveys
Sweet whispers to the finely-listening ear;
Or is it but an echo from the cell
Of memory that deludes my doating sense?
Ah! now 'tis gone; Silence resumes her sway,
And o'er my hearing spreads her subtile web;
But she resumes it, changed, methinks, in nature,
More soft, more amiable, as if inform'd
With the departed soul of harmony.

Thanks for thy song, sweet Bird! it well deserves
All my heart's gratitude; for it has still'd
Its anxious throbbings, and remov...

Thomas Oldham

Returned Birds

My heart to-day is like a southern wood,
    Through summer months it has been drunk with heat;
    And slumbered on unmindful of the beat
Of life beyond it: sleep alone seemed good.

Now milder Autumn's tints are in the sky;
    The fervid heats of summer noons depart;
    And backward to the old haunts in my heart
The golden robins and the blue birds fly.

I hear the flutter of their airy wings,
    They flock about the Spring's deserted nest,
    And suddenly I feel within my breast
The stirring of sweet half-forgotten things.

Bright sunny mornings -golden growing hours -
    The building of glad birds among the trees;
    Wide open windows and the kindly breeze
Bringing the perfume of half-open flowers.

A blithe face at the window fai...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox