The Bird-Man

Man is a bird:
He rises on fine wings
Into the Heaven's clear light;
He flies away and sings,
There's music in his flight.

Man is a bird:
In swiftest speed he burns,
With twist and dive and leap;
A bird whose sudden turns
Can drive the frightened sheep.

Man is a bird:
Over the mountain high,
Whose head is in the skies,
Cut from its shoulder by
A cloud, the bird-man flies.

Man is a bird:
Eagles from mountain crag
Swooped down to prove his worth;
But now they rise to drag
Him down from Heaven to earth!

William Henry Davies

William Henry Davies was a Welsh poet and writer, best known for his poetry depicting tramp life and the natural world. Davies spent much of his life as a wanderer in the UK and the USA. Despite his lifestyle, he became one of the most popular poets of his time, with works including 'Leisure', which begins with the famous lines, 'What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?'. His autobiography, 'The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp', details his adventures and is considered a classic.

William Henry Davies

The Starved

William Henry Davies, Simple Poetry

Oh, Sweet Content!

William Henry Davies, Simple Poetry

Poor Kings

William Henry Davies, Simple Poetry

Sweet Birds, I Come

William Henry Davies, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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Birds

When our two souls have left this mortal clay
And, seeking mine, you think that mine is lost -
Look for me first in that Elysian glade
Where Lesbia is, for whom the birds sing most.

What happy hearts those feathered mortals have,
That sing so sweet when they're wet through in spring!
For in that month of May when leaves are young,
Birds dream of song, and in their sleep they sing.

And when the spring has gone and they are dumb,
Is it not fine to watch them at their play:
Is it not fine to see a bird that tries
To stand upon the end of every spray?

See how they tilt their pretty heads aside:
When women make that move they always please.
What cosy homes birds make in leafy walls
That Nature's love has ruined - and the trees.

Oft have I se...

William Henry Davies

Were I A Bird

Were I a bird free born to fly
    Aloof on two wee, downy wings,
My canopy would be the sky
    When rosy morn its dawning springs.

Were I a bird I'd sweetly sing
    Earth's vesper song in tree-tops high,
And chant the carol of the Spring
    To every weary passer by.

Were I a bird, the sweetest voice
    That human ear has ever heard, -
The mocking-bird would be my choice,
    For he's the sweetest singing bird!

Were I a bird my life would be
    In keeping with the Will divine -
I'd sing His carols full and free
    In spreading oak and cony pine!

Were I a bird through air I'd roam,
    Just flitting on the morning breeze,
In search of summer's sunny dome,
    To live contentedly at ease.

Were I a bird I'd ...

Edward Smyth Jones

Song Of The Aviator

You may thrill with the speed of your thoroughbred steed,
You may laugh with delight as you ride the ocean,
You may rush afar in your touring car,
Leaping, sweeping, by things that are creeping -
But you never will know the joy of motion
Till you rise up over the earth some day,
And soar like an eagle, away - away.

High and higher above each spire,
Till lost to sight is the tallest steeple,
With the winds you chase in a valiant race,
Looping, swooping, where mountains are grouping,
Hailing them comrades, in place of people.
Oh! vast is the rapture the birdman knows,
As into the ether he mounts and goes.
He is over the sphere of human fear;
He has come into touch with things supernal.
At each man's gate death stands await;
And dying, flying, were bet...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Sweet Birds, I Come

The bird that now
On bush and tree,
Near leaves so green
Looks down to see
Flowers looking up,
He either sings
In ecstasy
Or claps his wings.

Why should I slave
For finer dress
Or ornaments;
Will flowers smile less
For rags than silk?
Are birds less dumb
For tramp than squire?
Sweet birds, I come.

William Henry Davies

Winged Man

The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits,
The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates,
The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar,
Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar.

There stands the cunning workman, the crafty past all praise,
The man who chained the Minotaur, the man who built the Maze.
His young son is beside him and the boy's face is a light,
A light of dawn and wonder and of valor infinite.

Their great vans beat the cloven air, like eagles they mount up,
Motes in the wine of morning, specks in a crystal cup,
And lest his wings should melt apace old Daedalus flies low,
But Icarus beats up, beats up, he goes where lightnings go.

He cares no more for warnings, he rushes throu...

Stephen Vincent Benét

The Bird At Dawn

What I saw was just one eye
In the dawn as I was going:
A bird can carry all the sky
In that little button glowing.

Never in my life I went
So deep into the firmament.

He was standing on a tree,
All in blossom overflowing;
And he purposely looked hard at me,
At first, as if to question merrily:
'Where are you going?'
But next some far more serious thing to say:
I could not answer, could not look away.

Oh, that hard, round, and so distracting eye:
Little mirror of all sky! -
And then the after-song another tree
Held, and sent radiating back on me.

If no man had invented human word,
And a bird-song had been
The only way to utter what we mean,
What would we men have heard,
What understood, what seen,
Between t...

Harold Monro