The Phoebe-Bird

(A REPLY)


Yes, I was wrong about the phoebe-bird.
Two songs it has, and both of them I've heard:
I did not know those strains of joy and sorrow
Came from one throat, or that each note could borrow
Strength from the other, making one more brave
And one as sad as rain-drops on a grave.

But thus it is. Two songs have men and maidens:
One is for hey-day, one is sorrow's cadence.
Our voices vary with the changing seasons
Of life's long year, for deep and natural reasons.
Therefore despair not. Think not you have altered,
If, at some time, the gayer note has faltered.
We are as God has made us. Gladness, pain,
Delight and death, and moods of bliss or bane,
With love and hate, or good and evil - all,
At separate times, in separate accents call;
Yet 't is the same heart-throb within the breast
That gives an impulse to our worst and best.
I doubt not when our earthly cries are ended,
The Listener finds them in one music blended.

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

Sailor's Song.

George Parsons Lathrop, Simple Poetry

Helen At The Loom.

George Parsons Lathrop, Simple Poetry

South-Wind

George Parsons Lathrop, Simple Poetry

The Lily-Pond.

George Parsons Lathrop, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

O Jay!

O jay -
Blue-jay!
What are you trying to say?
I remember, in the spring
You pretended you could sing;
But your voice is now still queerer,
And as yet you've come no nearer
To a song.
In fact, to sum the matter,
I never heard a flatter
Failure than your doleful clatter.
Don't you think it's wrong?
It was sweet to hear your note,
I'll not deny,
When April set pale clouds afloat
O'er the blue tides of sky,
And 'mid the wind's triumphant drums
You, in your white and azure coat,
A herald proud, came forth to cry,
"The royal summer comes!"

But now that autumn's here,
And the leaves curl up in sheer
Disgust,
And the cold rains fringe the pine,
You really must
Stop that supercilious whine - -
Or you'll be shot, b...

George Parsons Lathrop

The Singing Wire.

Hark to that faint, ethereal twang
    That from the bosom of the breeze
Has caught its rise and fall: there rang
    Æolian harmonies!

I looked; again the mournful, chords,
    In random rhythm lightly flung
From off the wire, came shaped in words;
    And thus, meseemed, they sung.

"I, messenger of many fates,
    Strung to the tones of woe or weal,
Fine nerve that thrills and palpitates
    With all men know or feel, -

"Oh, is it strange that I should wail?
    Leave me my tearless, sad refrain,
When in the pine-top wakes the gale
That breathes of coming rain.

"There is a spirit in the post;
    It, too, was once a murmuring tree;
Its sapless, sad, and withered ghost
    Echoes my melody.

"Come close, and la...

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

The Singing Wire

Ethereal, faint that music rang,
As, with the bosom of the breeze,
It rose and fell and murmuring sang
    Aeolian harmonies!

I turned; again the mournful chords,
In random rhythm lightly flung
From off the wire, came shaped in words;
    And thus meseemed, they sung:

"I, messenger of many fates,
Strung to the tones of woe or weal,
Fine nerve that thrills and palpitates
    With all men know or feel, -

"Is it so strange that I should wail?
Leave me my tearless, sad refrain,
When in the pine-top wakes the gale
    That breathes of coming rain.

"There is a spirit in the post;
It, too, was once a murmuring tree;
Its withered, sad, imprisoned ghost
    Echoes my melody.

"Come close, and lay your listening ear
...

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

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