As In Their Flight The Birds Of Song

AS in their flight the birds of song

Halt here and there in sweet and sunny dales,

But halt not overlong;

The time one rural song to sing

They pause; then following bounteous gales

Steer forward on the wing:

Sun-servers they, from first to last,

Upon the sun they wait

To ride the sailing blast.

So he awhile in our contested state,

Awhile abode, not longer, for his Sun -

Mother we say, no tenderer name we know -

With whose diviner glow

His early days had shone,

Now to withdraw her radiance had begun.

Or lest a wrong I say, not she withdrew,

But the loud stream of men day after day

And great dust columns of the common way

Between them grew and grew:

And he and she for evermore might yearn,

But to the spring the rivulets not return

Nor to the bosom comes the child again.

And he (O may we fancy so!),

He, feeling time forever flow

And flowing bear him forth and far away

From that dear ingle where his life began

And all his treasure lay -

He, waxing into man,

And ever farther, ever closer wound

In this obstreperous world's ignoble round,

From that poor prospect turned his face away.