Lyrebirds

Over the west side of the mountain,

that’s lyrebird country.

I could go down there, they say, in the early morning,

and I’d see them, I’d hear them.

Ten years, and I have never gone.

I’ll never go.

I’ll never see the lyrebirds -

the few, the shy, the fabulous,

the dying poets.

I should see them, if I lay there in the dew:

first a single movement

like a waterdrop falling, then stillness,

then a brown head, brown eyes,

a splendid bird, bearing

like a crest the symbol of his art,

the high symmetrical shape of the perfect lyre.

I should hear that master practising his art.

No, I have never gone.

Some things ought to be left secret, alone;

some things – birds like walking fables –

ought to inhabit nowhere but the reverence of the

heart.