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In some sky sanctuary withdrawn;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,

What womb of elemental wrong,

With shudder unimagined, bore

Peace so divine — what hell hath trod

This voice that softly talks with God!

All silence in one silver flower

Of speech that speaks not, save as speaks

The moon in heaven, yet hath power

To tell the soul the thing it seeks.

And pack, as by some wizard's art,

The whole within the finite part.

To you, sweet bird, one well might feign —

With such authority you sing

So clear, yet so profound, a strain

Into the simple ear of spring —

Some secret understanding given

Of the hid purposes of Heaven.

And all my life until this day,

And all my life until I die,

All joy and sorrow of the way,

Seem calling yonder in the sky;

And there is something the song saith

That makes me unafraid of death.

Now the slow light fills all the trees,

The world, before so still and strange,

With day's familiar presences,

Back to its common self must change,

And little gossip shapes of song

The porches of the morning throng.

Not yours with such as these to vie

That of the day's small business sing,

Voice of man's heart and of God's sky —

But O you make so deep a thing

Of joy, I dare not think of pain

Until I hear you sing again.