Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.
A Green HeronMaurice Thompson (18441901)
W
Shoots its keen arrow, a green heron sits,
Watching the sunfish as it gleaming flits
From sheen to shade. He sees the turtle glide
Through the clear spaces of the rhythmic stream,
Like some weird fancy through a poet’s dream;
He turns his golden eyes from side to side,
In very gladness that he is not dead,
While the swift wind-stream ripples overhead
And the creek’s wavelets babble underneath!
Thou art, to me, a type of happy death;
For when thou fliest away no mate will grieve
Because a lone, strange spirit vanisheth!