Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By Harrison SmithMorris1275 The Lonely-Bird
O
Perched in green dimness of the dewy wood,
And murmuring, in that lonely, lover mood,
Thy heart-ache, softly heard,
Sweetened by distance, over land and lake.
Awaken voices in me free and sweet?
Was there some far ancestral birdhood fleet
That rose and would rejoice:
A broken cycle rounded in a song?
Lay crystal in the curving mountain deeps;
And now the air brought that long lyric up
That sobs, then falls and weeps,
And hushes silence into listening hope.
Children of brooding earth, that lets us tell,
Thou from thy rhythmic throat, I deep within,
These syllables of her spell,
This hymnëd wisdom of her pondering years?
I knew not till I heard the buried air
Burst from the boughs and bring me what thou sung,
Here where the lake lies bare
To reaching summits and the azure sky.
The brown soil, and the never-trodden brake;
Translatress art thou of dumb mysteries
That dream through wood and lake;
And I, in thee, have uttered what I am!