Fuess and Stearns, comps. The Little Book of Society Verse. 1922.
By. Austin DobsonAvice
T
Has demurred,
By the dreamy Asian creed
’T is averred,
That the souls of men, released
From their bodies when deceased,
Sometimes enter in a beast,—
Or a bird.
Watched you so,
I have found your secret out;
And I know
That the restless ribboned things,
Where your slope of shoulder springs,
Are but undeveloped wings
That will grow.
It is stirred
With the wayward, flashing flight
Of a bird;
And you speak—and bring with you
Leaf and sun-ray, bud and blue,
And the wind-breath and the dew,
At a word.
Then again
When I heard your single cry
In the lane,
All the sound was as the “sweet”
Which the birds to birds repeat
In their thank-song to the heat
After rain.
’T was absurd,—
But it seemed no human note
That I heard;
For your strain had all the trills,
All the little shakes and stills,
Of the over-song that rills
From a bird.
“Airs de tête,”
All their flush and fever-heat
When elate;
Every bird-like nod and beck,
And a bird’s own curve of neck
When she gives a little peck
To her mate.
In that furred,
Puffed, and feathered Polish dress,
I was spurred
Just to catch you, O my sweet,
By the bodice trim and neat,—
Just to feel your heart abeat,
Like a bird.
But to wear
As the dew upon your plumes,
And you care
Not a whit for rest or hush;
But the leaves, the lyric gush,
And the wing-power, and the rush
Of the air.
For a day,
Lest I lose you in a flash,
As I may;
Did I tell you tender things,
You would shake your sudden wings;—
You would start from him who sings,
And away.