C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Robert Bridges (1844–1930)
Asian Birds
I
of Heaven, things shoot apace.
The waiting multitude
of fair boughs in the wood,—
How few days have arrayed
their beauty in green shade!
It was the yellow-bird
Sang in the tree: he flew
a flame against the blue;
Upward he flashed. Again,
hark! ’tis his heavenly strain.
many, like boats of gold,
From waving branch to branch
their airy bodies launch.
What music is like this,
where each note is a kiss?
their boughs the sun to sift:
Their silken streamers screen
the sky with veils of green,
To make a cage of song,
where feathered lovers throng.
come bubbling from their throats!
Full and sweet, how they are shed
like round pearls from a thread!
The motions of their flight
are wishes of delight.
the secret of their grace.
Ah, could I this fair time
so fashion into rhyme,
The poem that I sing
would be the voice of spring.