Poems / by Madison Cawein ; with a foreward by William Dean Howells [electronic text]

THE REDBIRD

From "Wild Thorn and Lily"

AMONG the white haw-blossoms, where the creek Droned under drifts of dogwood and of haw, The redbird, like a crimson blossom blown Against the snow-white bosom of the Spring, The chaste confusion of her lawny breast, Sang on, prophetic of serener days, As confident as June's completer hours. And I stood listening like a hind, who hears A wood nymph breathing in a forest flute Among the beech-boles of myth-haunted ways: And when it ceased, the memory of the air Blew like a syrinx in my brain: I made A lyric of the notes that men might know:

He flies with flirt and fluting —As flies a crimson star From flaming star-beds shooting —From where the roses are.

Wings past and sings; and sevenNotes, wild as fragrance is, —

That turn to flame in heaven,—Float round him full of bliss.

He sings; each burning feather Thrills, throbbing at his throat; A song of firefly weather, And of a glowworm boat:

Of Elfland and a princess Who, born of a perfume, His music rocks, — where winces That rosebud's cradled bloom.

No bird sings half so airy, No bird of dusk or dawn, Thou masking King of Faery! Thou red-crowned Oberon!