"_Oiseau!_" said the French boy, "_oiseau!_"
--but the word
Was absurd!
"_Vogel!_" said the German boy, but that
Fell flat.
"_Bird!_" said the English boy--the fresh word rolled
Pure gold.
Bird, bird, bird, bird!
When the quiet branches heard
Bird, bird!
Lovesome and immortal word!
They tossed their plumes of green in delight through the clean
Glory of the morning for the wind blew keen;
For the clouds that had stayed like a will-not-answer maid
Went shining, the white girls, in their marriage things arrayed;
Till the leaves in the dark dells
Were a chorus of swung bells
At the bidding of a word,
Were the din of many bells
The tall towers fling
On the lyric day that tells
Of the beauty and the splendour and the crowning of a King.
Bird!
Said the boy,
With the voice like a flute.
His feathered brothers heard
In their warm nests mute,
Bird!
Said the boy
With the morning in his cheeks.
Bird, bird, bird, bird!
Joy!
His feathered brothers answered from the silver of their beaks.
There was lifting of bright heads and a gleam of little eyes,
And a twitter of surprise,
And a flutter of alarm.
Bird!
Said the boy,
Bird, bird, bird, bird!
There fell a shining moment of wide wet calm.
Calm!
Then suddenly a music from a hundred thousand throats
Crashed like the bows of the ocean-cleaving boats.
A phalanx of swift song made assault against the day,
The winds made way.
Birds rose stark in an ecstasy of fire
To the heart of Song's desire.
The last skies shook with the throbbing of their flight
Through the blue far height.
There were only birds and song where the globe sped along
To the limits of the far
Blue height.
There was neither sun nor star,
There was neither day nor night,
There was one thing heard
In the limits of the far
Blue height.
Bird, bird, bird, bird!
Bird!
Said the boy,
Said the boy in the morning of the world.