The Death Of The Bird
(专辑: Thirteen Ways To Look At Birds - 2019)
For every bird there is this last migration: Once more the
cooling year kindles her heart; With a
warm passage to the
summer station Love pricks the
course in lights across the
chart. Year after year a
speck on the
map, divided By a
whole hemisphere, summons her to come; Season after season, sure and safely guided, Going away she is also coming home. And being home, memory becomes a
passion With which she feeds her brood and straws her nest, Aware of ghosts that haunt the
heart's possession And exiled love mourning within the
breast. The
sands are green with a
mirage of valleys; The
palm-tree casts a
shadow not its own; Down the
long architrave of temple or palace Blows a
cool air from moorland scarps of stone. And day by day the
whisper of love grows stronger; That delicate voice, more urgent with despair, Custom and fear constraining her no longer, Drives her at last on the
waste leagues of air. A
vanishing speck in those inane dominions, Single and frail, uncertain of her place, Alone in the
bright host of her companions, Lost in the
blue unfriendliness of space, She feels it close now, the
appointed season: The
invisible thread is broken as she flies; Suddenly, without warning, without reason, The
guiding spark of instinct winks and dies. Try as she will, the
trackless world delivers No way, the
wilderness of light no sign, The
immense and complex map of hills and rivers Mocks her small wisdom with its vast design. And darkness rises from the
eastern valleys, And the
winds buffet her with their hungry breath, And the
great earth, with neither grief nor malice, Receives the
tiny burden of her death.