The Invalid to the Caged Bird
What are you singing my beautiful bird?
What are the words of your song?
How can you carol when always denied
The freedom for which you must long?
Once, where the wild roses blushing at morn
Grew pale at the sunset's first glow;
Hidden from sight by a cool, leafy screen,
Your little nest swung to and fro.
There your bright eyes first awoke to the light,
And your restless wings scarcely could wait;
So eager to try in the great outside world,
Their portion of fortune or fate.
But long ere your delicate velvety wings
Were penciled with faint lines of blue;
With the first eager taste of sweet freedom's delight,
A prison stood ready for you.
Have you forgotten the shadowy trees,
With the lily-bells nodding below?
Have you forgotten the rocky hill-side,
Where the wood-pinks and buttercups grow?
There I too, wandered, unfettered and free,
Ere my prison doors hid them from sight;
I too, am longing to see them again
Aglow in the sun's golden light.
For I am a prisoner, too, beautiful bird,
Shut in from the beauties I love;
Shut in from the blossoms and verdure beneath,
And the blue of the cloud-lands above.
O teach me, sweet singer, your pure, artless song,
That I may your happiness share;
And forget in the joy of a rapture like them,
The phantoms of hope and despair!
Bird Songs
The birds are happy, singing all day through
Their little psalms of praise,
And just because the sky is clear and blue,
The grasses green, the trees in leafage new;
Awake my heart, and be thou happy too,
These sunny days.
Sing, as the birds sing, just for love
Of God and song;
Make for His temple every leafy grove
That rears its frescoed canopy above.
Thy strength, thy freedom and thy gladness prove
O'er gloom and wrong.
One little songster taught me his lay
It was so sweet,
These were the warbled words he seemed to say:
'Earth is so joyous that I long to stay,
Heaven is so glorious, I would fly away.'
Still doth his song repeat.
Dreading to live, yet fearing more to die,
Take thy distress
To where the birds through field and forest fly,
Trilling their thankfulness to earth and sky,
And without gold, or lands or honor, buy
Such songs as this.
The birds are singing, not for gold or fame
Their songs may bring.
O, what care they for words of slight or blame,
For breathless listeners, or honored name!
To empty aisles they carol just the same
Because they love to sing.
The birds are happy, 'till their joy o'erflows
In minstrelsy;
No wealth for them in glittering treasure glows.
Awake, my heart, and know what nature knows
The ecstasy of life that is and was
And evermore shall be.
