Category: Sonnet

Songbird Stay

O key ingredient of the harmony
   Of Spring, dear Songbird stay, we beg you, stay!
The dead must feel an equal agony
   To hear you not, nor see the light of day
Should silence fall within the woodland dells
   We’d mourn as if the Sun had left the sky
Or all the flowers lost their honey smells
   As from their petals drained the coloured dye
We love those trills that irrigate the mind
   With water from a laughing, babbling stream
      Your calls explore a secret sylvan space
And by the echoes somehow is defined
   Within our human thought a painted scene
      Of all that’s filled with natural, verdant grace
Sweet Songbird stay and ever, ever sing for once you’re gone it never could be Spring

We’ll take whatever course for you is best
   Ensure the fields from poisons are kept free
Keep dogs instead of cats, to spare your nest
   And anywhere you need it plant a tree
We’ll plant such bowery covert as you need
   We’ll plant so you can shelter, roost and call
We’ll plant the plants that give you food to feed
   We’ll plant them if we value Spring at all
We love each sound you sing, o darling bird
   All notes that issue from your quavering throat
      Each lilting warble, chirrup, cheep and coo
By which the silent sleeping air is stirred
   These sounds now through my open window float
      To broach the Gates of Dawn, and bring the New!
Sweet Songbird stay and ever, ever sing for once you’re gone it never could be Spring