| HE rises and begins to round, |
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| He drops the silver chain of sound |
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| Of many links without a break, |
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| In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake, |
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| All intervolv’d and spreading wide, |
5 |
| Like water-dimples down a tide |
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| Where ripple ripple overcurls |
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| And eddy into eddy whirls; |
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| A press of hurried notes that run |
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| So fleet they scarce are more than one, |
10 |
| Yet changingly the trills repeat |
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| And linger ringing while they fleet, |
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| Sweet to the quick o’ the ear, and dear |
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| To her beyond the handmaid ear, |
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| Who sits beside our inner springs, |
15 |
| Too often dry for this he brings, |
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| Which seems the very jet of earth |
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| At sight of sun, her music’s mirth, |
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| As up he wings the spiral stair, |
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| A song of light, and pierces air |
20 |
| With fountain ardor, fountain play, |
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| To reach the shining tops of day, |
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| And drink in everything discern’d |
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| An ecstasy to music turn’d, |
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| Impell’d by what his happy bill |
25 |
| Disperses; drinking, showering still, |
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| Unthinking save that he may give |
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| His voice the outlet, there to live |
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| Renew’d in endless notes of glee, |
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| So thirsty of his voice is he, |
30 |
| For all to hear and all to know |
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| That he is joy, awake, aglow, |
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| The tumult of the heart to hear |
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| Through pureness filter’d crystal-clear, |
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| And know the pleasure sprinkled bright |
35 |
| By simple singing of delight, |
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| Shrill, irreflective, unrestrain’d, |
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| Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustain’d |
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| Without a break, without a fall, |
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| Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical, |
40 |
| Perennial, quavering up the chord |
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| Like myriad dews of sunny sward |
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| That trembling into fullness shine, |
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| And sparkle dropping argentine; |
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| Such wooing as the ear receives |
45 |
| From zephyr caught in choric leaves |
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| Of aspens when their chattering net |
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| Is flush’d to white with shivers wet; |
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| And such the water-spirit’s chime |
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| On mountain heights in morning’s prime, |
50 |
| Too freshly sweet to seem excess, |
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| Too animate to need a stress; |
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| But wider over many heads |
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| The starry voice ascending spreads, |
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| Awakening, as it waxes thin, |
55 |
| The best in us to him akin; |
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| And every face to watch him rais’d, |
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| Puts on the light of children prais’d, |
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| So rich our human pleasure ripes |
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| When sweetness on sincereness pipes, |
60 |
| Though nought be promis’d from the seas, |
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| But only a soft-ruffling breeze |
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| Sweep glittering on a still content, |
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| Serenity in ravishment. |
|
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| For singing till his heaven fills, |
65 |
| ’T is love of earth that he instills, |
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| And ever winging up and up, |
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| Our valley is his golden cup, |
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| And he the wine which overflows |
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| To lift us with him as he goes: |
70 |
| The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine |
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| He is, the hills, the human line, |
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| The meadows green, the fallows brown, |
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| The dreams of labor in the town; |
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| He sings the sap, the quicken’d veins; |
75 |
| The wedding song of sun and rains |
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| He is, the dance of children, thanks |
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| Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks, |
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| And eye of violets while they breathe; |
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| All these the circling song will wreathe, |
80 |
| And you shall hear the herb and tree, |
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| The better heart of men shall see, |
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| Shall feel celestially, as long |
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| As you crave nothing save the song. |
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| Was never voice of ours could say |
85 |
| Our inmost in the sweetest way, |
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| Like yonder voice aloft, and link |
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| All hearers in the song they drink: |
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| Our wisdom speaks from failing blood, |
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| Our passion is too full in flood, |
90 |
| We want the key of his wild note |
|
| Of truthful in a tuneful throat, |
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| The song seraphically free |
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| Of taint of personality, |
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| So pure that it salutes the suns |
95 |
| The voice of one for millions, |
|
| In whom the millions rejoice |
|
| For giving their one spirit voice. |
|
|
| Yet men have we, whom we revere, |
|
| Now names, and men still housing here, |
100 |
| Whose lives, by many a battle-dint |
|
| Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint, |
|
| Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet |
|
| For song our highest heaven to greet: |
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| Whom heavenly singing gives us new, |
105 |
| Enspheres them brilliant in our blue, |
|
| From firmest base to farthest leap, |
|
| Because their love of Earth is deep, |
|
| And they are warriors in accord |
|
| With life to serve and pass reward, |
110 |
| So touching purest and so heard |
|
| In the brain’s reflex of yon bird; |
|
| Wherefore their soul in me, or mine, |
|
| Through self-forgetfulness divine, |
|
| In them, that song aloft maintains, |
115 |
| To fill the sky and thrill the plains |
|
| With showerings drawn from human stores, |
|
| As he to silence nearer soars, |
|
| Extends the world at wings and dome, |
|
| More spacious making more our home, |
120 |
| Till lost on his aërial rings |
|
| In light, and then the fancy sings. |
Mommy Tongue 