 | English Roses |  |
BROWN BIRD.
Brown Bird,
Or shall I call thee Winged Word?
What awful unimaginable trust
Doth cast thee on our Father's breast,
Singing and rapt, a storm at rest,
While we keep clinging to our earthly dust?
As in blue motion
The very sky hath from thy wing
Caught its divinest murmuring,
And thy devotion;
It seems to ripple on in circles sweet,
Until it washes God's own blessed Feet.
Or shall I call thee Winged Word?
What awful unimaginable trust
Doth cast thee on our Father's breast,
Singing and rapt, a storm at rest,
While we keep clinging to our earthly dust?
As in blue motion
534
Caught its divinest murmuring,
And thy devotion;
It seems to ripple on in circles sweet,
Until it washes God's own blessed Feet.
Bright Bird,
Thou hast for ever fondly stirr'd
The inmost heart of every loving man,
And struck a universal note
Which even no greater teacher wrote,
And broadened bosoms and our cosmic plan.
In living layers,
Builded by thee a temple white
Goes up and scales the Infinite,
With happy prayers;
As though we heard the happy angels sing,
And Heaven itself were all beneath Thy wing.
Thou hast for ever fondly stirr'd
The inmost heart of every loving man,
And struck a universal note
Which even no greater teacher wrote,
And broadened bosoms and our cosmic plan.
In living layers,
Builded by thee a temple white
Goes up and scales the Infinite,
With happy prayers;
As though we heard the happy angels sing,
And Heaven itself were all beneath Thy wing.
God's Bird,
Or dare I say His final Word?
In joy that chases joy along the sky
I listen to the liquid thrush
And nightingale's delirious rush,
But thou hast tones of true Divinity.
Now Heaven is nigher
And blotteth out the gulf of doom,—
Continued earth, or the next room
And only higher;
For with the bridge of worship, by thee trod,
Thou hast remarried man once more to God.
Or dare I say His final Word?
In joy that chases joy along the sky
I listen to the liquid thrush
And nightingale's delirious rush,
But thou hast tones of true Divinity.
Now Heaven is nigher
And blotteth out the gulf of doom,—
Continued earth, or the next room
And only higher;
For with the bridge of worship, by thee trod,
Thou hast remarried man once more to God.
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