Lines to a Whipporwill

Poor Whippoorwill, what ancient secret woe,
Has been the burden of thy feathered tribe?
Is it misfortune of some long ago
Thy quaint and ever wailing notes describe?

Or is it for some faithless truant mate
Thy love bemoans in solitude remote,
And pining in thy solitary state,
Comes forth this woeful ditty from thy throat?

Poor Whippoorwill: I truly pity thee,
Whatever sorrow fills thy aching breast,
Taught sympathy by Him who pities me,
I glad would grant thy mourning tribe a rest.

And O! sad bird, there lingers with me still
A memory which makes me half rejoice,
As I recall the echo from the hill,
When first I heard thy strange mysterious voice.

With it the thought of many a summer night
Comes back, when planets and stars were out,
And on the green where floods the moon with light,
I hear again a wild and joyous shout.

Again romps there full many a village lad
In play upon the early evening tide,
And thinking thus my heart grows strangely sad,
For my companions scattered far and wide.

And I recall emotions, O! sad bird,
When Venus early sheds her distant light,
Which vaguely in my childish bosom stirred,
When rang thy awesome cry upon the night.

Too young to know the common lot of pain
To which the flesh of man and bird is heir,
My heart was only moved by thy refrain
To sympathy and vagueness of despair.

But time has taught me, bird, too well since then
The minor which thy wailing failed to do:
To-night, with thousands of my fellow men,
I am with thee, sad one, a mourner too.

And listening to thy voice down in the glen
To-night pour forth its ancient sorrowing strain,
I well could fancy childhood back again
But for my own benumbing ache of pain.

But, bird, I bid thee come and learn with me,
That which is worth far more than gems most rare,
However great thy sorrow here may be
It need not lead to darkness and despair.

Though dim the light, if we but trust His will
In time the Master maketh all to find,
That underneath the deepest pain are still
His purposes most wonderfully kind.

Cease, bird, thy long complaint and cry of woe,
And teach thy young a far more tuneful strain;
Learn that which men are strangely slow to know
Life's guerdon comes to all through ache and pain.
Translation: 
Language: 
Rate this poem: 

Reviews

No reviews yet.