Classic Poem

In the spring of the noisy first year of the war,
great numbers of migrant bullbats appeared about the city — —
more bullbats than had ever before been known to appear there — —
and every night the birds flew down amongst the street lamps,
and every night they sped across the crimson of the moon, and all night long,
and even until the break of day, the birds flew, swooping,
and whenever they swooped they screamed.

Once,
at the break of a day in latter June, as, drunk and happy, I tottered homeward,
I heard them screaming louder than ever before, and fancifully more of them. I heard them everywhere,
and together with them great numbers of sparrows chirping.
I shall never forget the screamings, the chirpings, all irrepressible, all joyous — —
from the sky, from amongst the clear new leaves of the maples,
with the leaves now glowing to the glow of the hour.

I sat on the steps of a church. I closed my eyes.
I swayed from side to side, like a savage in the act of weaving a spell,
and swaying thus, I made up a song for myself, and sang it — —
a song to sing with the birds, the late, the early, all.