Poetry Archives

Within the greenhouse dim and damp
  The heat floats like a cloud.
Pale rose-leaves droop from the rust roof
  With rust-edged roses bowed.
      As I go in
Out flies the startled wren.

By the tall dark fir tree he sings
  Morn after morn still,
Shy and bold he flits and sings
  Tinily sweet and shrill.
      As I go out
His song follows me about …

About the orchard under trees
  Beaded with cherries bright,
Past the rat-haunted Honeybourne
  And up those hills of light:
      As up I go
His notes more sweetly flow.

Or down those dark hills when night’s there
  Full of dark thoughts and deep,
A thin clear soundless music comes
  Like stars in broken sleep.
      When I come down
All those dark thoughts are flown.

And now that sweetness is more sweet,
  Here where the aeroplanes
Labouring and groaning in the height
  Lift their lifeless vans:—
      Sweet, sweet to hear
The far off wren singing clear.