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Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Bird Nesting

Ellis Parker Butler

O wonderful! In sport we climbed the tree,
Eager and laughing, as in all our play,
To see the eggs where, in the nest, they lay,
But silent fell before the mystery.

For, one brief moment there, we understood
By sudden sympathy too fine for words
That we were sisters to the brooding birds
And part, with them, in God’s great motherhood.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From American Magazine | 1906
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