Birds

SOME hear them not at all: for some they sing
Passion or ecstasy or sharpest pain —
The slow despair of summer on the wane —
The swift delight of winter on the wing —
The instant breathless joy of love in spring —
The life in death that sings through autumn rain.
Each hears his secret bliss or anguish plain,
Revealed, transmuted, made a lovely thing.

The song is theirs: their secret is their own.
We know not whence it grows, nor can we tell
What prompts, what guides their strange and certain flight.
Some spring of love and trust, some sense of light,
Some inner beauty that is theirs alone
Flows still from Eden where their spirits dwell.