Prelude
What a twitter! what a tumult! what a whirr of wheeling wings!
Birds of Passage hear the message which the Equinoctial brings.
Birds of Passage hear the message and beneath the flying clouds,
Mid the falling leaves of autumn, congregate in clamorous crowds.
Shall they venture on the voyage? are the nestlings fledged for flight;
Fit to face the fluctuant storm-winds and the elemental night?
What a twitter! what a tumult! to the wild wind's marching song
Multitudinous Birds of Passage round the cliffs of England throng.
And o'er tempest-trodden Ocean, cloud-entangled day and night,
Birds on birds, in corporate motion, wing a commonwealth in flight.
Waves, like hollow graves beneath them, hoarsely howling, yawn for prey;
And the welkin glooms above them shifting formless, grey in grey.
And across the Bay of Biscay on undaunted wing they flee,
Where mild seas move musically murmuring of the Odyssey;
Where the gurgling whirlpools glitter and by soft Circean Straits,
Fell Charybdis lies in ambush, and the ravenous Scylla waits;
Where a large Homeric laughter lingers in the echoing caves,
And in playful exultation Dolphins leap from dimpling waves;
Where, above the fair Sicilian, flock-browsed, flower-pranked meadows, looms
Ætna--hoariest of Volcanoes--ominously veiled in fumes;
Where the seas roll blue and bluer, high and higher arch the skies,
And as measureless as ocean new horizons meet the eyes;
Where at night the ancient heavens bend above the ancient earth,
With the young-eyed Stars enkindled fresh as at their hour of birth;
Where old Egypt's desert, stretching leagues on leagues of level land,
Gleams with threads of channelled waters, green with palms on either hand;
Where the Fellah strides majestic through the glimmering dourah plain,
And in rosy flames flamingoes rise from rustling sugar-cane;--
On and on, along old Nilus, seeking still an ampler light,
O'er its monumental mountains, Birds of Passage take their flight.
Where the sacred Isle of Philæ, twinned within the sacred stream,
Floats, like some rapt Opium-eater's labyrinthine lotos dream,
Birds on birds take up their quarters in each creviced capital,
In each crack of frieze and cornice, in each cleft of roof and wall.
And within those twilight-litten, holy halls of Death and Birth,
Even the gaily twittering swallows, even the swallows, hush their breath.
And they cast the passing shadows of their palpitating wings
O'er the fallen gods of Egypt and the prostrate heads of Kings.
Even as shadows Birds of Passage cast upon their onward flight
Have men's generations vanished, waned and vanished into night.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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Related quotes
Birds Of Passage
Black shadows fall
From the lindens tall,
That lift aloft their massive wall
Against the southern sky;
And from the realms
Of the shadowy elms
A tide-like darkness overwhelm
The fields that round us lie.
But the night is fair,
And everywhere
A warm, soft vapor fills the air,
And distant sounds seem near;
And above, in the light
Of the star-lit night,
Swift birds of passage wing their flight
Through the dewy atmosphere.
I hear the beat
Of their pinions fleet,
As from the land of snow and sleet
They seek a southern lea.
I hear the cry
Of their voices high
Falling dreamily through the sky,
But their forms I cannot see.
Oh, say not so!
Those sounds that flow
In murmurs of delight and woe
Come not from wings of birds.
They are the throngs
Of the poet's songs,
Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,
The sound of winged words.
This is the cry
Of souls, that high
On toiling, beating pinions, fly,
Seeking a warmer clime.
From their distant flight
Through realms of light
It falls into our world of night,
With the murmuring sound of rhyme.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Silver Birds
Silver birds
getting ready to fly
red, white and blue
it's our pride in the sky
Silver birds
above the clouds
making waves
making us proud
Silver birds
shining bright
into the evening
into the night
Silver birds
amongst the rest
flying strong
to be the best
Silver birds
coming round the bend
getting ready to land
out of their descend
Silver birds
representing the states
with the colors of freedom
at all their gates.
Charlie Vergara
11.21.2007
2576
poem by White Tiger
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The Swallows
AH! swallows, is it so?
Did loving lingering summer, whose slow pace
Tarried among late blossoms, loth to go,
Gather the darkening cloud-wraps round her face
And weep herself away in last week's rain?
Can no new sunlight waken her again?
'Yes,' one pale rose a-blow
Has answered from the trellised lane;
The flickering swallows answer 'No.'
From out the dim grey sky
The arrowy swarm breaks forth and specks the air,
While, one by one, birds wheel and float and fly,
And now are gone, then suddenly are there;
Till lo, the heavens are empty of them all.
Oh, fly, fly south, from leaves that fade and fall,
From shivering flowers that die;
Free swallows, fly from winter's thrall,
Ye who can give the gloom good-bye.
But what for us who stay
To hear the winds and watch the boughs grow black,
And in the soddened mornings, day by day,
Count what lost sweets bestrew the nightly track
Of frost-foot winter trampling towards his throne?
Swallows, who have the sunlight for your own,
Fly on your sunward way;
For you has January buds new blown,
For us the snows and gloom and grey.
On, on, beyond our reach,
Swallows, with but your longing for a guide:
Let the hills rise, let the waves tear the beach,
Ye will not balk your course nor turn aside,
But find the palms and twitter in the sun.
And well for them whose eager wings have won
The longed for goal of flight;
But what of them in twilights dun
Who long, but have no wings for flight?
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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Triangles
Three triangles of birds crossed
Over the enormous ocean which extended
In winter like a green beast.
Everything just lay there, the silence,
The unfolding gray, the heavy light
Of space, some land now and then.
Over everything there was passing
A flight
And another flight
Of dark birds, winter bodies
Trembling triangles
Whose wings,
Frantically flapping, hardly
Can carry the gray cold, the desolate days
From one place to another
Along the coast of Chile.
I am here while from one sky to another
The trembling of the migratory birds
Leaves me sunk inside myself, inside my own matter
Like an everlasting well
Dug by an immovable spiral.
Now they have disappeared
Black feathers of the sea
Iron birds
From steep slopes and rock piles
Now at noon
I am in front of emptiness. It’s a winter
Space stretched out
And the sea has put
Over its blue face
A bitter mask.
poem by Pablo Neruda
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When the birds fly
When the birds fly
the mind opens its eye
the heart looks up to the sky
the birds fly.
The birds fly south
the ear opens its mouth
the nose sees summer
the kids they are playing out...
When the birds fly
we dream our words dont die.
Reborn with a babys cry
the birds fly leaving stars
they stay in the night,
we are the birds
we escape to the light.
poem by Daniel McCann
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Across The Red Sky
Across the red sky two birds flying,
Flying with drooping wings.
Silent and solitary their ominous flight.
All day the triumphant sun with yellow banners
Warred and warred with the earth, and when she yielded
Stabbed her heart, gathered her blood in a chalice,
Spilling it over the evening sky.
When the dark plumaged birds go flying, flying,
Quiet lies the earth wrapt in her mournful shadow,
Her sightless eyes turned to the red sky
And the restlessly seeking birds.
poem by Katherine Mansfield
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Beak Kind To Birds!
Beak kind to birds both near and far,
Both high and low as well...
To me, each bird's a superstar!
In fact, to me, they're swell!
Beak kind to birds and show you care
With titbits now and then...
And watch with wonder as they share
Their breakfast once again!
Beak kind and keep your cats at bay...
Else feeding birds take flight!
It's nicer seeing birds at play
Than watching them take fright!
Beak kind to birds, give them their space
So they may co-exist...
For none on Earth can take their place,
So they'd be sorely missed!
Beak kind to birds, they'll flock to you -
They're all our feathered friends!
It doesn't matter, black or blue...
Beak kind - 'cos it makes sense!
poem by Denis Martindale (2003)
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Sky's Bird
Do you still remember the color of the night,
How endless it seemed to go out to,
So stunning, yet frightnening its beauty was
Like a sky calling the birds, you can't resist its cry.
Another morning rises up,
As another dream falls down,
And even though I know its going to disappear,
I don't want to let go.
It's like the sun and moon,
Always going around and around,
Never meeting up with one another.
The shadow of reality,
Cast this illusion onto my life,
So I don't what's real and what isn't,
Holding on tight, I never plan to let go of my beliefs!
I believe in a night that draws you in,
No matter how hard you fight back,
Even though it may grow tiring,
You'll always run back like the birds do to the sky.
Escaping its grasp is inevitable,
If you resist too much, you might lose yourself,
But even though it was once your home,
You'll always have a place to fly back to like the birds to the sky,
Like the birds, like the birds, do to the sky,
Like the birds like the birds, do to the sky.
poem by Alex McCullough
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Birds of Spring
Birds of spring they
bring on so many things
sounds they send
to each other,
that only they
can understand
in their sweet
cheerful harmony.
Sweet smell in
the air this
beautiful april day
listening to these creatures.
Taking in the warmth
of the sun that
is so overdue, blue
skies beauty to the eye.
Birds in flight
from one tree
to the other, getting
ready to produce life.
Cool breezes this
day so fine to hear
birds of spring echoing
music to my ear.
Birds of spring
to many to mention you all,
Robbins, Wrens and Cardinals
or a few I see, oh so beautiful.
To hear their chirping
wondering what they're saying
at this moment
will sit here for awhile.
Sounds this day
so relaxing is it
to listen to these
birds of spring.
wrote 4-3-07
Aubade And I Am Not Like Other Birds Of Prey
Morning at last!
Every night is a fight till you're waking
Dreams dancing past
Through the silence of sleep
Dawn is breaking
I wake and watch them till then
And I am not like other birds of prey
And I am not like other birds of prey
Oh, night is long, you won't needing me
For a dressed up time I am there to see
That fear holds no sway
Soft is my plan
And my eyes kill the lies that felt happy
Life is my right
And in sleep's little bed
I'll protect you
So, hear, let my presence dismay
That I am not like other birds of prey
That I am not like other birds of prey
When hopes are young and your cares are few
Then I'm sure above keeping truth in you
And my name is love
Submitted by Michael Hack
song performed by by Supertramp
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Improvisation
I fed out of my hand a flock of keys
To clapping of wings and shrill cries in flight.
Sleeves up, arms out, on tiptoe I rose;
At my elbow I felt the nudging of night.
The dark. And the pond, and the wash of waves.
And screeching black beaks in their savage attack,
All quick for the kill - not to hunger and die,
While birds of the species I-love-you fall back.
The pond. And the dark. The pulsating flare
From pipkins of pitch in the gloom of midnight,
The boat keel nibbled by lapping of waves.
And birds at my elbow in their wrath and fight.
Night gurgled, washed in the gullets of weirs.
And it seemed if the young were unfed, by rote,
The hen-birds would kill - before the roulades
Would die in the shrilling, the crooked throat.
poem by Boris Pasternak
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Wings In The Night
Now in the soft spring midnight
There's rush of wings and whirr,
Birds flying softly, swiftly;
The night's a-flutter, a-stir.
Home by the bitter seas,
They have sped home together.
So glad to be coming home
To the grey hills, the grey weather.
Calling and calling softly
One lights by the window-pane:
The rook, weary with building,
Turns to his sleep again.
Ere ever the moor-hens wake
And the wild duck come in,
The birds are about the house
With a long call and thin.
They have wakened the wood-pigeon
To make her plaintive moan,
The wood-pigeon lamenting
For sorrows not her own.
Oh, they are never birds,
But souls of men on the wind,
Seeking the mother's breast,
The heart that is soft and kind.
Souls of the Irish dead,
Flown from the fields of slaughter,
Home to the mother's arms
Over the wild grey water.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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The Bird Watcher (Part 1)
I plod through the leafy woods
The shadowy, coolly rain forest at the dale
Harkening the spellbinding tunes of trills
Watching the vividly coloured pretty fowls
Echoes of those feeble (But aloud) chirrups twinging me
Of those little birds I encaged in my early ages
Were all tremulous and dolorous sobs, but
Misapprehended unto chant sweet songs of rollicking
Encaging the birds is remorselessness
To set all those confined birds free, now I wish,
To let them spread their wings beneath the skies
And dry out their invisible tears in the fresh breeze of the freedom
The red and blue Macaws, the Golden Pheasants….
The birds of passage,
The settlers for the time being,
Blossom the trees with lurid variance of colours
The Green Turacos, the red Robins
And the tall milky Flamingoes with pinkish limbs
Creeping in the marsh and organizing their eats,
Deceive me the marshy land to be an enchanting flowerbed
Golden slanting rays and long shadows
The contrasting beauties of the forest
And the humming of swaying trees in the breeze
Embellish to the beauty to the trills & chirrups
May 11-2009 (Hawiyah - Saudi Arabia)
poem by Nooruddeen Mathilakathveetil
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Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Somewhere over the rainbow
(h. arlen/e.y. harburgh)
Somewhere over the rainbow way up high
Theres a land that Ive heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true
Someday I wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
Thats where you find me
Somewhere over the rainbow blue birds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why cant i
(instrumental)
Somewhere over the rainbow blue birds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why cant i
If happy little blue birds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh why, cant i
song performed by by Lea Salonga
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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For the Airmen
THOU who guidest the swallow and wren,
Keep the paths of the flying men!
Over the mountains, over the seas
Thou hast given the bird-folk compasses.
Thou guidest them, yea, Thou leadest them home
By the trackless ways and the venturesome.
Look Thou then on these bird-men, far
More than the sparrows and swallows are.
When they fly in the wintry weather
Be their compass and chart together.
Keep them riding the wind. Uphold
Their passion of flight lest it grow cold.
Thy right hand be under the wing,
Thy left hand for their steadying.
The Wings of the birds of Heaven be nigh
Lest their wings fail them and they die.
Make Thou their flying as deft and fleet
As the flight of the linnet or the blue-tit.
Thy hand over them, shall they fear
The spears of lightning or any spear?
Thy hand under them, what shall appal?
Not the fierce foe nor the sudden fall.
Show them Thy moon at night: Thy stars
Bid stand as sentinels in their wars.
Yea, make their lone tracks pleasant as
A soft meandering path in grass.
Thou that launchest the wren, the swallow
Guard our flying loves when they follow.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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Eggs
Catch that bird, catching does disgust
And sit it in your hand, like a canary.
It shall fly, flew it did, and lift it first,
This is to make it flight to enlist the fighter
Of the birds on a regular basis.
Catch or teach the birds so that birth may result in death.
Catch us always, for we are birds with eggs,
And eggs are given to us.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Three Island Songs
AFTER the wind in the wood,
Peace, and the night.
After the bond and the brood,
Flight.
After the height and the hush
Where the wild hawk swings,
Heart of the earth-loving thrush
Shaken with wings.
After the bloom and the leaf
Rain on the nest.
After the splendour and grief,
Rest.
After the hills and the far
Glories and gleams,
Cloud, and the dawn of a star,
And dreams.
------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------
O, THE gray rocks of the islands and the hemlock green above them,
The foam beneath the wild rose bloom, the star above the shoal.
When I am old and weary I'll wake my heart to love them,
For the blue ways of the islands are wound about my soul.
[Page 66]
Here in the early even when the young gray dew is falling,
And the king-heron seeks his mate beyond the loneliest wild,
Still your heart in the twilight, and you'll hear the river calling
Through all her outmost islands to seek her lastborn child.
------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------
I SAT among the green leaves, and heard the nuts falling,
The broad red butterflies were gold against the sun,
But in between the silence and the sweet birds calling
The nuts fell one by one.
Why should they fall and the year but half over ?
Why should sorrow seek me and I so young and kind ?
The leaf is on the bough and the dew is on the clover,
But the green nuts are falling in the wind.
O, I gave my lips away and all my soul behind them.
Why should trouble follow and the quick tears start ?
The little birds may love and fly with only God to mind them,
But the green nuts are falling on my heart.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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St. Andrew's Bay
NIGHT.
Ah, listen through the music, from the shore,
The 'melancholy long-withdrawing roar';
Beneath the Minster, and the windy caves,
The wide North Ocean, marshalling his waves
Even so forlorn--in worlds beyond our ken -
May sigh the seas that are not heard of men;
Even so forlorn, prophetic of man's fate,
Sounded the cold sea-wave disconsolate,
When none but God might hear the boding tone,
As God shall hear the long lament alone,
When all is done, when all the tale is told,
And the gray sea-wave echoes as of old!
MORNING.
This was the burden of the Night,
The saying of the sea,
But lo! the hours have brought the light,
The laughter of the waves, the flight
Of dipping sea-birds, foamy white,
That are so glad to be!
'Forget!' the happy creatures cry,
'Forget Night's monotone,
With us be glad in sea and sky,
The days are thine, the days that fly,
The days God gives to know him by,
And not the Night alone!'
poem by Andrew Lang
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Gannets
I've never once seen them on land though from the shore I see
Them with folded wings from dizzy heights diving into the sea
And then they rise out of the waves and upwards again fly
These hunters of the ocean who stalk their prey from the sky.
To watch gannets fishing is an amazing sight
They fly above the ocean and dive from a great height
I once see one dead on a beach it was washed in by the tide
Born on a cliff ledge overlooking the sea and out at sea it died.
The gannets are true fishing birds on humans for food they don't rely
They roost and breed on remote ocean cliffs and of human kind are shy
They are birds I don't often see they are seldom close to the shore
Though I recall I once watched them fish for a half an hour or more.
True ocean birds born by the sea and out at sea they die
With folded wings they dive for fish like rockets from the sky
A guttural noise the only sound they make they do not have a song
They take their living from the sea and to the sea they belong.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Wings
If GOD had given man wings
As he did the angels upon their birth
Would Man be satisfied with the Earth below
Or would he neglect all and for GOD he would search.
Would he throw all of his dreams and wishes away
As he would fly towards the heavens and sky
Would his only thought was to find GOD himself
And forever he would search until he would die.
Would his life be forever searching
And never one place would he call home
Neglecting the Earth and soil on the ground below
And always would he roam.
If GOD had given man wings
As he did to the birds up in the sky
Would GOD want man to visit him
Or just to give Man the ability to try.
Would Man then think that he was GODS equal
If he too like the birds had wings on his back
Or would he think that he was one of GODS Angels
And then against creatures he would fight and attack.
But then GOD he indeed knows all
As been preached by pastors, leaders and Kings
So I look up in the sky as the birds soar with content
I am am so happy GOD never gave man any wings.
poem by Randy McClave
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