Shiva
There is a hawk that is picking the birds out of our sky,
She killed the pigeons of peace and security,
She has taken honesty and confidence from nations and men,
She is hunting the lonely heron of liberty.
She loads the arts with nonsense, she is very cunning
Science with dreams and the state with powers to catch them at last.
Nothing will escape her at last, flying nor running.
This is the hawk that picks out the star's eyes.
This is the only hunter that will ever catch the wild swan;
The prey she will take last is the wild white swan of the beauty of things.
Then she will be alone, pure destruction, achieved and supreme,
Empty darkness under the death-tent wings.
She will build a nest of the swan's bones and hatch a new brood,
Hang new heavens with new birds, all be renewed.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Love The Wild Swan
"I hate my verses, every line, every word.
Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try
One grass-blade's curve, or the throat of one bird
That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.
Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch
One color, one glinting
Hash, of the splendor of things.
Unlucky hunter, Oh bullets of wax,
The lion beauty, the wild-swan wings, the storm of the wings."
--This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game.
Better bullets than yours would miss the white breast
Better mirrors than yours would crack in the flame.
Does it matter whether you hate your . . . self?
At least Love your eyes that can see, your mind that can
Hear the music, the thunder of the wings. Love the wild swan.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Swan Lee
Swan lee got up at the running foot pow-wow,
Heading from the fire to his waiting canoe.
Chattering squaw untied the wigwam door,
The chief blew smoke rings two by two!
The land in silence stands...
Swan lee, his boat by the bank in the darkness,
Loosened the rope in the creek is entwined.
A feather from the wing of a wild young eagle,
Pointed to the land where his fortune he'd find
The land in silence stands
Swan lee paddled on from the land of his fathers,
His eyes scanned the undergrowth on either side.
From the shore hung a hot, heavy, creature infested
Tropic, swan lee had a bow by his side
The land in silence stands
Swan lee kept time, half on land, half on water,
Grizzly bear and raccoon his fare.
He followed his ears to the great water fall,
Swan lee knew deep down that his squaw was there!
The land in silence stands....
Suddenly the rush of the mighty great thunder,
Confronted swan lee as his song he sang,
In the dawn, with his squaw, he was battling homewards
It was all written down by long silas lang.
The land in silence stands...
The land in silence stands...
The land in silence stands.
song performed by by Pink Floyd
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Tell me, O Swan, your ancient tale
Tell me, O Swan, your ancient tale.
From what land do you come,
O Swan? to what shore will you fly?
Where would you take your rest,
O Swan, and what do you seek?
Even this morning, O Swan, awake, arise, follow me!
There is a land where no doubt nor sorrow have rule:
where the terror of Death is no more.
There the woods of spring are a-bloom,
and the fragrant scent 'He is I' is borne on the wind:
There the bee of the heart is deeply immersed,
and desires no other joy.
The Island Hawk
Hushed are the whimpering winds on the hill,
Dumb is the shrinking plain,
And the songs that enchanted the woods are still
As I shoot to the skies again!
Does the blood grow black on my fierce bent beak,
Does the down still cling to my claw?
Who brightened these eyes for the prey they seek?
Life, I follow thy law!
For I am the hawk, the hawk, the hawk!
Who knoweth my pitiless breast?
Who watcheth me sway in the wild wind's way?
Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.
As I glide and glide with my peering head,
Or swerve at a puff of smoke,
Who watcheth my wings on the wind outspread,
Here – gone – with an instant stroke?
Who toucheth the glory of life I feel
As I buffet this great glad gale,
Spire and spire to the cloud-world, wheel,
Loosen my wings and sail?
For I am the hawk, the island hawk,
Who knoweth my pitiless breast?
Who watcheth me sway in the sun's bright way?
Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.
My mate in the nest on the high bright tree
Blazing with dawn and dew,
She knoweth the gleam of the world and the glee
As I drop like a bolt from the blue.
She knoweth the fire of the level flight
As I skim, close, close to the ground,
With the long grass lashing my breast and the bright
Dew-drops flashing around.
She watcheth the hawk, the hawk, the hawk
(Oh, the red-blotched eggs in the nest!)
Watcheth him sway in the sun's bright way.
Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.
She builded her nest on the high bright wold,
She was taught in a world afar
The lore that is only an April old
Yet old as the evening star.
Life of a far off ancient day
In an hour unhooded her eyes.
In the time of the budding of one green spray
She was wise as the stars are wise.
An eyas in eyry, a yellow-eyed hawk,
On the old elm's burgeoning breast,
She watcheth me sway in the wild wind's way.
Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.
She hath ridden on white Arabian steeds
Thro' the ringing English dells,
For the joy of a great queen, hunting in state,
To the music of golden bells.
A queen's fair fingers have drawn the hood
And tossed her aloft in the blue,
A white hand eager for needless blood.
I hunt for the needs of two.
A haggard in yarak, a hawk, a hawk!
Who knoweth my pitiless breast?
Who watcheth me sway in the sun's bright way?
Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.
Who fashioned her wide and splendid eyes
That have stared in the eyes of kings?
With a silken twist she was looped to their wrist:
She has clawed at their jewelled rings!
Who flung her first thro' the crimson dawn
To pluck him a prey from the skies,
When the love-light shone upon lake and lawn
In the valleys of Paradise?
Who fashioned the hawk, the hawk, the hawk,
Bent beak and pitiless breast?
Who watcheth him sway in the wild wind's way?
Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.
Is there ever a song in all the world
Shall say how the quest began
With the beak and the wings that have made us kings
And cruel – almost – as man?
The wild wind whimpers across the heath
Where the sad little tufts of blue
And the red-stained grey little feathers of death
Flutter! Who fashioned us? Who?
Who fashioned the scimitar wings of the hawk,
Bent beak and arrowy breast?
Who watcheth him sway in the sun's bright way?
Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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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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The Swan ~ A Villanelle
Floating upon the crystal pond
She kept wearing her diamond crown
While the other white swan was gone
Never doubting their fierce loving bond
As the leaves went from reddish to brown
Floating upon the crystal pond
Her blue eyes searching far beyond
Couldn't see that he'd recently drowned
While the other white swan was gone
So curling, becoming withdrawn
When ten suns in the sky settled down
Floating upon the crystal pond
She talked to the geese that were blond
And asked where he was with a frown
While the other white swan was gone
They cared not and didn't respond
In the reeds was a kings golden crown
Floating upon the crystal pond
While the other white swan was gone
poem by Sara Fielder
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To Be And So On
To Be or…
The swan on the lake doesn’t know it is a swan,
they say. How do they know? A swan may look
at us and say to another swan “Darling humans
don’t who they are.” Quite right my lovely, they
are daft that way” (swans have lot in common
with actors, the lake is their stage and we are
their adoring audience) I know that because Tom,
the only actor I have met in the flesh, called me
darling, well, not only me but everyone he spoke
to. Tom died no one calls me darling anymore.
We only think we know ourselves, if we really did
it would be too scary to know that inside us lurks
a monster.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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The Black Swan
When the swans turned my sister into a swan
I would go to the lake, at night, from milking:
The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan,
A swan's red beak; and the beak would open
And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon.
Out on the lake, a girl would laugh.
"Sister, here is your porridge, sister,"
I would call; and the reeds would whisper,
"Go to sleep, go to sleep, little swan."
My legs were all hard and webbed, and the silky
Hairs of my wings sank away like stars
In the ripples that ran in and out of the reeds:
I heard through the lap and hiss of water
Someone's "Sister . . . sister," far away on the shore,
And then as I opened my beak to answer
I heard my harsh laugh go out to the shore
And saw - saw at last, swimming up from the green
Low mounds of the lake, the white stone swans:
The white, named swans . . . "It is all a dream,"
I whispered, and reached from the down of the pallet
To the lap and hiss of the floor.
And "Sleep, little sister," the swan all sang
From the moon and stars and frogs of the floor.
But the swan my sister called, "Sleep at last, little sister,"
And stroked all night, with a black wing, my wings.
poem by Randall Jarrell
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Autumn Birds
The wild duck startles like a sudden thought,
And heron slow as if it might be caught.
The flopping crows on weary wings go by
And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly.
The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by,
And darken like a clod the evening sky.
The larks like thunder rise and suthy round,
Then drop and nestle in the stubble ground.
The wild swan hurries hight and noises loud
With white neck peering to the evening clowd.
The weary rooks to distant woods are gone.
With lengths of tail the magpie winnows on
To neighbouring tree, and leaves the distant crow
While small birds nestle in the edge below.
poem by John Clare
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Swan
Traffic jams, Concorde drones
TV's and radios drown me out
You won't change slamming doors
Temper, temper, that tongue of yours, drown me out
I've told you once when it comes to love
I'm like a swan, I only love once
I've told you once push comes to shove
I'm like a swan
I only love, only love, only love once
Dumbells crash, babies cry
A thousand voices, mostly lies, drown me out
The underground, Marble Arch
The deafening snap of breaking hearts, drown me out
I've told you once when it comes to love
I'm like a swan, I only love once
I've told you once push comes to shove
I'm like a swan
I only love, only love, only love once
Barking dogs, the lonely roam
The great unlaid making their way home, drown me out
I've told you once when it comes to love
I'm like a swan, I only love once
I've told you once push comes to shove
I'm like a swan
I only love, only love, only love once
song performed by by Right Said Fred
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Swan Song(dying sentence)
Remember me, remember my swan song,
I can't re-orient myself,
I can't live it all over again,
I can't re-orient myself,
I can't live that stain of my plastered smile again,
Let this be the last moment,
Let me say the last good-bye,
It won't count anything now,
So let me lay in silence,
Life has treated me well and I have had enough of it,
Lets end this game,
Enough of milling in and out,
Hear my swan song,
And let this end now,
I need to be away,
away from these thorns,
far far away,
Where you'll only see my memories,
my shadows,
my untold stories buried after me,
and my last swan song,
Hear my swan song,
I feel like a fish out of water,
from pillar to post,
fallen back upon,
Let me be buried under sand,
let me give my final test,
I'll never return, its time to sing,
sing my last swan song,
Hear my swan song,
maybe this moment or the other,
my soul would rest in peace,
before disappearing,
let me sing,
sing my swan song,
I only remember now the memory lived in me,
a perfectly encapsulated morsel,
of a good past,
from piebald brush strokes swaying,
to barren now, that I'd become,
As I'll say my last goodbye,
hear my swan song,
because now you'll never hear my voice again,
for ever and ever and ever...
Written on 5/6/11
poem by Ayesha Riaz
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I shall not Die for thee
O woman, shapely as the swan,
On your account I shall not die:
The men you've slain -- a trivial clan --
Were less than I.
I ask me shall I die for these --
For blossom teeth and scarlet lips --
And shall that delicate swan-shape
Bring me eclipse?
Well-shaped the breasts and smooth the skin,
The cheeks are fair, the tresses free --
And yet I shall not suffer death,
God over me!
Those even brows, that hair like gold,
Those languorous tones, that virgin way,
The flowing limbs, the rounded heel
Slight men betray!
Thy spirit keen through radiant mien,
Thy shining throat and smiling eye,
Thy little palm, thy side like foam --
I cannot die!
O woman, shapely as the swan,
In a cunning house hard-reared was I:
O bosom white, O well-shaped palm,
I shall not die!
poem by Padraic Colum
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Cruelly Pure
Swan like movements,
“Swan Lake” melody bursts out in the air,
Slaying it with the greatest ease!
Beautiful in white you are,
So beautiful and pure,
So beautiful and rebel at soul!
Mute swan until death comes,
Wing shaped flames burst in my soul,
Slashing it with amazing grace!
Yes, Love burns slow,
Love crawls inside,
Cuts you so deep
That you’ll forever remember,
Never regret!
Beautiful and cruel you are,
So beautiful and pure,
So beautiful and rebel at heart!
Steams, hot mist dances like a mistress,
Feather-like touches on my face,
Caressing it with impeccable desire,
Cruelly pure my lover is,
So beautiful and pure,
So beautiful and rebel at soul!
©Elya Thorn. Do not republish without permission!
Part of 'Dark Whisperings and Invocations'
poem by Elya Thorn
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The White Swan
kiss the lake at dawn
graceful, divine, majestic
new queen, the white swan
haiku by Marius Alexandru (27 December 2020)
Submitted by anonym
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Adair Welcker, Poet
The Swan of Avon died-the Swan
Of Sacramento'll soon be gone;
And when his death-song he shall coo,
Stand back, or it will kill you too.
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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My Swan, Let us Fly
My swan, let us fly to that land
Where your Beloved lives forever.
That land has an up-ended well
Whose mouth, narrow as a thread,
The married soul draws water from
Without a rope or pitcher.
My swan, let us fly to that land
Where your Beloved lives forever.
Clouds never cluster there,
Yet it goes on and on raining.
Don’t keep squatting outside in the yard –
Come in! Get drenched without a body!
My swan, let us fly to that land
Where your Beloved lives forever.
That land is always soaked in moonlight;
Darkness can never come near it.
It is flooded always with the dazzle
Of not one, but a million suns.
My swan, let us fly to that land
Where your Beloved lives forever.
The Children of Lir
Out upon the sand-dunes thrive the coarse long grasses;
Herons standing knee-deep in the brackish pool;
Overhead the sunset fire and flame amasses
And the moon to eastward rises pale and cool.
Rose and green around her, silver-gray and pearly,
Chequered with the black rooks flying home to bed;
For, to wake at daybreak, birds must couch them early:
And the day's a long one since the dawn was red.
On the chilly lakelet, in that pleasant gloaming,
See the sad swans sailing: they shall have no rest:
Never a voice to greet them save the bittern's booming
Where the ghostly sallows sway against the West.
'Sister,' saith the gray swan, 'Sister, I am weary,'
Turning to the white swan wet, despairing eyes;
'O' she saith, 'my young one! O' she saith, 'my dearie !'
Casts her wings about him with a storm of cries.
Woe for Lir's sweet children whom their vile stepmother
Glamoured with her witch-spells for a thousand years;
Died their father raving, on his throne another,
Blind before the end came from the burning tears.
Long the swans have wandered over lake and river;
Gone is all the glory of the race of Lir:
Gone and long forgotten like a dream of fever:
But the swans remember the sweet days that were.
Hugh, the black and white swan with the beauteous feathers,
Fiachra, the black swan with the emerald breast,
Conn, the youngest, dearest, sheltered in all weathers,
Him his snow-white sister loves the tenderest.
These her mother gave her as she lay a-dying;
To her faithful keeping; faithful hath she been,
With her wings spread o'er them when the tempest's crying,
And her songs so hopeful when the sky's serene.
Other swans have nests made 'mid the reeds and rushes,
Lined with downy feathers where the cygnets sleep
Dreaming, if a bird dreams, till the daylight blushes,
Then they sail out swiftly on the current deep.
With the proud swan-father, tall, and strong, and stately,
And the mild swan-mother, grave with household cares,
All well-born and comely, all rejoicing greatly:
Full of honest pleasure is a life like theirs.
But alas ! for my swans with the human nature,
Sick with human longings, starved for human ties,
With their hearts all human cramped to a bird's stature.
And the human weeping in the bird's soft eyes.
Never shall my swans build nests in some green river,
Never fly to Southward in the autumn gray,
Rear no tender children, love no mates for ever;
Robbed alike of bird's joys and of man's are they.
Babbles Conn the youngest, 'Sister, I remember
At my father's palace how I went in silk,
Ate the juicy deer-flesh roasted from the ember,
Drank from golden goblets my child's draught of milk.
Once I rode a-hunting, laughed to see the hurry,
Shouted at the ball-play, on the lake did row;
You had for your beauty gauds that shone so rarely.'
'Peace' saith Fionnuala, 'that was long ago.'
'Sister,' saith Fiachra, 'well do I remember
How the flaming torches lit the banquet-hall,
And the fire leapt skyward in the mid-December,
And among the rushes slept our staghounds tall.
By our father's right hand you sat shyly gazing,
Smiling half and sighing, with your eyes a-glow,
As the bards sang loudly all your beauty praising. '
'Peace,' saith Fionnuala, 'that was long ago.'
'Sister,' then saith Hugh 'most do I remember
One I called my brother, one, earth's goodliest man,
Strong as forest oaks are where the wild vines clamber,
First at feast or hunting, in the battle's van.
Angus, you were handsome, wise, and true, and tender,
Loved by every comrade, feared by every foe:
Low, low, lies your beauty, all forgot your splendour.'
'Peace,' saith Fionnuala, 'that was long ago.'
Dews are in the clear air and the roselight paling;
Over sands and sedges shines the evening star;
And the moon's disc lonely high in heaven is sailing;
Silvered all the spear-heads of the rushes are.
Housed warm are all things as the night grows colder,
Water-fowl and sky-fowl dreamless in the nest;
But the swans go drifting, drooping wing and shoulder
Cleaving the still water where the fishes rest.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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A Paraphrase Of Heine
(LYRIC INTERMEZZO)
There fell a star from realms above--
A glittering, glorious star to see!
Methought it was the star of love,
So sweetly it illumined me.
And from the apple branches fell
Blossoms and leaves that time in June;
The wanton breezes wooed them well
With soft caress and amorous tune.
The white swan proudly sailed along
And vied her beauty with her note--
The river, jealous of her song,
Threw up its arms to clasp her throat.
But now--oh, now the dream is past--
The blossoms and the leaves are dead,
The swan's sweet song is hushed at last,
And not a star burns overhead.
poem by Eugene Field
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The Two Birds
The eagle and the hawk
all dwell in the sky
and all fly from heights
but the eagle rules and the hawk follows.
Yet they are two birds
The owl and the dove
all fly in the sky
and all dwell in nests
but the dove carries blessings
and the owl carries curses.
yet they are two birds still.
The two birds!
pride and humility
all dwell in our hearts
and sleep in the warmth of our egos
but humility shines while pride fades
There two birds still
The two birds!
sin and salvation
all appear in the world's contest
show casing life and death
but salvation heals, sin kills
yet these are two birds
poem by Timothy muggaga
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Girl of Wilderness
The girl I met on the bushy land, heaped
Beyond paddy fields, was peeping
For birds, their nests, eggs and babies
An endeavor to help birds to survive.
She glanced at me with her sapphire eyes pair
I saw oddity in the point of her look.
My gun loaded to kill a prey to eat
Glad as she could help a tiny bird to live
Desprate was I, could not catch one to gulp
Innocence was her mark,
Traded me at heart
My solitude catught her fragrance
I left my gun
Begged her feel
I loneged her scent, delicate and versatile
I invite her in my wild dreams
Her lofty haughty breasts
The butter cone of temptation and
The wild burries hot and sweet on it
The belly which pated my liking
And the belly button
Naval and the hidden marvel split
Thighs dart across
She is in her wild innocence
Scard of the touch of man
Does not want to to be pregnant
As scared of a painful child birth
She remains in the wild, helping birds
That's, what she like, her life.
poem by Sam Varghis
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