Page:The Collected Poems of Dora Sigerson Shorter.djvu/258

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DISTANT VOICES

I left my home for travelling;
Because I heard the strange birds sing
In foreign skies, and felt their wing

Brush past my soul impatiently;
I saw the bloom on flower and tree
That only grows beyond the sea.

Methought the distant voices spake
More wisdom than near tongues can make;
I followed—lest my heart should break.

And what is past is past and done.
I dreamt, and here the dream begun:
I saw a salmon in the sun

Leap from the river to the shore—
Ah! strange mishap, so wounded sore,
To his sweet stream to turn no more.

A bird from 'neath his mother's breast.
Spread his weak wings in vain request;
Never again to reach his nest.

I saw a blossom bloom too soon
Upon a summer's afternoon;
'Twill breathe no more beneath the moon.

I woke, warmed 'neath a foreign sky
Where locust blossoms bud and die.
Strange birds called to me flashing by.

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