Poems (Blind)/Echoes of Spring/VI.

by Mathilde Blind

VI.

:Oh, birds, winged voices! children of the light!
Whose song is love, whose love is melody;
Shedding o'er hedge, and field, and bush, and tree,
 Your tuneful joy and musical delight,

 Making the air, the earth, the heavens bright;
Melodious, tender, sad and gay and free;
By all these gifts true poets born are ye;
 Love circumscribes alone your restless flight.

 Poets, I say? Ah, not like poets here,
That wander forth alone, companionless;
Whose lays are wrung from them by care and pain;
 Who sing, while blinded by the hot salt tear.

 Not such are ye; but free from all distress,
 Ye, with the sunlight, range o'er land and main.