Poems (Hoffman)/Wounded

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

For works with similar titles, see Wounded.

WOUNDED.

Once a little song bird caroled
Notes of perfect ecstasy,
In bright costume all apparelled,
Happy as a bird could be.

Never thought of pain or danger,
Made his happy song less sweet;
'Till the footfall of a stranger
Sounded through his cool retreat.

Just a red stain on the mosses,
Just a broken, shattered strain;
Just a tiny wing that flutters,
But will never rise again.

Lying underneath the grasses,
Hidden from the sportsman's eye;
Hour by hour the long day passes,
Dying, still yet cannot die.

Thus one sunny day I found it,
Wounded with a cruel dart;
With sad silence all around it,
Was the little bird—a Heart?