Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Fuess and Stearns, comps. The Little Book of Society Verse. 1922.

By. Austin Dobson

Avice

THOUGH the voice of modern schools

Has demurred,

By the dreamy Asian creed

’T is averred,

That the souls of men, released

From their bodies when deceased,

Sometimes enter in a beast,—

Or a bird.

I have watched you long, Avice,—

Watched you so,

I have found your secret out;

And I know

That the restless ribboned things,

Where your slope of shoulder springs,

Are but undeveloped wings

That will grow.

When you enter in a room,

It is stirred

With the wayward, flashing flight

Of a bird;

And you speak—and bring with you

Leaf and sun-ray, bud and blue,

And the wind-breath and the dew,

At a word.

When you called to me my name,

Then again

When I heard your single cry

In the lane,

All the sound was as the “sweet”

Which the birds to birds repeat

In their thank-song to the heat

After rain.

When you sang the Schwalbenlied,

’T was absurd,—

But it seemed no human note

That I heard;

For your strain had all the trills,

All the little shakes and stills,

Of the over-song that rills

From a bird.

You have just their eager, quick

“Airs de tête,”

All their flush and fever-heat

When elate;

Every bird-like nod and beck,

And a bird’s own curve of neck

When she gives a little peck

To her mate.

When you left me, only now,

In that furred,

Puffed, and feathered Polish dress,

I was spurred

Just to catch you, O my sweet,

By the bodice trim and neat,—

Just to feel your heart abeat,

Like a bird.

Yet, alas! Love’s light you deign

But to wear

As the dew upon your plumes,

And you care

Not a whit for rest or hush;

But the leaves, the lyric gush,

And the wing-power, and the rush

Of the air.

So I dare not woo you, Sweet,

For a day,

Lest I lose you in a flash,

As I may;

Did I tell you tender things,

You would shake your sudden wings;—

You would start from him who sings,

And away.