Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Wings of the Morning (1904). IV. A Bird’s Call

Cicely Fox-Smith (1882–1954)

OVER the upland fields, where free and strong

The fresh hill-breezes swept,

I heard a wild bird calling all day long,

Calling as if it wept.

And the wild voice brought back delights and tears

From time’s forgotten hoard,

Cleaving the dead cold mist of bygone years

Like a two-edgèd sword.

And speech forgotten sprang up word for word,

Unfolding like a scroll

At the wild mandate of a lonely bird

Calling like a lost soul.

O sad sweet cry beneath the skies of grey

O tale of perished years!

O everlasting hope for the new day,

The joy beyond the tears.

When we, who striving to the light must go,

Whom toils and trammels bind,

Somewhere the purport of our days shall know,

Somewhere at last shall find

God’s treasure-house of lost loves found again,

Of torn hearts healed anew,

Sorrow grown joy, and pleasure after pain,

And all dear dreams come true.