The Bluebird

From morn till noon upon the window-pane The tempest tapped with rainy finger-nails, And all the afternoon the blustering gales Beat at the door with furious feet of rain. The rose, near which the lily’s bloom lay slain, Like some red wound dripped by the garden rails, On which the sullen slug left silvery trails-- It seemed the sun would never shine again. Then in the drench, long, loud, and clarion-clear,-- A skyey herald tabarded in blue,-- A bluebird warbled ... and at once a bow Was bent in heaven, and I seemed to hear God’s sapphire spaces crystallizing through The strata’d clouds in azure tremolo.