A Linnet's Song

A wind-blown, sun-kissed, dew-wet flower of sound, A sweet, imprisoned note from Kentish woods; A note that holds the talk of forest buds When spring makes all sweet things that be abound; A note which listening to just now I found Myself in the old paths where twilight broods. It changed to liberal noon, whose sunlight floods The aisles of trees, and billows on the ground: I seemed again to walk in memory With one held dearest for another’s sake — That fairest one whom now love may not see, For whom the heart of all the world should break. Ah, trivial singer, that thy jubilee Sad memories of love and death should wake!