THE BLINDED BIRD
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O zestfully canst thou sing?And all this indignity,With God’s consent, on thee!Blinded ere yet a-wingBy the red-hot needle thou,I stand and wonder howSo zestfully thou canst sing! Resenting not such wrong,Thy grievous pain forgot,Eternal dark thy lot,Groping thy whole life long;After that stab of fire;Enjailed in pitiless wire;Resenting not such wrong! Who hath charity? This bird.Who suffereth long and is kind,Is not provoked, though blindAnd alive ensepulchred?Who hopeth, endureth all things?Who thinketh no evil, but sings?Who is divine? This bird. “THE WIND BLEW WORDS” THE wind blew words along the skies,And these it blew to meThrough the wide dusk: “Lift up your eyes,Behold this troubled tree,Complaining as it sways and plies;It is a limb of thee. “Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round—Dumb figures, wild and tame,Yea, too, thy fellows who abound—Either of speech the sameOr far and strange—black, dwarfed, and browned,They are stuff of thy own frame.” I moved on in a surging aweOf inarticulatenessAt the pathetic Me I sawIn all his huge distress,Making self-slaughter of the lawTo kill, break, or suppress.
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