The Bluebird

 Where rays gather but no light shines
In the waste of a forgotten lee
Lie broken the spires and towers and shrines
Of what had been a fair country,

An age of slumber displaying
Grasses and mosses that climb
O’er gold idols still praying
Peaceful from a happier time.

Now silent the bells that rang
Once welcoming dusk and dawn,
From their ropes now shadows hang
Of the songs once sweet, withdrawn.

Passages once pearl, befogged, unclear—
There no living feet now tread,
For all who speak and travel here
With restless souls are dead.

The bluebird’s memory sings to the sky,
A heart pouring from a farther age.
But the echoes that in the halls reply
Starve his bones in a lifelong cage.

Yet still he lends his voice
To a spring that never came
And may all the dead rejoice
To feel his Hell’s dear flame

His world a wasted prison;
The dewdrops seem to weep
Alas! Alas! for no flower has risen
In his long and sheltered sleep

Such yearning to be free,
From the corpse has sadly bled
For lone a silent century
Entreating but one tear to shed

And the dead who, abusing, love him
Help him again each day to die
Forbidding the grace above him:
Some beauty is far too sweet to fly

And the heavens weep to know—
(Ah! A legion of despairs!)
That the soul called long ago
Cannot rise to be theirs

Starry west—gold-enfolding east
How can the dead do such wrong?
Night to morn how they feast
On so lovely an imprisoned song.

And Death himself would gladly slay
His own heart by his own hand
To unleash some sunny day
The bluebird to the Promise Land.