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| ENGLISH thrush within my garden from thy pinetree minaret, | |
| Summoning the wandering Faithful while the crimson lingers yet! | |
| Love’s Muezzin, loud entreating, and thy melody repeating | |
| To the city folk so wan and old and haunted by regret. | |
| Low I bow, your voice obeying, solemnly my Koran saying, | 5 |
| Love is Allah, Love is Allah, none his worship may forget. | |
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| Oft your song in dawn-lit woodlands o’er the camping cohorts borne | |
| Woke in breasts of war-scarred Romans longings for a maid forsworn, | |
| You set Saxon Alfred smiling, from his manuscripts beguiling, | |
| And the monk beside him dreamed of days before his cowl was worn. | 10 |
| As the Norman heard you lilting he forsook the joy of tilting, | |
| And harboured sweet pain in his heart on many an April morn. | |
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| Chaucer listened to your music in a springtime long ago, | |
| And you warble in his verses where still the daisies blow, | |
| And where Avon’s wave is gleaming, youthful Shakespeare wandered dreaming, | 15 |
| And paused to hear your evensong mix with the river’s flow. | |
| King and minstrel could not linger, but your lyric love’s own singer, | |
| Changeless in an Austral garden, lights my bosom with its glow. | |
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| Yet your grey Australian brother long has held my heart in thrall, | |
| Since the time I heard him singing by a purple mountain wall. | 20 |
| Carelessly the day was spilling odours, all the valley filling, | |
| And an amorous iris fluttered by a singing waterfall, | |
| Hid in fern, of springtime crooning, bidding earth awake from swooning, | |
| Long I lay beneath the myrtles listening to his madrigal. | |
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| Though a few belated snowflakes circled from a changing sky, | 25 |
| Every shrub and moss-lit boulder stirred responsive to the cry; | |
| Swayed the blackwoods all a-shiver, dreaming by the snow-fed river, | |
| Thrilled the gums with naked bosoms, ranked in stern battalions by: | |
| Beautiful in caverns burning, swiftly came the Spring returning, | |
| Musical from hill and valley came Demeter’s happy sigh. | 30 |
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| Chant on, English thrush, and hearken many a pilgrim to thy lay; | |
| Yet to your grey mountain brother I must always homage pay, | |
| For he sings a nation rising, radiant with a sweet surmising, | |
| Soaring high on vermeil pinions, over empires worn and grey; | |
| Monarchs cease their grave debating, silent with their peoples waiting, | 35 |
| As the Jovian bird slow sweeping takes around the world his way. | |
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| Rise and shine, belovèd spirit, make the wide earth all thine own, | |
| Scatter dews to heal the weary—turn to joy the nation’s moan; | |
| Proudly through the azure soaring, splendour from thy pinions pouring, | |
| Till the clouds o’er toilworn cities with thy starry beams are strewn. | 40 |
| Rome has heard thy forest voices, Sparta with their song rejoices, | |
| Melodies that tell thy coming over all the lands are blown. | |
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| Sing, O sing, ye rival thrushes, let me capture each refrain; | |
| You, the speckled singer, summon pictures of an English lane, | |
| Daffodils and violets blooming, May her beauteous robe assuming, | 45 |
| Happy maids and eager lovers listening to thy joyous strain: | |
| Grey thrush, lead me to the mountain, bathe me in thy song’s pure fountain, | |
| Beautiful unsoiled bird-voices, long within my heart remain. | |
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