Maurice Thompson (1844–1901)

WHERE a bright creek into the river’s side

Shoots its keen arrow, a green heron sits,

Watching the sunfish as it gleaming flits

From sheen to shade. He sees the turtle glide

Through the clear spaces of the rhythmic stream,

Like some weird fancy through a poet’s dream;

He turns his golden eyes from side to side,

In very gladness that he is not dead,

While the swift wind-stream ripples overhead

And the creek’s wavelets babble underneath!

O Bird! that in a cheerful gloom dost live,

Thou art, to me, a type of happy death;

For when thou fliest away no mate will grieve

Because a lone, strange spirit vanisheth!