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Home  »  A Library of American Literature  »  Song: ‘A bird in my bower’

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Song: ‘A bird in my bower’

By Francis Howard Williams (1844–1922)

[The Princess Elizabeth. A Lyric Drama. 1880.]

A BIRD in my bower

Sat calling, a-calling;

A bird answered low from the garden afar.

His note came with power,

While falling, a-falling,

Her note quivered faint as the light of a star.

“I am Life! I am Life!”

From the bower a-ringing,

Thrilled forth a mad melody, soaring above;

“I am Love! I am Love!”

From the garden a-singing,

Came soft as a dream, and the echoes sang “Love.”

They joined, and together

Fast flying, a-flying,

Were lost to my gaze in the arch of the sky.

The wind through the heather

Is sighing, a-sighing;

Ah! how should it ever do other than sigh?

Where art thou, where art thou,

Life, flying, a-flying?

Where art thou, O Love, sweetest child of the dawn?

The song in the meadow

Is dying, a-dying;

My heart groweth heavy, and whispereth—“Gone.”