On gorse displaying that greenish
Glittering enamelled plumage,
Startled, he skimmed rock, leaving
A stone-grey socket of light
He had seen me, sudden to vanish,
Gone, bequeathing an image
Of weighted brilliance, achieving
In loops its ponderous flight.
Too shy at heart, of a hurt
I would never do him possessed,
He cut through those rocks like a cordon.
I looked: again he was there,
The green-sunned wings, head alert,
Keen talons and scarlet crest
On a cry evicted, low burden,
Too rich, too heavy for air.
Why did the ancients fear them?
Wisdom belongs to the birds.
They seek for their preservation
A wit they teach to their young;
Fly when a foot comes near them,
Make light of sibylline words,
Turn leaves with a murmuration
Or naked cry of the tongue.
Where the woodpecker chances to rest
He changes hollow and fold,
Makes fallow and rocky places
Vibrate, as though to a bell.
They ruffle the ground who best
Refine the horizon’s gold;
The design of outer spaces
In the inmost they excel.
Primaeval music is most
Itself that escapes the throng,
Catches fire from a thorn,
Of the nearest leaf takes hold.
Taliessin, body and ghost,
Compelled his muscular song
To gather glory unborn
From a glory already old.
This lyre-bird holds to man
The covenant caught in a leaf,
All space, all distance treasured
By the architectural wing.
Lost art’s unsearchable span,
The poem is shaped by belief:
If the song is justly measured
The dead may be heard to sing.
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