The Secret - An 1858 Poem
By Lydia A. Caldwell.
- Out of the South there came a bird,
- And the soul of the Summer-time was stirred
- With the sweetest song that was ever heard.
-
- The magical notes of its wonderful strain,
- Fell like the fall of musical rain
- Into my heart and into my brain.
-
- And in my song was a meaning, there,
- A meaning strange and sew and fair,
- Wonderful sweet, and fine and rare.
-
- A meaning which I learned ere then,
- But not from the rhyme of a poet's pen,
- Nor from any song that is sung by men.
-
- And then I cried, "O bird divine!
- Where hast thou learned love's tender sign?
- Never was song of bird like thine?
-
- Thou has heard my heart in the night time beat.
- Or else the small grass under my feet
- Has dared to tattle my secret sweet.
-
- For, wing thy low, or loud, as thou list,
- The spell of thy singing who shall resist!
- O, most musical plagiarist!
-
- But sing it not this wonderful tune!
- To the whitest lily under the moon.
- Nor to roses that blow in the heart of June.
-
- And sing it not unto human ear;
- Nor man, nor maiden, nor flower, may hear
- My song, my secret, my mystery dear.
-
- Then sang the bird, when I had done,
- "There is not a wind blowing under the sun
- But tells your secret to every one.
-
- And yet the feeling is all in vain,
- Though the busy wind and the garrulous men
- Tell it a thousand times again.
-
- The warm air throb like a living thing
- Under the heat of my golden wing
- As I pipe and pipe, as I sing and sing.
-
- The world is wide, the world is round,
- And to every shining bound
- Flows my musical tide of sound.
-
- But still my measure never grows old,
- The immortal secret however is told,
- Love only to love will itself unfold.
-
- Into the South went back the bird,
- But still the soul at summer is stirred
- With the sweetest song that was ever heard.
March 18, 1858. Holmes County republican 2(30): 1. From the Home Journal.