The Blue-bird - A Poem from 1841

By David Paul Brown.

O, do you hear the Blue Bird,

The herald of the spring —

How cheerily he tunes his pipe,

How blithely plumes his wing.

 

He breathes the native note of praise

To the great source of Good,

The trees are vocal with his lays,

Instinct with gratitude.

 

He mounts upon the downy wing,

He cleaves the ambient air,

Inhales the balmy breath of spring,

And wishes the world to prayer.

 

The fertile Earth's at nature's voice,

Unlocks her precious store,

And mount and vale and plain rejoice,

And greet the genial hour.

 

The purling stream no longer bound,

In winter's icy chain,

Sparkles beneath the sunny ray,

And freely flows again.

 

Flows — as life flows, in infancy,

Pure, radiant and serene,

Through flowers and fields and fragrant groves,

That animate the scene.

 

Flows on, till winter checks its tide,

And robs it of its bloom.

Like death, that in our youthful pride

Consigns us to the tomb.

 

Yet man, for whom these notes are sung,

For whom these waters flow,

For whom this vernal wealth abounds

The monarch here below!

 

Man, only Man! with lofty brow,

With stubborn heart and knee,

Looms over this smiling universe,

Ungrateful, Lord, to thee.

 

The perils of the winter past —

Spring, like a blooming bride,

The summer's and the human's hope,

All magnify his pride!

 

There — there he stands — a rebel still,

A recent in that Power.

That murmurs in each limpid rill,

And breathes in every flower.

April 3, 1841. Winyah Observer 1(8): 4.