Killed on the Telegraph Wire

Within the rough four-foot he lay,
A touch of blood on breast and wing—
His life-blood, that had sent away
This only singer of the spring.

For he, while morning yet was dim,
And all his singing soul on fire,
And throbbing with an unsung hymn,
Had dashed against the heedless wire.

And in the dark he fell to lie
The cold, unheeding rails between,
A song within his heart to die
Unheard, and he himself unseen.

I took him up; he lay so light,
That in my heart I did him wrong
To think a thing so frail and slight
Could have such splendid wealth of song.

Was this the bird I could not see?
That somewhere from the wooded hill
Poured forth such music from a tree
That even the very stream grew still.

Was this the spirit who sang and shot
The soul of summer through the air,
Till all the buds grew quick with thought,
And sweet, green births were everywhere?

The very bird! And this was all
His crown of song for such display—
To strike against the wire, and fall,
And bleed his little life away.

He sang of Spring in fond delight,
He would not see her blossoming;
He sang of Summer, but its light
Would never strike against his wing.

Yet these were throbbing in his song,
As yearns some poet in his rhyme,
To flash against a burning wrong
The sunshine of a happier time.

But ere the light, for which he woke
His song, dawns upward, faint and dim,
He, bleeding from an unseen stroke,
Sinks in the dark, and dies like him.