Song Of The Cawing Crow

Mists and lamps over street and lane.
A crow caws up in the inky sky.
Ah, my green-leaved youth, I call you in vain,
You and the storm's sweet roar on high!
Ah, crow, old crow, what calamity
Hanged our cry from the forest free
Up in the sooty sky of the town,
A sky where dawn one can never see!
Only maybe the stinted lights,
The sick, bleached patches of rare, dim beams,
And here am I, lost, a village lad,
And, you black daughter of green woods and streams.
Ah crow, black crow, my sister by blood,
What devil brought you to settle here!
Far away is my father's woodland home,
No rustling, storm-riven woods are there here!
Here it hums, but it isn't the noise of the woods,
But the noise of chimneytops black,
But the rubbing of iron against hard stone,
Thousands of concrete jaws crunch and crack.
Ah crow, old crow, you will never fly
Out of the soot-belching chimney row,
When you've let through yourself all the smoke and grime
You won't even be worth a plain black crow.