60774: The Swift
Creators: name: Project Team, First World War Poetry Digital Archive
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 430304
subject: British history
classificationCode: 430308
subject: European history (excl. British, classical Greek and Roman)
classificationCode: 430316
subject: International history

description: When the blue has broken<br> Through the pearly heat<br> And the grass is woken<br> By our early feet,<br> Oh, then to be the Lark!---With all his fun<br> To pelt my mate with gayest kisses,<br> And mount to laugh away those blisses<br> In shaking merriment unto the sun!<br> When the dark is listening<br> And the leaves hang still,<br> While the glow-worms, glistening,<br> Make the keen stars thrill,<br> Would I might mourn to one lorn Nightingale<br> And be the solace of her solitude,<br> Speaking my doles all clear and unsubdued<br> And audible to her, the Nightingale.<br> But when eve shines lowly,<br> And the light is thinned,<br> And the moon slides slowly<br> Down the far-off wind,<br> Oh, then to be of all the birds the Swift!<br> To flit through ether, with elves winging,<br> Drawn up western fires, in frenzy singing,<br> Along the breeze to lean and poise and drift!<br> Fine thou art and agile,<br> O thou perfect bird,<br> As an arrow fragile<br> By an Eros whirred;<br> And like a cross-bow in a Cupid's grasp<br> Thy wings are ever stretched, for striking ready;<br> And like young Love thou'rt frantic and unsteady,<br> And sure as his thine aim, and keen as Love's thy gasp.<br> Strung in tautest tension<br> By the lust of speed,<br> And the mad contention<br> Of insatiate greed,<br> Thou suck'st away the intoxicating air,<br> Trailing a wake of song in trilling bubbles,<br> Till distance drowns thee. Then thy light wing doubles,<br> And thou art back,---nay vanished now, Oh where?<br> Down in sharp declension,<br> Grazing the low pool;<br> Up in steep ascension<br> Where the clouds blow cool;<br> And there thou sleepest all the luminous night,<br> Aloft this hurry and this hunger,<br> Floating with years that knew thee younger,<br> Without this nest to feed, this death to fight.<br> Airily sweeping and swinging,<br> Quivering unstable,<br> Like a dark butterfly clinging<br> To the roof-gable,<br> Art thou not tired of this unceasing round?<br> Long'st not for rest in mead or bower?<br> Must lose, as spirits lose, the power<br> To soar again if once thou come to ground?<br> Waywardly sliding and slinging,<br> Speed never slacking,<br> Easily, recklessly flinging,<br> Twinkling and tacking;<br> ---Oh, how we envy thee thy lovely swerves!<br> How covet we thy slim wings' beauty,<br> Nor guess what stress of need and duty<br> So bent thy frame to those slim faultless curves.<br> Dazzlingly swooping and plunging<br> Into the nest to peep,<br> Dangerously leaping and lunging ---<br> Hark! how the younglings cheep!<br> O Swift! If thou art master of the air<br> Who taught thee! Not the joy of flying<br> But of thy brood: their throttles' crying<br> Stung thee to skill whereof men yet despair!<br> Desperately driving and dashing,<br> Hissing and shrieking,<br> Breathlessly hurtling and lashing,<br> Seeking and seeking,<br> What knowest thou of grace or dance or song?<br> Thy cry that ringeth like a lyric,<br> Is it indeed of joy, a panegyric?<br> No ecstasy is this. By love's pain it rings strong.<br> O that I might make me<br> Pinions like to thine,<br> Feathers that would take me<br> Whither I incline!<br> Yet more thy spirit's tirelessness I crave;<br> Yet more thy joyous fierce endurance.<br> If my soul flew with thy assurance,<br> What fields, what skies to scour! What seas to brave!