Александр Андерсон (Alexander Anderson)

The House of the Singing Birds

I sat in the house of the master,
 With the Pentland Hills in view,
And in at the open window
 The light of summer shone through.

Our talk was of singers and sages,
 But ever through all our words
There ran, like the sweetest of music,
 The twitter and song of the birds.

The room was alive with their singing—
 Then what was our speech to theirs?
For they sang without our sorrows,
 They sang without our cares.

And one on the master's finger,
 He piped the sweetest of all,
In his heart was the joy of summer,
 In his voice its madrigal.

And I said to myself, "O, poet,
 The songs that I hear from thee,
Are those that I yearn and strive for,
 But their music is hidden from me.

"I stand on ways that are trodden
 With the weary tramp of feet;
And the hollow sound of their marching
 Have made my own less sweet.

"For I hear, not the swell of triumph,
 Nor the eager shouts of my kind;
I only hear the murmur
 Of those who have fallen behind.

"For I, too, linger and listen
 And dream, while far ahead
The heavy columns are marching,
 But behind are the sick and the dead.

"My songs have therefore the echo
 Of the weary ones who lie
By the wayside, watching the columns
 That are daily marching by."

But that bird on the master's finger,
 That tiny feathered thing,
Was the best of all the poets,
 For he sang as they cannot sing.

In his voice was the throb and rapture
 Which they struggle in vain to reach,
For their's but bear the burden
 That is under human speech.

They sing, but what is their singing?
 And what are their paltry words
To the music that had no sadness
 In the house of the singing birds?

Oh, what would I give for the music
 That would chase all sorrow away,
As that bird's on the master's finger,
 And to sing as he sang that day!

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