Malediction

Malediction written by John Drinkwater

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Thrush, across the twilight
 Here in the abbey close,
 Pouring from your lilac-bough
 Note on pebbled note,
 Why do you sing so,
 Making your song so bright.
 Swelling to a throbbing curve
 That brave little throat?
 
Soon, but a season brief,
 The lice among your feathers,
 Stiff-winged and aimless-eyed,
 With song dead you shall fall;
 Refuse of some clotted ditch,
 Seeking no more berries;
 Why with lyric numbers now
 Do you the twilight call?
 
Proud in your tawny plumes
 Mottled in devising,
 Singing as though never sang
 Bird in close till now--
 Sharp are the javelins
 Of death that are seeking,
 Seeking even simple birds
 On a lilac-bough.
 
Crushed, forlorn, a frozen thing,
 For no more nesting,
 For no more speckled eggs
 In pattered cup of clay,--
 Soon your song shall come to this
 You who make the twilight yours,
 And echoes of the abbey,
 At the end of day.
 
In the song I hear it,
 The thud of a poor feathered death,
 In the swelling throat I see
 The splintering of song--
 What demon then has worked in me
 To tease my brain to bitterness--
 In me who have loved bird and tree
 So long, so long?
 
Until I come to charity,
 Until I find peace again,
 My curse upon the fiend or god
 That will not let me hear
 A bird in song upon the bough
 But, hovering about the notes,
 There chimes the maniac beating
 Of black-winged fear.

This work is in the public domain in countries where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less.