Like to a Songless Bird by Marie Van Vorst
The speaker compares herself to a songless bird perched high in a forest full of enchanting music. The bird hears the clear songs around it and strains vainly to produce an equally pure melody, yet remains silent. Likewise, the speaker has been deeply moved by music since hearing her first soft song; she listens with complete attention, feeling its rhythms in her heart. The music fills the past with the songs of Love and Life, and she longs to answer them with a song of her own. But although music seems to resound through Time itself, she too remains unable to sing.
By Marie Van Vorst · First published 1903 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Romantic Poetry, Nature Poetry · 192 words
First lines
Like to a songless bird that swings / On a high branch, and thrills to hear / How the deep-hearted forest rings / With melody enchanting clear,
And vainly swells his throat to wake / A song as pure as these that fill / The wood, and every echo shake, / Whilst he alone is dumb and still.
So, thrilling to the music dear / Since the first song woke, low and sweet; / To purest sound I bend my ear, / And with my heart the rhythms beat;
Until the palpitating Past / With melody becometh rife; / With parted lips and hands locked fast / I hear the songs of Love and Life.
What this Textopian page supports
Like to a Songless Bird is listed on Textopian as a poem by Marie Van Vorst, dated 1903 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Marie Van Vorst
- Date: 1903 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Romantic Poetry, Nature Poetry, Metapoetry, Symbolist Poetry
- Length: 192 words
- Structure: 1 section, 5 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Like to a Songless Bird by Marie Van Vorst
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The work is a short, musical, first-person poem focused on an inward emotional response rather than narrative action.
- Romantic Poetry — It emphasizes intense feeling, idealized music, love, life, memory, and the speaker's reverent relationship with nature and art.
- Nature Poetry — The central image is a bird in a resonant forest, using natural imagery to express the speaker's emotional and artistic condition.
- Metapoetry — The poem reflects on poetic creation itself: the speaker longs to produce a song equal to the music already heard but remains unable to speak.
Tags
classic literature · American fiction · early 20th-century literature · literary fiction · romantic drama · society novel · domestic life · family relationships · marriage · women's lives · social class · social conventions