Explore "The Voice of a Bird" by Alice Meynell on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"He shall rise up at the voice of a bird." ECCLESIASTES
Who then is "he"?
Dante, Keats, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley; all
Rose in their greatness at the shrill decree,
The little rousing inarticulate call.
For they stood up
At the bird-voice, of lark, of nightingale,
Drank poems from that throat as from a cup.
Over the great world's notes did these prevail.
And not alone / The signal poets woke. In listening man, / Woman, and child a poet stirs unknown, / Throughout the Mays of birds since Mays began.
He rose, he heard -- / Our father, our St. Peter, in his tears -- / The crowing, twice, of the prophetic bird, / The saddest cock-crow of our human years.