Bird Poems
On the Forest Floor
By: James V. Harker, Jr.
Beneath some fallen leaves;
On the forest floor,
Lies a bird; silent.
Chirping no more...
The once esteemed beauty
Of his golden feathers,
Are now washed away,
By the rain and awful weather,
His wings are bent and broken;
He can barely fly,
The eagle-like heart he once had,
Is now beginning to die.
No one looks up to this bird anymore.
He is just another fallen object,
Lying on the forest floor...
The little bird, as he dies,
Looks up at the blue skies,
And no one even stops to cry,
Or to feel any emotions inside,
As his heart beats its last song,
No one wonders if they have done wrong.
As it was, the bird just needed love;
Love, all along.
But there was no one there,
To mend his broken wings,
There was no one there,
To listen to the song he would sing.
The people were too busy,
And too controlled by wealth,
To care at all about nursing a bird,
Back to proper health.
They could not look down,
To the broken, sad, and poor;
And spot a little bird,
Lying there,
On the forest floor,
They could not bend down,
And cup him in their palm.
They could not sooth him,
And make his beating heart calm.
But there was Someone,
Up in the sky,
He watched sadly,
As the little bird slowly died,
His hand reached down,
From the place in the sky,
It carried the bird up, up,
Way up high.
Now the bird is free,
Free again.
Free to chirp, free to sing,
A song of no end,
But, down here,
Where the bird once lay;
On the forest floor,
Things get harder;
Worse than they were before,
More things die,
And drop to the ground.
Things vanish away,
Without making a sound,
And while they are now happy,
We can not ignore,
The bird we left there to die,
On the forest floor.
The Humming Bird
By: Brandon S. Hesse
The rain has stopped,
And daylight delays.
The night is calm;
And anticipates its rays.
As morning breaks through,
Like a deer thru the hedge;
She is already found
At a rose petal's edge.
Such a simple life,
Portrayed in such hurry.
Though its all in a day's work;
There is no time for her to worry.
Gathering nectar for food,
Her song she plays loud.
Though merely a result of her flight,
Her song she plays proud!
So the next time you see her,
Don't say a single word.
For you will have just missed
The song of the Humming Bird!
Birds of Sunfall
By: Dinesh
Birds of sunfall passing in my eyes
Far off in the patterns of storm clouds,
How I wish to freeze you in my thoughts
And paint my poem on skies of yours.
Birds of sunfall singing your song
Pouring o'er hues at the trees of fall,
How I wish to flutter with you beside
And douse my wings at silent shores.
Birds of sunfall, of poets' surmise
Gliding towards where you belong
How I wish to predict your paths
And come to where completeness moors.
Birds of sunfall, this evening dies,
Come to my windows and prove me wrong.
Swallow Eyes
By: Marcia J. Zeller
As a swallow sits in an old rotting tree,
Lovely and sad as a swallow should be,
The sun's all shining as he's basking.
All the long I'm there asking,
What is it that you see?
His wings not bent, but stretched to the extent;
With the wink of an eye, swallow, dear swallow begins to fly.
Over the moon and across the sky,
Up to where the angles sing their sweet lullaby.
Take my word for it, he whispered gaily,
I see God's magic daily.
There's an obscene amount of green,
So many colors to be seen,
You see,
But I alone just wallow,
As a swallow in this old rotting tree.
Cardinal in the Snow
By: Grace
A white blanket covers the yard.
Snowflakes fly swiftly threw the air.
There sits a Cardinal on the frozen bush.
Feathers puffed and bold.
Singing a winter tune.
the wet snowflakes melt on his head.
Hearing the creak of a gate, and with one swift movement he lifts into a gentle soar.
Off he goes into the white sky.
To Be a Bird
By: Tim Graham
The Eagle soars, then comes to rest,
atop an impossible tower.
The Eagle soars from the seat of Power.
The Owl watches, patiently perched,
atop a moonlit roof.
The Owl watches from the seat of Truth.
The Lark sings, a melody made,
atop the clouds above.
The Lark sings from the seat of Love.
To be a bird!
To be all three!!!
With enough Love,
to find the Truth and Power in me.
Sparrows
By: Sally Plumb
Sparrows
Birds in a
bare bush
beneath quiet
noonday beams,
tail flicking,
preening,
dreaming Spring dreams.
There, on the
high branch
backs to the sun
- sparrows -
steeped warm.
A calm March
has begun.
Bird Music
By: Rose Terry Cooke
Singer of priceless melody,
Underguerdoned chorister of air,
Who from the lithe top of the tree
Pourest at will thy music rare,
As if a sudden brook laughed down the hill-side there.
The purple-blossomed fields of grass,
Waved sea-like to the idle wind,
Thick daisies that the stars surpass,
Being as fair and far more kind;--
All sweet uncultured things thy wild notes bring to mind.
When that enraptured overflow
Of singing into silence dies,
Thy rapid fleeting pinions show
Where all thy spell of sweetness lies
Gathered in one small nest from the wide earth and skies.
Unconscious of thine audience,
Careless of praises as of blame,
In simpleness and innocence,
Thy gentle life pursues its aim,
So tender and serene, that we might blush for shame.
The patience of thy brooding wings
That droop in silence day by day,
The little crowd of callow things
That joy for weariness repay,--
These are the living spring, thy song the fountain's spray.
Birds
By: Sarah Josepha Hale
If ever I see,
On bush or tree,
Young birds in a pretty nest,
I must not, in my play,
Steal the birds away,
To grieve their mother's breast.
My mother I know,
Would sorrow so,
Should I be stolen away--
So I'll speak to the birds,
In my softest words,
Nor hurt them in my play.
Birds of Spring
By: Watie W. Swanzy
Trooping o'er the meadows,
Chatter, chatter, chatter!
Greeting pussy willows,
Twitter, twitter, twitter!
Pluming each light wing,
Sipping at the spring,
Flitting here and there,
Sweet birds everywhere!
First awake at morning,
Chirping, chirping, chirping!
First to greet the day-king,
Trilling, trilling, trilling!
Then a happy fly
Far up in the sky,
Coming back to rest
And to take breakfast.
Choosing glossy mate,
Flatter, flatter, flatter!
In doubt which one to take,
Flutter, flutter, flutter!
Difficult task to do,
To find a mate that's true,
Perfect in every thing,
From bill to tip of wing.
Fixing up the old nests,
Busy, busy, busty!
Bringing sticks for new rests,
Hurry, hurry, hurry!
Bits of moss and thread
Make a downy bed
To roll the eggs about
While they're hatching out.
Watching the butterfly,
Slily, slily, slily!
Trying like birds to fly,
Silly, silly, silly!
As if a worm could vie
With birds that always fly,
Although their wings so quaint
With gaudy colors paint.
Singing to daisies white
Sweetly, sweetly, sweetly!
And to buttercups bright,
Gayly, gayly, gayly!
To snowdrops emerald set,
Crocus and violet,
Cheerily, cheerily sing,
Birds of the early spring.
Bird Songs
By: Martha Lavinia Hoffman
The birds are happy, singing all day through
Their little psalms of praise,
And just because the sky is clear and blue,
The grasses green, the trees in leafage new;
Awake my heart, and be thou happy too,
These sunny days.
Sing, as the birds sing, just for love
OfGodand song;
Make for His temple every leafy grove
That rears its frescoed canopy above.
Thy strength, thy freedom and thy gladness prove
O'er gloom and wrong.
One little songster taught me his lay
It was so sweet,
These were the warbled words he seemed to say:
"Earth is so joyous that I long to stay,
Heavenis so glorious, I would fly away."
Still doth his song repeat.
Dreading to live, yet fearing more to die,
Take thy distress
To where the birds through field and forest fly,
Trilling their thankfulness to earth and sky,
And without gold, or lands or honor, buy
Such songs as this.
The birds are singing, not for gold or fame
Their songs may bring.
O, what care they for words of slight or blame,
For breathless listeners, or honored name!
To empty aisles they carol just the same
Because they love to sing.
Thebirdsare happy, 'till their joy o'erflows
In minstrelsy;
No wealth for them in glittering treasure glows.
Awake, my heart, and know what nature knows
The ecstasy of life that is and was
And evermore shall be.
Had I But Wings Like Thine
By: Martha Lavinia Hoffman
Had I but wings like thine,
Free bird of flight,
To scale the heights that only wings can reach,
Or steer my passage o'er yon seas of light,
Whose cloudy beach
Is ever shifting like the sands oftime!
Had I but wings like thine
To soar between
Those airy deeps and lower deeps more real,
Above the wrecks and ruins of the main,
The joy to feel
Offreedomon unfailing pinions mine!
Had I but wings like thing
To visit lands
Of ancient story and undimmed renown;
To roam and rest beside those glittering strands
That ages crown
With words and thoughts that lustrous gems outshine!
Had I but wings like thine!
In yonder skies,
Thy graceful form becomes a speck to view;
Had I but wings like thine I would arise,
Abirdof passage too,
To pass beyond this narrow prison line!
Had I but wings like thine!
'Tis vain to long;
Ah! rather let me feel those hidden wings,
That to a higher, broader, flight belong;
Be mine a heart that ever soars and sings
Above the wrecks of wrong!
The Life of a Bird
By: Edith Matilda Thomas
Thou art clothed on with plumes, as with leaves,
Frond-like, and lighter than air;
Thy pinions are arrows in sheaves,
That carry thee none knoweth where.
Thou fliest, and none gives pursuit,
Thy realm both the earth and the sky;
Thou hast in thy bosom a flute,
The glance of asoulin thine eye.
Thou obeyest a sovereignpower
That sets thee on Summer's track;
Thou knowest the tide and the hour
When to advance, or turn back.
Into the world thou art flung,
Thou herald of rapture and light.
Thou weavest ahomefor thy young--
And none but thyself hath the sleight.
Out of the world thou art gone,
And who shall say where is thy rest?
A rapture and light are withdrawn
Into some Heaven-side nest.
For who of my kind hath beheld
Where, stricken, were any of thine?
Hast thou not been, from of old--
A spirit unscathed and divine?
The Loon
By: Lew Sarett
A lonely lake, a lonely shore,
A lone pine leaning on the moon;
All night the water-beating wings
Of a solitary loon.
With mournful wail from dusk to dawn
He gibbered at the taunting stars--
A hermit-soul gone raving mad,
And beating at his bars.
The Mockingbird
By: Du Fu
What! Is the mocking bird come?
The Spring, he comes to say,
TheSpringis here today.
All sounds, all words he knows.
His feathers preen how he will,
He is the same bird still.
Where flowers most thickly screen,
Difficult to be seen,
His varying notes deride
The topmost boughs between.
If out of time he chide.
Lo! slander at your side!
The Oriole
By: Andrew Downing
In robe of orange, and of black,
With mellow music in his throat,
Our fairest summer bird is back
From southern woods and fields remote.
Beneath the shading, glossy leaves
The sunset gold upon his breast--
The restless, little toiler weaves
His hanging wonder of a nest!
And, as I watch him, flashing there,
My fancy deems the oriole
A wand'ring blossom of the air,
Endowed with wings, and voice, and soul!
To the Birds
By: Martha Lavinia Hoffman
O lark, whose joyous warbling comes
Across the flowery field to me;
O red-winged leaders of the gay
And music-gifted company
Who gave the Spring's first matinee,
The blackbirds' jubilee.
O swallows, perching on the eaves
Or circling in the air;
O linnets, chirping in the vines
Where wild rose coyly intervines
With virgin's bower and wild woodbines
That clamber, here and there.
O ruby-throated humming-birds,
That gem the sunbeam's gold;
Perching, your ditty to repeat,
Tasting the honey-suckle sweet
Or whirring near my cloistered seat,
Half timorous and half bold.
No nightingale pours forth at eve
His famous solo here.
No sky-lark soars to yonder sky
To carol Nature's praise on high
Or gush his heaven-born rhapsody
From fields of upper air.
Not unto these, for whom the bard
His richest number lends;
But unto you, who build and brood
By yonder stream, in yonder wood,
Companions of my solitude,
My little feathered friends.
To you I sing, though others may
Their far-famed gifts rehearse
And sing of sky-larks on the wing
Where none were ever heard to sing;
And nightingales, triumphant bring
To grace their native verse.
Doubtless the Scottish poet finds
In these a lasting joy.
He loves his own green spot of earth,
Of heath-clad hill and foaming firth;
But holds not our broad land enough
Our homage to employ.
Ye golden warblers, darting now,
Through peach-bloom canopies;
Ye orioles, who seek the grove
To sing the sonnets of your love,
In joyous warblings, interwove
With softest melodies.
Ye wild canaries, caroling
Beneath the alders' shade;
Ye sprightly grosbeaks, whose rich lay
From apple-boughs at close of day,
When sauntering on my homeward way,
My willing feet have stayed.
And last, but loveliest of them all,
In fields, or woods, or dales,
The shy lazuli-finch, whose song
Is borne the forest aisles along,
Woodsy and wild, to you belong
Wild hills and wooded vales.
And many another chorister
That time would fail to tell,
Who helps to make the woods resound
With bursts of rich melodious sound
That answering echoes from around
To one grand chorus swell.
Long may your notes of blithesome cheer
The rounds of life beguile.
Long may your bright hues flash and shine
In this proud, happy land of mine,
In this free, joyous land of thine,
Gay choir of forest aisle!
Come when the dove's low cooing calls
To Spring's first bursting bud.
Come when the honey-bee invites,
To Summer's bounteous delights
To sunny days and moonlight nights
The fruitful field and wood.
And when the sere and yellow leaf
Falls murmuring to the ground,
Tarry, to chant creation's praise
In your own sunny, witching ways,
So long as bloom and fruitage stays
Or sheltering nooks are found.
And when my life's glad Spring is past,
Its apple-blooms decayed;
And when my life's sweet Summer goes
No more its beauties to unclose;
When time has bloomed its latest rose
In loneliness to fade.
In Autumn sheaves all gathered in
Its flame to ashes burned.
I still would ask thy ministry.
Come to my grave and sing to me
Creation's sweetest melody
That man has never learned.
Though far away, I may not hear,
Yet sweet will be the thought
That they who nearestHeavensoar,
From earth's green fields and wave-beat shore,
Still sing to me when life is o'er
And others have forgot.
The Red-Wing Blackbird
By: William Carlos Williams
The wild red-wing black-
bird croaks frog-
like though more shrill
as the beads of
his head blaze over the
swamp and the o-
dors of the swamp vodka
to his nostrils
Stork
By: Ellen Bryant Voigt
There are seventeen species of stork.
The painted stork is pink in his nuptial plumage.
The milky stork woos with his large flat bill.
The marabou offers her carrion, as does the adjutant.
Due to irregular throat structure, storks have no voice;
they strike their beaks together in lovesong.
Newborns know to swallow the fish head-first.