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--