Heron Poems

Table of Contents

1. The Blue Heron

   by Bliss Carman

   
   

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   I see the great blue heron
   Rising among the reeds
   And floating down the wind,
   Like a gliding sail
   With the set of the stream.
   

   I hear the two-horse mower
   Clacking among the hay,
   In the heat of a July noon,
   And the driver's voice
   As he turns his team.
   

   I see the meadow lilies
   Flecked with their darker tan,
   The elms, and the great white clouds;
   And all the world
   Is a passing dream.
   

2. The Blue Heron

   by Maurice Thompson

   
   

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   Where water-grass grows overgreen
   On damp, cool flats by gentle streams,
   Still as a ghost and sad of mien,
   With half-closed eyes the heron dreams.
   

   Above him in the sycamore
   The flicker beats a dull tattoo;
   Through pawpaw groves the soft airs pour
   Gold dust of blooms and fragrance new.
   

   And from the thorn it loves so well,
   The oriole flings out its strong,
   Sharp lay, wrought in the crucible
   Of its flame-circled soul of song.
   

   The heron nods. The charming runes
   Of Nature's music thrill his dreams;
   The joys of many Mays and Junes
   Wash past him like cool summer streams.
   

   What tranquil life, what joyful rest,
   To feel the touch of fragrant grass,
   And doze like him, while tenderest
   Dream-waves across my sleep would pass!
   

3. A Green Heron

   by Maurice Thompson

   
   

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   Where a bright creek into the river's side
   Shoots its keen arrow, a green heron sits,
   Watching the sunfish as it gleaming flits
   From sheen to shade. He sees the turtle glide
   Through the clear spaces of the rhythmic stream,
   Like some weird fancy through a poet's dream;
   He turns his golden eyes from side to side,
   In very gladness that he is not dead,
   While the swift wind-stream ripples overhead
   And the creek's wavelets babble underneath!
   

   O bird! that in a cheerful gloom dost live,
   Thou art, to me, a type of happy death;
   For when thou fliest away no mate will grieve
   Because a lone, strange spirit vanisheth!
   

4. The Heron

   by Edward Hovell-Thurlow

   
   

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   O melancholy bird, a winter's day
   Thou standest by the margin of the pool,
   And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school
   To Patience, which all evil can allay.
   God has appointed thee the Fish thy prey;
   And given thyself a lesson to the Fool
   Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule,
   And his unthinking course by thee to weigh.
   There need not schools, nor the Professor's chair,
   Though these be good, true wisdom to impart;
   He, who has not enough for these to spare
   Of time, or gold, may yet amend his heart,
   And teach his soul, by brooks and rivers fair:
   Nature is always wise in every part.
   

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