Tangled in Stars

Poems by
Ethelwyn Wetherald

 

THE SONG SPARROW’S NEST

Here where tumultuous vines
    Shadow the porch at the west,
Leaf with tendril entwines
    Under a song sparrow’s nest.
Just at the height of my heart,
5
    When I am loitering near,
And, exaggeration apart,
    Almost equally dear.

She in her pendulous nook
    Sways with the warm wind tide,
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I with a pen or a book
    Rock as soft at her side.
Comrades with nothing to say,
    Neither of us intrudes,
But through the lingering day
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    Each of us sits and broods.

Not upon hate and fear,
    Not upon grief or doubt,
Not upon spite or sneer,
    These we could never hatch out.
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She broods on wonderful things:
    Quickening life that belongs
To a heart and a voice and wings,
    But—I’m not so sure of my songs!

Then in the summer night,
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    When I awake with a start,
I think of the nest at the height—
    The leafy height of my heart;
I think of the mother love,
    Of the patient wings close furled,
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Of the sky that broods above,
    Of the love that broods on the world. [Page 25]