OUT OF THE SOUTH

A migrant song-bird I,

Out of the blue, between the sea and the sky,

Landward blown on bright, untiring wings;

Out of the South I fly,

Urged by some vague, strange force of destiny,

To where the young wheat springs,

And the maize begins to grow,

And the clover fields to blow.

I have sought

In far wild groves below the tropic line

To lose old memories of this land of mine;

I have fought

This vague, mysterious power that flings me forth

Into the North;

But all in vain. When flutes of April blow,

The immemorial longing lures me, and I go.

—Maurice Thompson.