13
Song on, sing on you gray-brown bird,
Sing from the swamps, the recesses,
pour your chant from the bushes,
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the
cedars and pines.
Sing on dearest brother, warble your
reedy song,
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost
woe.
O liquid and free and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous
singer!
You only I hear—yet the star holds me,
(but will soon depart,)
Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds
me.