Observations placeholder
Spender, Stephen - Passing, men are sorry for the birds in cages
Identifier
029164
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Passing, men are sorry for the birds in cages
Passing, men are sorry for the birds in cages
And for constricted nature hedged and lined.
But what do they say to your pleasant bird
Physical delight, since years tamed?
Behind centuries, behind the continual hill.
The wood you felled, your clothes, the slums you built.
Only love knows where that bird dips his head.
Only the sun, soaked in memory, flashes on his neck.
Dance, will you? And sing? Yet pray he is dead.
Invent politics to hide him and law suits and suits:
Now he’s impossible and quite destroyed like grass
Where the fields are covered with your more living houses.
I never hear you are happy, but I wonder
Whether it was at a shiny bazaar,
At a brittle dance or a party, that you could create
Procrastination of nature, for your talk and laughter are
Only a glass that flashes back the light
And that covers only hate.
Will you not forgive him? I have signed his release
Alarming and gentle like the blood’s throb.
And his fountain of joy wakes the solitary stag
From his cherished sleep.
But if you still bar your pretty bird, remember
Revenge and despair are prisoned in your bowels.
Life cannot pardon the ideal without scruple.
The enemy of flesh, the angel and destroyer.
Creator of a martyrdom serene, but horrible.