I. — Section 7

Trillets of humor, — shrewdest whistle-wit, —

Contralto cadences of grave desire

Such as from off the passionate Indian pyre

Drift down through sandal-odored flames that split

About the slim young widow who doth sit

And sing above, — midnights of tone entire, —

Tissues of moonlight shot with songs of fire; —

Bright drops of tune, from oceans infinite

Of melody, sipped off the thin-edged wave

And trickling down the beak, — discourses brave

Of serious matter that no man may guess, —

Good-fellow greetings, cries of light distress —

All these but now within the house we heard:

O Death, wast thou too deaf to hear the bird?

II.

Ah me, though never an ear for song, thou hast

A tireless tooth for songsters: thus of late

Thou camest, Death, thou Cat! and leap'st my gate,

And, long ere Love could follow, thou hadst passed

Within and snatched away, how fast, how fast,

My bird — wit, songs, and all — thy richest freight

Since that fell time when in some wink of fate

Thy yellow claws unsheathed and stretched, and cast

Sharp hold on Keats, and dragged him slow away,

And harried him with hope and horrid play —

Ay, him, the world's best wood-bird, wise with song —

Till thou hadst wrought thine own last mortal wrong.

'Twas wrong! 'twas wrong! I care not, WRONG's the word —

To munch our Keats and crunch our mocking-bird.