Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WINGS IN THE NIGHT, by KATHARINE TYNAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WINGS IN THE NIGHT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Now in the soft spring midnight
Last Line: Over the wild grey water.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hinkson, Katharine Tynan
Subject(s): Birds; Comfort; Mothers; Soul; War; World War I; First World War


NOW in the soft Spring midnight
There's rush of wings and whirr,
Birds flying softly, swiftly;
The night's a-flutter, astir.

Home by the bitter seas,
They have sped home together.
So glad to be coming home
To the grey hills, the grey weather.

Calling and calling softly,
One lights by the window-pane:
The rook, weary with building,
Turns to his sleep again.

Ere ever the moor-hens wake
And the wild duck come in,
The birds are about the house
With a long call and thin.

They have wakened the wood-pigeon
To make her plaintive moan,
The wood-pigeon lamenting
For sorrows not her own.

Oh, they are never birds,
But souls of men on the wind,
Seeking the mother's breast,
The heart that is soft and kind.

Souls of the Irish dead,
Flown from the fields of slaughter,
Home to the mother's arms
Over the wild grey water.





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