The Poet's Song (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)

The rain had fallen, the Poet arose,
He pass’d by the town and out of the street,
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun
And waves of shadow went over the wheat
And he sat him down in a lonely place
And chanted a melody loud and sweet
That made the wild swan pause on her cloud
And the lark drop down at his feet.

The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee,
The snake slipt under the spray,
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak
And stared with his foot on the prey;
And the nightingale thought, “I have sung many songs,
But never a one so gay”,
For he sings of what the world will be
When the years have died away.