Katharine Tynan Hinkson (1861-1931). Cuckoo Songs (1894). I. God's Bird. Alfred H. Miles, ed. 1907. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

Cuckoo Songs (1894)
I. God’s Bird

By Katharine Tynan Hinkson (1861–1931)


NAY, not Thine eagle, Lord;
No golden eagle I,
That creep half-fainting on the sward
And have not wings to fly.

Nor yet Thy swallow dear,	5
That, faring home to Thee,
Looks on the storm and hath no fear
And broods above the sea.

Nor yet Thy tender dove,
Meek as Thyself, Thou Lamb!	10
I would I were the dove, Thy love,
And not the thing I am!

But take me in Thy hand
To be Thy sparrow, then;
Were two sparrows in Holy Land,	15
One farthing bought the twain.

Make me Thy sparrow, then,
That trembles in Thy hold;
And who shall pluck me out again
And cast me in the cold?	20

But if I fall at last,
A thing of little price,
If Thou one thought on me hast cast,
Lo, then my paradise!