| Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891. | | | | A Green Heron | | By Maurice Thompson (1844–1901) |
| | | WHERE a bright creek into the river’s side | |
| Shoots its keen arrow, a green heron sits, | |
| Watching the sunfish as it gleaming flits | |
| From sheen to shade. He sees the turtle glide | |
| Through the clear spaces of the rhythmic stream, | 5 |
| Like some weird fancy through a poet’s dream; | |
| He turns his golden eyes from side to side, | |
| In very gladness that he is not dead, | |
| While the swift wind-stream ripples overhead | |
| And the creek’s wavelets babble underneath! | 10 |
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| O Bird! that in a cheerful gloom dost live, | |
| Thou art, to me, a type of happy death; | |
| For when thou fliest away no mate will grieve | |
| Because a lone, strange spirit vanisheth! | | | | |
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