Five songs , opus 128

Out of the high skies birds are falling, 
White birds, dark birds, sailing down, 
No bird crying, no bird drawling ; 
Leaves in Autumn, petals in Spring, 
So would wander and slant and wing, 
But no tree ever went up so far 
To hide a mountain and a star 
And loose its leaves gone brown. 

I am tired of the wind 
Oh, wind, wind, be quiet . . . 
I am burdened by the days 
Of wailing and long riot. 
The heavy trees are thinned ; 
The clouds lose their ways . . . 
There's no rest in my mind. 
When the wind falls the rain falls ; 
The air has no more breath. 
The ceaseless " Hush " of rain 
Is what eternity saith. 
The hills grown near and tall 
Let down a misty mane . . . 
Endlessness weighs on all. 

Between April and May 
No more can pass 
Than the edge of a mist 
Or a sidelong ray 
From the mopn or the glass 
Where the little moons hide 
To shew me your wrist 
On whiteness and nothing beside. 

The night is still, 
The darkness knows 
How far away 
A wavering rill 
Of warm air goes ; 
Though no bough hums, 
Between April and May 
A streak of plum-blossom comes. 

A thrush is tapping a stone 
With a snail-shell in its beak ; 
A small bird hangs from a cherry 
Until the stem shall break. 
No waking song has begun, 
And yet birds chatter and hurry 
And throng in the elm's gloom 
Because an owl goes home. 

The day had a sunless dawning,
The lark forgot to sing --
Is this the lark that creeps in the grass
With a trailing wounded wing?

My tears with the rain are mingled:
Of rain and tears I am fain,
For I and all the other flowers
Are sweetest after rain.

The day has a sunless ending;
The rain will never cease;
The other flowers, weary and wrecked,
Find sweetness in death's peace.