A Mocking Bird Sang In Carondolet Street - A poem by Louisa Cooke Don-Carlos

A Mocking Bird Sang In Carondelet Street

As I opened wide my window,
There were billowy clouds within the faint blue sky,
A mocking bird was singing in the street,
Perched on a pale, pave-girded tree.
"Bird, what do you here, amid the city's cacaphony
Chanting of fields and lakes and groves,
Of heady perfumes of the orange-flowers,
And eucalyptus-balsamed air?"

A honey-bee (astray like me,
Within the city's prisoning walls
And thronged asphalted streets)
Hearing the mock-bird's song,
And thinking that spring was come again,
Buzzed about my window-sill.
"You come too late, old honey-hauler,
Not one pale heliotrope is blooming still",

"Ah bird, I pray you, cease your song!
Go, get you gone
To that green, far-off place, where you belong!
I hear your singing and I curse its art
For fear 'twill wake my sleeping heart
That dreams, contented with its fate.
My spring is gone, 0 mocking bird!
And you have come too late!"

^__Louisa Cooke Don-Carlos