Swoop! Swoop!
From dizzy skies thou singest
To the shining earth.
To where unseen
Amid the green
Untimely death thou bringest
To unseeing mirth.

Upon a dark crag peering
Through half-eclipsed eye,
An eye unkind,
Dost meet the wind
With lifted head all-hearing
In the algid sky.

What awful thought is sitting
In thy brain and breast,
That beats thy blood
With throbbing flood,
When linnets come night-flitting
To their night-tide nest?

‘Neath wind-torn skies fast speeding
As the clouds above
Dost skim and sail
With wedge-wrought tail
‘Mid fledglings sweetly pleading,
to departed love.

Where is that love low-lying
In a God-made thing
Of feathered form?
Is thy blood warm,
Thou bloody thing, swift-flying,
That canst never sing?

Swoop! Swoop!
From dizzy skies thou swingest
To the singing earth.
To where unseen
Amid the green
Untimely death though bringest
To unseeing mirth.