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THE STORM-COCKS SONG --Hugh Macdiarmid
My song today is the storm-cocks song. When the cold winds blow and the driving snow Hides the tree-tops, only his song rings out In the lulls in the storm. So let mine go!
On the topmost twig of a leafless ash He sits bolt upright against the sky Surveying the white fields and the leafless woods And distant red in the East with his buoyant eye.
Surely he has little enough cause to sing When even the hedgerow betties are already pulped by the frost Or eaten by other birds yet alone and aloft To another hungry day his greeting is tossed.
Blessed are those who have songs to sing When others are silent; poor song though it be, Just a message to the silence that someone is still Alive and glad, though on a naked tree.
What if it is only a few churning notes Flung out in a loud and artless way? His Will I do it? Do it I will! is worth a lot When the rest have nothing at all to say.
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