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THE STORM-COCK’S SONG

--Hugh Macdiarmid

 

My song today is the storm-cock’s 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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