The Bird We Never See

It came to sing just outside the window
When our professor paused to take a breath.
Though it was nothing more than a flitting shadow,
Its voice was mightier than the angel of death,

Stronger by far than the roar of the wide ocean,
More lovely than the stars that shine on heaven's walls.
Regret and love and pain and joy, a paen to emotion,
Flooded in the soft, liquid, and loosely-toned calls.

For a moment, we all sat silent, darkly listening;
Then our professor grinned, and said it was a sign
To move on to 'Songs of Innocence'- not a glistening
Message of more than innocence, impossible to define:

For how does one define the bird that sings in the soul,
The music that escapes into the world in floating melody,
Just a snatch of tune before something closes the hole?
Doubt, or shyness stifles so often the bird we never see-

The bird we never see, the bird whose voice we only hear
For that moment when we pause to listen and to long,
Before we turn away- as we did, though the song clear
Rose a moment more before it ceased to be a song.

Then the shadow of the bird moved across the window,
Wings and flicking tail, head and feet lost to sight.
So the best things in our life are but song and shadow-
So when we look into the sun we are blinded by its light.