Poems of Sidney Lanier/Owl against Robin

Frowning, the owl in the oak complained him Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him Wrongly of slumber, rudely of rest. “From the north, from the east, from the south and the west, Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover, Over and over and over and over, Five o’clock, ten o’clock, twelve, or seven, Nothing but robin-songs heard under heaven: How can we sleep?

‘Peep!’ you whistle, and ‘cheep! cheep! cheep!’ Oh, peep, if you will, and buy, if ’tis cheap, And have done; for an owl must sleep. Are ye singing for fame, and who shall be first? Each day’s the same, yet the last is worst, And the summer is cursed with the silly outburst Of idiot red-breasts peeping and cheeping By day, when all honest birds ought to be sleeping. Lord, what a din! And so out of all reason. Have ye not heard that each thing hath its season? Night is to work in, night is for play-time; Good heavens, not day-time!

A vulgar flaunt is the flaring day, The impudent, hot, unsparing day, That leaves not a stain nor a secret untold, — Day the reporter, —the gossip of old, — Deformity’s tease, —man’s common scold— Poh! Shut the eyes, let the sense go numb When day down the eastern way has come. ’Tis clear as the moon (by the argument drawn From Design) that the world should retire at dawn. Day kills. The leaf and the laborer breathe Death in the sun, the cities seethe, The mortal black marshes bubble with heat And puff up pestilence; nothing is sweet Has to do with the sun: even virtue will taint (Philosophers say) and manhood grow faint In the lands where the villainous sun has sway Through the livelong drag of the dreadful day. What Eden but noon-light stares it tame, Shadowless, brazen, forsaken of shame? For the sun tells lies on the landscape, —now Reports me the ‘what’, unrelieved with the ‘how’, — As messengers lie, with the facts alone, Delivering the word and withholding the tone.

But oh, the sweetness, and oh, the light Of the high-fastidious night! Oh, to awake with the wise old stars— The cultured, the careful, the Chesterfield stars, That wink at the work-a-day fact of crime And shine so rich through the ruins of time That Baalbec is finer than London; oh, To sit on the bough that zigzags low By the woodland pool, And loudly laugh at man, the fool That vows to the vulgar sun; oh, rare, To wheel from the wood to the window where A day-worn sleeper is dreaming of care, And perch on the sill and straightly stare Through his visions; rare, to sail Aslant with the hill and a-curve with the vale, — To flit down the shadow-shot-with-gleam, Betwixt hanging leaves and starlit stream, Hither, thither, to and fro, Silent, aimless, dayless, slow (‘Aimless? Field-mice?’ True, they’re slain, But the night-philosophy hoots at pain, Grips, eats quick, and drops the bones In the water beneath the bough, nor moans At the death life feeds on). Robin, pray Come away, come away To the cultus of night. Abandon the day. Have more to think and have less to say. And cannot you walk now? Bah! don’t hop! Stop! Look at the owl, scarce seen, scarce heard, O irritant, iterant, maddening bird!”