Finch in the After-Gloom

eFinch in the After-Gloomf[1]

 

(A Statue in the Other World)

 

-P-

 

The finch that fed

On crumbs of bread

And had no fear of me

 

Lies silent on a powdered leaf

Beneath a powdered tree

 

Her faith was cudgeled

 

In the cold -

 

She died here all alone,

 

A statue in the other world,

Her sculptor widely known

 

See how she flies

But does not rise

 

Into the dreary haze,

 

A remnant in the after-gloom

 

To sadden and amaze.

---

[1] The poet speaks directly to Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s magnificent line: “Ye did not know the sacred dust.” Paris regularly viewed roadkill with indifference, but the sight of a dead bird who he had come to know on a personal basis provoked genuine grief in him, as well as disheartening thoughts of his mortality �" He returns to this issue even more directly in The Sixth Decoration.