He comes on chosen evenings

He comes on chosen evenings

My blackbird, bountiful, and sings

Over the gardens of the town

Just at the hour the sun goes down.

His flight across the chimneys thick

By some divine arithmatic

Comes to his customary stack

And couches there, his plumage black.

And there he lifts his yellow bill

Kindled against the sunset till

These suburbs are like Dymmock Woods

Where music has her solitudes.

And while he mocks the winter's wrong

Rapt on his pinnacle of song

Figured above our garden plots

These are celestial chimney pots.

by John Drinkwater

 

I learned this by heart when I was nine years old and it has stayed with me since then.

Done