The Blackbird by William Morris

 The Blackbird

Listen to the blackbird singing
To the red flush in the west!
Of all that sing the spring in
The blackbird singeth best

O! how the music swelleth!
As he flutters there hard by,
For joy of the tales he telleth,
For the song that shall never die.

The young lime where he singeth
Will remember all his song,
When on his trunk time bringeth
The mosses clinging long.

To the bees by the blossoms humming
The leaves will tell the tale
In the summer that is coming
As they flutter in the gale[.]

 His singing riseth higher
To the small clouds overhead,
It goeth on to the fire
By the small clouds that is fed.

Sunsets will keep his singing;
When the lime is on the ground.
In the ivy about it clinging
Will thoughts of the song be found.

William Morris
unpublished Draft in B. L. Add. MS 45,298A, ff. 34-34v, in what may be Morris’ hand; see 3.