A splash of darkness on the face of day
Spilled out of night when tips her bowl of dreams,
Your sombre iridescent plumage gleams
With shimmering beauty in the sun's bright ray.
What subtle alchemy dissolved the night
And out of sheer invisibility
Extracted all its essence, setting free
One jet of ebon in expansive flight?

Your voice, though man with poor appraisement mock.
To all the brooding silences is known;
The tempest swings you in its thunder zone,
Your heart at rest amid the storm's wild shock.
I hear you cawing in the quiet morn
Among the hills and in the fields and corn.