Summer bird I beseech thee
teach me a song as free as thee
lend my thoughts your wings, your sky
make my words light and spry
Colour my soul with your sight
mango blossoms and a sun so bright
Fill it brimming with a thousand blooms
of colours and light and sweet perfumes
Lead me through summer's lust
through heat and breeze and swirling dust
Tell me what secrets spake
the pigeon cooing to his mate
Hide my mind in a jasmine's breast
drown my heart in manna blest
Take me deep into her cove
take me into her sceret grove
Show me there her throbbing soul
Sloping valleys and sylvan knoll
Show me there in that single flower
A thousand blooms that live forever
Take me then on a butterfly's lips
humming through a hundred trips
to roses, violets and others untame
a thousand hearts for us to claim
Rest me awhile on a blade
of grass asleep in banyan shade
A dreamy sleep of sweat and heat
drinking noon sun's passion sweet
Carry me then on a sunbeam bent
to some sweet land with pastoral scent
of placid cows and cowherd's song
where evenings stretch languorously long
Fold your wings and sit by me
as dusk dies softly by a tree
Teach me silence that your heart holds
as the orange glow gently unfolds
Then take me home to a sylvan hutch
half asleep in the full moon's touch
Lay me there on simple earth
and let me sleep a sleep of death