Читать книгу Poems, and The Spring of Joy - Mary Webb - Страница 10

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When the blue summer night

Is short and safe and light,

How should the starlings any more remember

The fearful, trembling times of dark December?

They mimic in their glee,

With impudent jocosity,

The terrible ululation of the owls

That prey

On just such folk as they.

‘Tu-whoo!’ And rusty-feathered fledglings, pressed

Close in the nest

Amid the chimney-stacks, are good all day

If their indulgent father will but play

At owls,

With predatory howls

And hoots and shrieks and whistlings wild and dread.

Says one small bird,

With lids drawn up, cosily tucked in bed,

‘Such things were never heard

By me or you.

They are not true.’