The Hawk Poem by Leon Gellert

Swoop! Swoop!
From dizzy skies thou singest
To the shining earth.
To where unseen
Amid the green
Untimely death thou bringest
To unseeing mirth.

Upon a dark crag peering
Through half-eclipsed eye,
An eye unkind,
Dost meet the wind
With lifted head all-hearing
In the algid sky.

What awful thought is sitting
In thy brain and breast,
That beats thy blood
With throbbing flood,
When linnets come night-flitting
To their night-tide nest?

‘Neath wind-torn skies fast speeding
As the clouds above
Dost skim and sail
With wedge-wrought tail
‘Mid fledglings sweetly pleading,
to departed love.

Where is that love low-lying
In a God-made thing
Of feathered form?
Is thy blood warm,
Thou bloody thing, swift-flying,
That canst never sing?

Swoop! Swoop!
From dizzy skies thou swingest
To the singing earth.
To where unseen
Amid the green
Untimely death though bringest
To unseeing mirth.