The Humming-Bird Poem by Harriet Monroe

What a boom! boom!
Sounds among the honeysuckles!
Saying, 'Room! room!
Hold your breath and mind your knuckles!”
And a fairy birdling bright
Flits like a living dart of light,
With his tiny whirlwind wings
Flies and rests and sings.
All his soul one flash, one quiver,
Down each cup
He thrusts his long beak with a shiver,
Drinks the sweetness up;
Takes the best of earth and goes—
Daring sprite!—
Back to his heaven no mortal knows,
A heaven as sweet as the heart of a rose
Shut at night.
Out upon the trackless highway
Now I go,
Beaten road and trail and byway
Far below!
I have shaken from my feet
Mire of earth, dust of the street.
Now the birds' way shall be my way,
Winds of heaven shall be my seat!
Out upon the untrodden highway
Now I go.

Patterned parks and bold skyscrapers
Of the town,
Close-packed houses plumed with vapors,
Dwindle down
In a world that slants and tips.
And the little creeping ships
Skim the sea. And people crawling
In their cage earth-bound, appalling,
Crowd and cross and would be free—
Look at me!

I shall over-ride the mountain
Through the blue,
And the cloud shall be my fountain
Fringed with dew.
Towers and tree-tops swing and sway,
Broidered meadows glide away.
Now I tread the air's own highway,
Now the eagle's way is my way.
I am off to meet the mountain—
Where are you?