The Swallow Poem by Dora Sigerson Shorter

How I hate the sparrows, the sparrows, the sparrows.
In and out and round the house all the live-long day,
Chirping shrill and fussy birds, with their silly petty minds,
Chittering and chattering, yet having naught to say.
How I love the swallows, the swallows, the swallows,
Coming from a far land of minaret and dome.
I have got a small room, like a clinging cosy nest,
Built upon the gable-end of my country home.
On its wall the swallows house, who can find its secret door?
Such a cunning nursery, made with Eastern art.
I can hear the baby ones, in their first, swift, troubled flight,
Giving little frightened cries as they swoop and dart.
And I hear the swallow-folk telling tales of foreign climes,
In a low sweet lullaby long before the day.
Little brothers of the wind, children of the summer time,
Lovers of the summer sky, swift you fly away!


I will dream the lone long hours, sick sad days, and weary nights;
If I should grow well again I will follow too,
See their distant happy homes, built with their strange Eastern art;
I shall seek but smiling lands, skies forever blue.
And when swallows come again over all the changing sea,
Back to where their empty nests still do cling and stay,
I shall have a cabin, too, hidden 'neath its golden thatch,
Snow-white on a mountain side, built of Irish clay.
I will leave the sparrows here, all the silly noisy birds,
In and out and round the home all the live-long day,
Chirping shrill and fussy ones, with their shallow sparrow minds,
Chittering and chattering, yet having naught to say.