Judith Wright - Lyrebirds

Over the west side of the mountain, <br />that’s lyrebird country. <br />I could go down there, they say, in the early morning, <br />and I’d see them, I’d hear them. <br /> <br />Ten years, and I have never gone. <br />I’ll never go. <br />I’ll never see the lyrebirds - <br />the few, the shy, the fabulous, <br />the dying poets. <br /> <br />I should see them, if I lay there in the dew: <br />first a single movement <br />like a waterdrop falling, then stillness, <br />then a brown head, brown eyes, <br />a splendid bird, bearing <br />like a crest the symbol of his art, <br />the high symmetrical shape of the perfect lyre. <br />I should hear that master practising his art. <br /> <br />No, I have never gone. <br />Some things ought to be left secret, alone; <br />some things – birds like walking fables – <br />ought to inhabit nowhere but the reverence of the <br />heart.<br /><br />Judith Wright<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lyrebirds/