Bluebird and Cardinal
I
Thou winged symbol of the quiet mind,
Thou straying violet, flying flower of spring,
Heaven-hued and heaven-hearted! Thou dost sing
As thou some sweet remembered thought didst find,
And, counseling with thyself in musing kind,
Didst softly say it over. Thy swift wing
Knows but a quiet rhythm; thou a thing
Of peace, to passion innocently blind.
Thy russet breast means married love, long hope,
Sheltered experience, small and sweet and sure.
All of the brown earth’s natural purity;
But something heavenly, beyond our scope,
Steeped thy blue wing in color strange and pure,
Intense and holy as the mirrored sky.
II
Pulse of the gorgeous world, jubilant, strong,—
Thy song a whistled splendor, and thy coat
A fiery song! From thy triumphant throat
How I have heard it pouring, loud and long.
Whipping the air as with a scarlet thong—
The joyous lashing of thy triple note
Which all the tamer noonday noises smote
And clove a royal pathway through the throng!
Thou singest joy of battle, joy of fame.
Glory, and love of woman; joy of strife
With life’s wild fates; and scorn’st, with jocund breath
For prudence’ sake to dim thy feathered flame—
Thou heart of fire, epitome of life,
Full-throated flouter of vindictive death!
III
And lo, among the leafy, hidden groves
Within my heart, they both do flit and nest,
Saintly blue wing and vaunting scarlet crest,
Yea, all of life and all its myriad loves.
Even as Nature holds them, sifts and proves
And balances, so shall my soul find rest
In Her large tolerance, which without rest
Or lagging, toward some wide conclusion moves.
So, though I weary sometimes of the stress,
Leave me not, little lovers of the air.
Dearest of Nature’s fine antitheses!
Thou of the musing voice and heavenly dress.
Thou, royal firebrand,—neither could I spare.
My scarlet Passion, nor my winged Peace!
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 10, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
“Bluebird and Cardinal” appeared in Karle Wilson Baker’s first poetry collection Blue Smoke: A Book of Verses (Yale University Press, 1919). In “Laureate of Texas: The Poetry of Karle Wilson Baker,” Sarah R. Jackson, professor emeritus of English at Stephen F. Austin State University, observed, “[Baker’s] poetic styles include the lyric, sonnet, narrative, and ode. Baker had a strong sense of imagery and of figures of speech, especially metaphor. Her subject matter was always influenced by her personal life, and many of the subjects first manifested in her poems were later subjects for prose writings. The early poems focus on family matters, religion, and nature, followed by contemporary concerns and the role of women, and the last poems lead us to her lifelong interest in Texas history.” Jackson goes on to recount a story “that the professor in a contemporary poetry class [at University of California, Berkeley] read a poem and then proceeded to explain to the class what the poet intended. He did not realize that Karle Wilson Baker, his student, was the author because he thought the poet was a male. After he spoke at some length about the poem, Baker raised her hand, identifying herself as the poet, and gave the real meaning she had intended in the poem!”
Karle Wilson Baker
