The City Bird [poem by Louisa Lawson]

[Editor: This poem by Louisa Lawson was published in “The Lonely Crossing” and Other Poems (1905).]

The City Bird.

A city bird once in a desperate rage
Threw over the bars of his screen
The whole of the seed that was put in his cage,
And it grew to a miniature green.

Sometimes when my troubles come up in a mass,
And fate a new sorrow doth send,
I turn my wet eyes to that bright bit of grass
As I would to the face of a friend.

For often it helps me to face a new day,
Where Sydney at worst must be seen,
To look on the sparkling dew as it lay
On the blades of the city-yard green.

Returning again at the end of the day
When I sit myself wearily down,
The scent of the grass takes me ever away
From the fret of a dust-covered town.

I wish when they lay me away to my rest,
And bosom and brain are serene,
Some friend would remember to plant o’er my breast
A tuft of that city-yard green.

Source:
Louisa Lawson, “The Lonely Crossing” and Other Poems, Sydney: Dawn Office, [1905], pp. 71-72

Editor’s notes:
doth = (archaic) does

o’er = (archaic) over (pronounced the same as “oar”, “or”, and “ore”)