Spring-Song: A Ballad

It was a cold winter.
A dry, dusty, old winter.
A winter hoary with age.
Spring-bird sat mute in her gilded cage.

She’d lost her song for no clear reason,
Revered, regal Spring-bird: now a bird out of season.
Her siren-song lost, her signal for spring
Her song for the future, for all the gifts it would bring.

The bold men of the land, they knew it was time,
For the ice to melt, for warmer climes.
Beasts were slain, hymns sung.
Offerings made, garlands strung.

She saw all, her parched throat bitter with gall.
Her plaintive song, had held these men in thrall.
“It’s been winter forever,” they spoke in hushed tones,
The dust in their rusted teeth, the chill deep in their bones.

Would the Ice Giants rise again? They feared.
Spring bird strained, her plumes wet with tears.
Bitter and angry were her beloved Norse men:
Tired of waiting, of beasts killed in vain.

“Spring-Bird is old. She no longer heralds spring,
This winter only worsens- she can no longer sing.”
Hostile from hunger, convulsed with rage,
They eyed with envy her golden cage.

A temple, where late the sweet bird sang,
Where her assuring trills once confidently rang,
Her resting place, their shrine of yore,
Now a ruin of lost affections: a shrine, no more.

They were solemn and sure: “Of no use is she:
She is in disgrace: we will set her free.
Her cage is worth a season’s harvest:
This decision we take: it is for the best.”

Spring-Bird envisioned the sunny shores of Spain,
She would fly over the oceans, and sport with the rains.
Her bane was now her boon, she blinked in disbelief:
Her cold heart began to thaw, she was filled with relief.

She’d contemplate the Bay of Biscay,
Perhaps she would roost for an entire day.
She could burrow in the warmth of golden sands.
And die in peace on the Canary Islands.

They undid her clasps with severity and gloom,
She waved goodbye with her solitary silver plume.
A parting pirouette, and off flew she,
Her heart soared with new-found, secret ecstasy.

She gasped at the newness of it all,
Cried out in alarm, felt she might fall.
Her sharp high-pitched cry, miraculously turned to song!
The same enchanting notes, lost and gone so long!

The ice began to thaw, and white turned to green.
All in an instant, the sullen land was serene.
The rivers flowed, as the Spring-bird sang,
In tribute to spring, to the ripeness of land.

The Frost-Giants made a hasty retreat.
Men rejoiced; hailed Spring-bird for her feat.
The cage door left smugly open, “she’s sure to return:
Injustice was done, but our lesson is learnt.”

Yet no sign of her, and day after day
Men felt her loss, as March turned to May.
Her music in their guilty hearts they longingly bore.
-Their beloved bird was gone- it was heard no more.

Yet still to this day, if you listen with care,
You may hear her Spring-Song, if you only know where:
In the sunny foothills of the Catalonian Pyrenees
You can hear her singing with mellifluous ease.

And there, of course, it’s the land of eternal spring,
The sun always shines, as the bird always sings.
She’s snug in her straw nest; so what if it’s not gold?
In the distant icy Norse lands, her story is still told.