Sing softly. Muse, the Reverend Henry White
Who floats through time as lightly as a feather
Yet left one solitary gleam of light
Because he was the Selborne naturalist’s brother
And told him once how on warm summer eves
When moonlight filled all Fyfield to the brim
And yearning owls were hooting to their loves
On church and barn and oak-tree’s leafy limb
He took a common half-a-crown pitch-pipe
Such as the masters used for harpsichords
And through the village trod with silent step
Measuring the notes of those melodious birds
And found that each one sang, or rather hooted,
Precisely in the measure of B flat.
And that is all that history has noted;
We know no more of Henry White than that.
So, softly. Muse, in harmony and conformity
Pipe up for him and all such gentle souls
Thus in the world’s enormousness, enormity,
So interested in music and in owls;
For though we cannot claim his crumb of knowledge
Was worth much more than virtually nil
Nor hail him for vast enterprise or courage,
Yet in my mind I see him walking still
With eager ear beneath his clerical hat
Through Fyfield village sleeping dark and blind,
Oh surely as he piped his soft B flat
The most harmless, the most innocent of mankind.
(Douglas Alexander Stewart)
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Based on Topics: World Poems, Light Poems, Christianity Poems, Wisdom & Knowledge Poems, Courage Poems, Music Poems, Mankind Poems, Harmony PoemsBased on Keywords: half-a-crown, nil, hooted, clerical, virtually, conformity, fyfield, selborne, naturalist, harpsichords