Juliet has lost her little downy owl,
The bird she loved more than all other birds
He was a darling bird, so white, so wise,
Like a monk hooded in a snowy cowl,
With sun-shy scholar’s eyes,
He hooted softly in diminished thirds;
And when he asked for mice,
He took refusal with a silent pride—
And never pleaded twice.
He was a wondrous bird, as dignified
As any Diplomat
That ever sat
By the round table of a Conference.
He was delicious, lovable and soft.
He understood the meaning of the night,
And read the riddle of the smiling stars.
When he took flight,
And roosted high aloft,
Beyond the shrubbery and the garden fence,
He would return and seek his safer bars,
All of his own accord; and he would plead
Forgiveness for the trouble and the search,
And for the anxious heart he caused to bleed,
And settle once again upon his perch,
And utter a propitiating note,
And take the heart
Of Juliet by his pretty winning ways.
His was the art
Of pleasing without effort easily.
His fluffy throat,
His sage round eye,
Sad with old knowledge, bright with young amaze,
Where are they now? ah! where?
Perchance in the pale halls of Hecate,
Or in the poplars of Elysium,
He wanders careless and completely free.
But in the regions dumb,
And in the pallid air,
He will not find a sweet, caressing hand
Like Juliet’s; not in all that glimmering land
Shall he behold a silver planet rise
As splendid as the light of Juliet’s eyes.
Therefore in weeping with you, Juliet,
Oh! let us not forget,
To drop with sprigs of rosemary and rue,
A not untimely tear
Upon the bier,
Of him who lost so much in losing you.
