“As you turned to go I heard you call my name,
You were like a bird in a cage spreading its wings to fly
"The old ways are lost," you sang as you flew
And I wondered why.”

—  Loreena McKennitt

The Visit (1991), The Old Ways

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "As you turned to go I heard you call my name, You were like a bird in a cage spreading its wings to fly "The old ways…" by Loreena McKennitt?
Loreena McKennitt photo
Loreena McKennitt 21
Canadian musician and composer 1957

Related quotes

“Tell me why the caged bird nutters against its prison bars, and I will tell you why the soul sickens of earthliness. The bird has wings, and wings were made to cleave the air, and soar in freedom in the sun. The soul is immortal — it cannot feed upon husks.”

Randolph Sinks Foster (1820–1903) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 338.

Edward Lear photo

“Calico Pie,
The little Birds fly
Down to the calico tree,
Their wings were blue,
And they sang "Tilly-loo!"
Till away they flew,—
And they never came back to me!”

Edward Lear (1812–1888) British artist, illustrator, author and poet

Calico Pie http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/calico.html, st. 1 (1871).

“You and I, wonder at the sky, call God a different name. As we try, learn and long to fly — you and I are so differently the same.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"All of Us"
A Picnic of Poems in Allah's Green Garden (2011)

Dave Matthews photo

“And as you go I will spread my wings.
Yes, I will call this home.
I have no time to justify to you,
Fool, you're blind, move aside for me.
All I can say to you my new neighbor,
You must move on or I will bury you.”

Dave Matthews (1967) American singer-songwriter, musician and actor

Don't Drink the Water
Before These Crowded Streets (1998)

Ozzy Osbourne photo

“You've got to believe in yourself
Or no one will believe in you
Imagination like a bird on the wing
Flying free for you to use”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Believer, written by Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads and Bob Daisley
Song lyrics, Diary of a Madman (1981)

Mike Scott photo

“I spoke about wings
you just flew
I wondered I guessed and I tried
you just knew
I sighed
but you swooned
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon”

Mike Scott (1958) songwriter, musician

"The Whole Of The Moon"
This Is the Sea (1985)

Edna St. Vincent Millay photo

“To a Young Poet

Time cannot break the bird's wing from the bird.
Bird and wing together
Go down, one feather.

No thing that ever flew,
Not the lark, not you,
Can die as others do.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Source: Collected Poems

Prem Rawat photo

“What is this thing called the existence? Is it all the things that we perceive it to be? Or is it something else? It's a gift. One of my favorite examples is the bird in the cage. You may think that you own the bird inside the cage, but you're wrong. You only own the cage. People think that they need to have a very fancy cage, that the more incredible the cage, the more incredible the bird will look. But the cage and the bird are really two different things. When the bird is gone, all that will be left is the cage.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Kaohsiung, Taiwan, April 6, 1991
1990s

Paul Laurence Dunbar photo

“I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind blows soft through the springing grass,
And the river floats like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!”

Paul Laurence Dunbar Sympathy

Sympathy, in the 1913 collection of his work, The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar; the poem inspired the title of Maya Angelou's book, Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Tim McGraw photo

“One, two, three like a bird I sing, 'cause you given me the most beautiful set of wings.
I'm so glad you're here today, 'cause tomorrow I might have to go and fly away. Fly away, fly away, fly away, fly away.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Last Dollar (Fly Away)
Song lyrics, Let It Go (2008)

Related topics