“I walk where once the grass was green
And mourn the lark that sings no more
What bird could sing whose eyes have seen
Broken blossoms on the field of war?”
Song Broken Blossoms.
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Tom Springfield 15
English musician, songwriter and record producer 1934Related quotes
“Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come.”
Source: Taking Care of Terrific
Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
“I sing as the bird sings
That lives in the boughs.”
Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt
Der in den Zweigen wohnet.
Bk. II, Ch. 11
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)
“The cuckoo sings
at right angle
to the lark”
BW (tr.), in: Faubion Bowers (ed.), The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology. 2012. p. 29
"Flow my tears", line 1, The Second Book of Songs (1600).
Epigraph, The Thorn Birds (1977)
Context: There is a legend about a bird that sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. Dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of the great pain. … Or so says the legend.
Letter to his wife, Maria Bicknell (20 April 1821); as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 28
1820s
The Ecchoing Green, st. 1
1780s, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)