Larry's Gallery:   Magpie-lark (1/6)

PASSERIFORMES: Monarchidae

Grallina cyanoleuca  

The Magpie Lark

BY lagoons and reedy places,
Where the little river races,
By the lips of dreaming pools
Where the soothing water cools
Many a verdant slope and hollow,
Here my blithesome way I follow.
Anywhere that waters glisten
Pause a little while and listen.
You will hear my plaintive note
O'er the placid mirror float--
Tho' nought know I of plaint or fret:
"Pierrot! Pierrette! Pierrot! Pierrette!"

Pierrot am I, light-hearted fellow,
Be the day morose or mellow;
And Pierrette, my dainty wife,
Adopts a like gay view of life;
We dance; we dance amid the sedges,
Dance by duplicated edges
Of the peaceful little ponds;
Now I bow, and she responds;
And then we dance together there,
Rise aloft, and dance on air;
Rising, falling, calling yet:
"Pierrot! Pierrette! Pierrot! Pierrette!"

Thistledown was ne'er so light
As our dainty, dancing flight;
Gay pied pipers, trim and neat,
Joy is in our wings, our feet;
Grace is in our every pose ...
We dance, we dance till, at day's close,
When the pool's dark mirrors limn
Twilit glory at the brim--
Trees and opalescent sky--
We dance away; and as we fly
Our call comes faint and fainter yet:
"Pierrot! Pierrette! ... Pierrot! . . ."

The Magpie Lark
by C J Dennis (1876-1938)
The Singing Garden (1935) p.121.

Male Magpie-lark.