Poetry Thursday - The Blue Bird

I SOUGHT the Blue Bird near and far,

In verdant woods, and azure skies,

On purple peaks of Paradise,

In golden gardens of a star;

But in your eyes

It flits, and flies,

And in your heart its nestings are--

So near, so far.

Like a wild lark that longs for space,

It beats and beats against the blue

Of your bright eyes, then flutters through

Your eyelids, and lights up your face,

As all the true

Warm love of you

Comes flying to my love's embrace,

Out of blue space.

No author is given; the poem is from Ronald Campbell Macfie, ed. War: an Ode And Other Poems. New York: E.P. Dutton and Company, 1920; it can be seen on "The Great War 1914-1918"; it was heard on BBC Radio 3's Words and Music in an episode called "Blue".

About "The Great War 1914-1918 site: " Several years ago Woodruff Library of Emory University purchased fifty volumes of poetry written between 1914 and 1918; none of these books went into second editions, so they are now rather difficult to find except in specialized collections. ...an interesting collection of poetry from a time that witnessed an unparalleled outpouring of war poetry by the men fighting in the trenches, by the poets at home trying to raise the morale of the troops, and by the women who could do little else but volunteer as aids or wait anxiously at home for their sons, husbands, and lovers."

The site also contains one of the largest collections of WWI postcards on the web - 472 of them, searchable by keyword, title, description, and category ... or simply browsable.