The Kingfisher
Martin Armstrong
Under the bank, close-shadowed from the sun,
By winter freshets spun,
Dry tangled wreckage hung above the shallows
In the long roots of the sallows,
And underneath in cool twilight the stream
Lay calmed to a brown dream.
Then with the gleam and flash of a swift-blue flame
Out from the dusk he came,
And the heart and the breath stood still with delight and wonder,
While in the water under
Shot, swift as he, a streak of blue and green
From unseen to unseen.
O wonder, leaping with sudder flutter of wings
From the litter of common things,
Flash on the inward eye till the soul leaps higher
On the surge of a great desire,
And high in the dim-lit hall of earthly years
Another lamp appears.
