To a Chimney Swift

Uncumbered neighbour of our race!
Thou only of thy clan
Hast made thy haunt and dwelling-place
Within the walls of man.

Thy haughty wing, which rides the storm,
Hath stooped to Earth’s desires,
And round thy eery rises warm
The smoke of human fires.

Still didst thou come from lands afar
In childhood days as now,—
Yet alien as the planets are,
And elfin-strange art thou.

Thy little realm of quick delights,
Fierce instincts, untaught powers—
What unimagined days and nights
Cut off that realm from ours!

Thy soul is of the dawn of Earth,
And thine the secrets be
Of sentient being’s far-off birth
And round-eyed infancy.

With thee, beneath our sheltering roof,
The starry Sphinx doth dwell,
Untamed, eternally aloof
And inaccessible!

—Dora Read Goodale.