The Fever Bird

The Fever Bird sang out last night.

I could not sleep, try as I might.

My brain was split, my spirit raw.

I looked into the garden and saw

The shadow of the amaltas

Shake slightly on the moonlit grass.

Unseen, the bird cried out its grief,

Its lunacy without relief;

Three notes repeated closer, higher,

Soaring than sinking down like fire

Only to breathe the night and soar,

As crazed, as desperate as before.

I shivered in the midnight heat,

And smelt the sweat that soaked my sheet.

And now I hear again,

The call that skewers my brain,

The call- the brain- sick triple note-

A bone of pain stuck in its thrat.

I am so tired, I could weep,

Mad bird for God's sake let me sleep!

Why do you cry like one possessed?

When will you rest? Oh, when will you rest?

Why wait all night till alll but I

Lie sleeping in the house, then cry?

Why do you scream in my ear,

What no one else but I can hear?

- from the book 'A Suitable Boy'