Over the west side of the mountain,
that-s lyrebird country.
I could go down there, they say, in the early morning,
and I-d see them, I-d hear them.

Ten years, and I have never gone.
I-ll never go.
I-ll never see the lyrebirds -
the few, the shy, the fabulous,
the dying poets.

I should see them, if I lay there in the dew:
first a single movement
like a waterdrop falling, then stillness,
then a brown head, brown eyes,
a splendid bird, bearing
like a crest the symbol of his art,
the high symmetrical shape of the perfect lyre.
I should hear that master practising his art.

No, I have never gone.
Some things ought to be left secret, alone;
some things - birds like walking fables -
ought to inhabit nowhere but the reverence of the
heart.