Skip to content
Linespedia

The Cage

Topics: classic

Why did you flutter in vain hope, poor bird,     Hard-pressed in your small cage of clay? 'Twas but a sweet, false echo that you heard,         Caught only a feint of day. Still is the night all dark, a homeless dark.     Burn yet the unanswering stars. And silence brings The same sea's desolate surge - sans bound or mark -         Of all your wanderings. Fret now no more; be still. Those steadfast eyes,     Those folded hands, they cannot set you free; Only with beauty wake wild memories -     Sorrow for where you are, for where you would be.

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"Why did you flutter in vain hope, poor bird,..."

"The Cage" is a quintessential example of Walter De La Mare's signature style... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"Have you been catching of fish, Tom Noddy?         Have you snared a weeping hare?     Have you whistled, 'No Nunny,'and gunned a poor bunny,"

"Sand, sand; hills of sand;         And the wind where nothing is      Green and sweet of the land;         No grass, no trees,         No bir"

"Like an old battle, youth is wild With bugle and spear, and counter cry, Fanfare and drummery, yet a child Dreaming of that sweet chivalry, T"

"There was nought in the Valley      But a Tower of Ivory, Its base enwreathed with red      Flowers that at evening      Caught the sun's cr"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Continue Reading

"Have you been catching of fish, Tom Noddy?        ..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.