Voices of the Air

Katherine Mansfield 1888 (Wellington) – 1923 (Fontainebleau, Île-de-France)



But then there comes that moment rare
When, for no cause that I can find,
The little voices of the air
Sound above all the sea and wind.

The sea and wind do then obey
And sighing, sighing double notes
Of double basses, content to play
A droning chord for the little throats--

The little throats that sing and rise
Up into the light with lovely ease
And a kind of magical, sweet surprise
To hear and know themselves for these--

For these little voices: the bee, the fly
The leaf that taps, the pod that breaks,
The breeze on the grass-tops bending by,
The shrill quick sound that insect makes.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 20, 2023

33 sec read
87

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 585
Words 113
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4

Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. more…

All Katherine Mansfield poems | Katherine Mansfield Books

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