To the Mexican Nightingale by Grace Hazard Conkling Lyrics

                El Clarin

Clarin, from what glens of air
Chime your cameo-coloured bells?
When they ring, I know them rare,
Fluted like the lips of shells
For the tone to ripple down,
Honey-pale or amber-brown.

When the tawny evening spills
Drops of topaz down the pine,
Light denied the dusking hills,
Do you gather and confine
In some clear aerial jar,
On the branch where flits the star?

Do you pour the liquid light
Early from your lyric urn?
Nay, it was at midmost night
That I heard among the fern
Golden drops that fell in showers,
Shaken down as out of flowers!
When the rain of light was gone,
Poured in rhyming gold like rain,
How your elfin bells at dawn
Delicately chimed again,
Soft as sea-shells murmur of
Her whose lovely name is Love!

Did the Foam-born brim those bells
With the wistful melodies
Of enchanted vocal shells?
Does the satin sigh of trees
Bring a memory of foam?
Clarin, do you sing of home?