The Iraqi is really not whacky Toady, perhaps, even tacky. When they gave him the word He gave us the bird And joined with the Arabs, by cracky!

-Acheson, Dean Gooderham
Limerick written during dull meeting of Foreign Ministers. Quoted in Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas The Wise Men (1986).

   Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?

-Arnold, Matthew
  Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems,'Parting', l.19^20.

Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Ecclesiastes10:20.

O lyric love half angel and half bird And all a wonder and a wild desire.

-Browning, Robert
^9  The Ring and the Book, bk.1, l.1391^2.

And hark! the Nightingale begins its song, 'Most musical, most melancholy' bird! A melancholy bird?†his song Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself Be loved like Nature!

-Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
  'The Nightingale'.

And hear the pleasant cuckoo, loud and longö The simple bird that thinks two notes a song.

-Davies,W(illiam) H(enry)
  'April's Charms'.

And sad,Oh sad, that glen with one thin stream He met his death in; and a farmer told me There was but one small bird to shoot: it sang 'Better Beast and know your end, and die Than Man with murderous angels in his head.'

-Devlin, Denis
c.1956  'The Tomb of Michael Collins'.

I know why the caged bird sings!

-Dunbar, Paul Laurence
  'Sympathy', stanza 3. This was used by Maya  Angelou as the title of her autobiography in1970.

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  Four Quartets,'Burnt Norton', pt.1.

Morning has broken Like the first morning, Blackbird has spoken Like the first bird. Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning! Praise for them springing Fresh from the Word!

-Farjeon, Eleanor
  Children's Bells,'A Morning Song'.

There's Carol like a rolling car, And Martin like a flying bird, And Adam like the Lord's First Word, And Raymond like the Harvest Moon, And Peter like a piper's tune, And Alan like the flowing on Of water. And there's John, like John.

-Farjeon, Eleanor
  Then There Were Three,'Boys' Names'.

Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter, So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly Singing about her head, as she rode by.

-Graves, Robert von Ranke
'Love without Hope'.

   When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. Theyare all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.

-Hemingway, Ernest Millar
  Winner Take Nothing,'Fathers and Sons'.

I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree; For sure then I should grow To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust Her household to me, and I should be just.

-Herbert, George
'Affliction (1)', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

The bird, the beste, the fisch eke in the see, They lyve in fredome, euerich in his kynd, And I, a man, and lakkith libertee!

-James I
c.1435  The Kingis Quair, stanza 27.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

-Keats,John
  Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems,'Ode to a Nightingale', stanza 7.

The cheerful bird of youth flutters awayö I hardly noticed how it came or went.

-Khayya¤ m , Omar
c.1100  Ruba¤  iya¤  t, stanza103 (translated by Robert Graves and Omar  Ali-Shah,1972).

Father in Heaven, whenthethoughtof Thee wakesinour hearts, let it not awaken like a frightened bird that flies about in dismay, but like a child waking from its sleep with a heavenly smile.

-Kierkegaard, So«  ren Aabye
Journal entry (translated by Alexander Dru,1938).

The bird onthebranch, thelily inthemeadow, thestag in the forest, the fish in the sea, the countless joyful creatures sing,God is Love. But beneath all these sopranos, as it were a sustained bass part, is the De profundis of the Sacrificed,God is Love.

-Kierkegaard, So«  ren Aabye
Journal entry (translated by Alexander Dru,1938).

   What bird so sings, yet so does wail? O 'tis the ravished nightingale. Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu, she cries, And still her woes at midnight rise.

-Lyly,John
  Campaspe, act 5, sc.1.