Harry Behn




Swing Song

Oh I’ve discovered
A happy thing!
For every game
There’s a song to sing,
Sometimes with words
Sometimes without,
It’s easy to tell
What a song’s about
From only a humming
Like wind at noon,
I needn’t be even 
Half a tune
If only it goes
With what you do,
If what you do
Is exactly true,
Or anyway if
It seems to you.

The time I discovered
This wonderful thing
I really was swinging
In a swing,
And the song I was singing
Was just as true
For all the flying
Sky-things too.

For seagulls and eagulls
And bees and bugs
And arrows and sparrows,
Enchanted rugs,
Clouds and balloons
Balloons and bees—
A backward humming
A forward breeze,
Swinging without
Any tune you please.


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