The hummingbird is a charming, elegant and beautiful bird. It has always influenced poets, artists and writers. We have put together for you beautiful Quotes and Poems About Hummingbirds that you will surely enjoy reading.
Table of Contents
Poems About Hummingbirds
Humming-Bird
by Alexander Wilson
When the morning dawns, and the blest sun again
Lifts his red glories from the eastern main,
Then thro’ our woodbines, wet with glittering dews,
The flower-fed humming-bird his round pursues;
Sips, with inserted tube, the honey’d blooms,
And chirps his gratitude as round he roams;
While richest roses, tho’ in crimson drest,
Shrink from the splendor of his gorgeous breast.
What heavenly tints in mingling radiance fly,
Each rapid movement gives a different dye;
Like scales of burnish’d gold they dazzling show,
Now sink to shade – now like a furnace glow!
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The Hummingbird
by Emily Dickinson
A route of evanescence
With a revolving wheel;
A resonance of emerald,
A rush of cochineal;
And every blossom on the bush
Adjusts its tumbled head,
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy morning’s ride.
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Thou Tiny Spirit of The Air
by T.A. Conrad
Thou tiny spirit of the air,
With sylph-like motion, glad and free;
Who can thy meteor presence spare,
Whose childhood passed near thee?
For near our door thou lov’st to dip
Thy bill in the bignonia’s bloom
And of its nectar juices sip
‘Mid summer’s choice perfume.
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Why Do You Stand On The Air
by Hilda Conkling
Why do you stand on the air
And no sun shining?
How can you hold yourself so still
On raindrops sliding?
They change and fall, they are not steady,
But you do not know they are gone.
Is there a silver wire
I cannot see?
Is the wind your perch?
Raindrops slide down your little shoulders . . .
They do not wet you:
I think you are not real
In your green feathers!
You are not a humming-bird at all
Standing on air above the garden!
I dreamed you the way I dream fairies,
Or the flower I lost yesterday!
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Tell Me, O Rose, What Thing It Is
by Edwin Markham
Tell me, O Rose, what thing it is
That now appears, now vanishes?
Surely it took its fire-green hue
From daybreaks that it glittered through;
Quick, for this sparkle of the dawn
Glints through the garden and is gone!
What was the message, Rose, what word:
Delight foretold, or hope deferred
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Through Tree-Top And Clover
by Hermann Hagedorn
Through tree-top and clover a-whirr and away!
Hi! little rover, stop and stay.
Merry, absurd, excited wag,
Lilliput-bird in Brobdingnag!
Wild and free as the wild thrush, and warier,
Was ever a bee merrier, airier?
Wings folded so, a second or two,
Was ever a crow more solemn than you?
A-whirr again over the garden, away!
Who calls, little rover? Bird or fay?
Agleam and aglow, incarnate bliss!
What do you know that we humans miss?
In the lily’s chalice, what rune, what spell,
In the rose’s palace, what do they tell
(When the door you bob in, airily)
That they hush from the robin, hide from the bee?
Fearing the crew of chatter and song,
And tell to you of the chantless tongue?
Chantless! Ah, yes. Is that the sting
Masked in gay dress and whirring wing?
Faith! But a wing of such airy stuff!
What need to sing? Here’s music enough.
A-whirr, and over tree-top, and through!
Hi little rover fair travel to you.
Sweet, absurd, excited wag,
Lilliput-bird in Brobdingnag!
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Is It A Monster Bee
by Richard Burton
Is it a monster bee,
Or is it a midget bird,
Or yet an air-born mystery
That now yon marigold has stirred,
And now on vocal wing
To a neighbor bloom is whirred,
In an aery ecstasy, in a passion of pilfering?
Ah! ’tis the humming-bird,
Rich-coated one,
Ruby-throated one,
That is not chosen for song,
But throws its whole rapt sprite
Into the secrets of flowers
The summer days along,
Into most odorous hours,
Into a murmurous sound of wings too swift for sight!
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Voyager On Golden Air
by John Vance Cheney
Voyager on golden air,
Type of all that’s fleet and fair,
Incarnate gem,
Live diadem
Bird-beam of the summer day,
Whither on your sunny way?
Loveliest of all lovely things,
Roses open to your wings;
Each gentle breast
Would give you rest;
Stay, forget lost Paradise,
Star-bird fallen from happy skies.
Vanished! Earth is not his home;
Onward, onward must he roam
Swift passion-thought,
In rapture wrought,
Issue of the soul’s desire,
Plumed with beauty and with fire.
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Like Thoughts That Flit Across The Mind
by Jones Very
Like thoughts that flit across the mind,
Leaving no lasting trace behind,
The humming-bird darts to and fro,
Comes, vanishes before we know.
While thoughts may be but airy things
That come and go on viewless wings,
Nor form nor substance e’en possess,
Nor number know, or more or less,
This leaves an image, well defined,
To be a picture of the mind;
Its tiny form and colors bright
In memory live, when lost to sight.
There oft it comes at evening’s hour,
To flutter still from flower to flower;
Then vanish midst the gathering shade,
Its momentary visit paid.
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So Small And Fair
by Ira Billman
So small and fair;
A sun-dyed dew-drop born with wings.
‘Neath Salvia’s coral cup it swings,
And to the winded flower clings
As if grown there.
So neat and fair;
An artist’s dream of loveliness,
Its form charms thro’ a gauze-like dress
Of rapid wings, that one might guess
Was wrought of air.
So wise and fair;
A poet’s thought that lives by stealth,
From honeyed cups it drinks its health,
With too much joy for making wealth
To purchase care.
So true and fair;
Each change without affects its coat;
A fire bell blazes on its throat;
Yet still it chirps the one clear note
Blown everywhere!
So sweet and fair;
Its mellow hum hath magic powers.
To wake to life dead summer hours,
Fond memories fresh as fragrant flowers,
In winter bare.
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There Is A Silence In This Summer Day
by Laura M. Marquand
There is a silence in this summer day,
And in the sweet, soft air no faintest sound
But gentle breezes passing on their way,
Just stirring phantom branches on the ground;
While in between the softly moving leaves,
Down to their shadows on the grass below,
The brilliant sunshine finds its way and weaves
A thousand patterns glancing to and fro.
A peace ineffable, a beauty rare
Holds human hearts with touch we know divine.
When, hush! — a little tumult in the air;
A rush of tiny wings, a something, fine
And frail, darting in fiery haste, all free
In every motion; scarce we’ve seen or heard
Ere it is gone! How can such swiftness be
Incarnate in an atom of a bird!
To know this mite, one instant poised in space,
Scarce tangible, yet seen, then vanishing
From out our ken, leaving no slightest trace!
Ah, whither gone, you glowing jewelled thing?
Before you came the very air seemed stilled;
More silent now because with wonder filled.
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Somewhere I’ve Seen Thee, Strange Sprite
by Edith Thomas
Somewhere I’ve seen thee, strange sprite,
Somewhere I’ve known thee ere now,
Among the wild broods of the night
That nest on the Morphean bough!
Thou with a silent throat
Dost busily rifle all blooms;
O flitter-winged bandit, thy note
Is the bee’s song shed from thy plumes!
Whisper those things in my ear,
That thou art so ready to tell
To creatures too heedless to hear,
The lily, the foxglove’s bell!
Aha! is it so? By these eyes,
Prospero’s servant I see,
Ariel clad in the guise
Of a humming-bird lightsome and free!
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Poised In A Sheeny Mist
by Maurice Thompson
Poised in a sheeny mist
Of the dust of bloom,
Clasped to the poppy’s breast and kissed,
Baptized in violet perfume
From foot to plume!
Zephyr loves thy wings
Above all lovable things,
And brings them gifts with rapturous murmurings:
Thine is the golden reach of blooming hours;
Spirit of flowers!
Music follows thee,
And, continually,
Thy life is changed and sweetened happily,
Having no more than roseleaf shade of gloom,
O bird of bloom!
Thou art a wingèd thought
Of tropical hours,
With all the tropic’s rare bloom-splendor fraught,
Surcharged with beauty’s indefinable powers,
Angel of flowers!
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To a Ruby-Throated Humming-Bird
by Laura Blackburn
Aristocrat of birds (thy summer spent
Near Arctic snows, thy winter passed beside
The tropic seas thou and thy dainty bride),
How thou must scorn the zone where we are pent.
Fearless darter through the blue firmament,
I bid thee hail, and here denounce the pride
That in man’s heart, like Caliban, doth hide,
Whilst thou upon thy Ariel quests art bent.
Alas! for all the cravings of the soul,
We only in imagination soar,
Only in dreams we taste ambrosial sweets;
But thou, O bird, commander of thy goal,
Dost quaff thy wine within the bright retreats
Of joy, and fold thy wings at Beauty’s door.
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The Hummingbird
by Mary Howitt
The humming-bird! the humming-bird!
So fairy-like and bright:
It lives among the sunny flowers,
A creature of delight!
In the radiant islands of the East,
Where fragrant spices grow,
A thousand, thousand humming-birds
Go glancing to and fro.
Like living fires they flit about,
Scarce larger than a bee,
Among the broad palmetto leaves,
And through the fan-palm tree.
And in those wild and verdant woods,
Where stately mosses tower,
Where hangs from branching tree to tree
The scarlet passion flower;
Where on the mighty river banks,
La Plate and Amazon,
The cayman, like an old tree trunk,
Lies basking in the sun;
There builds her nest the humming-bird,
Within the ancient wood –
Her nest of silky cotton down –
And rears her tiny brood.
She hangs it to a slender twig,
Where waves it light and free,
As the campanero tolls his song,
And rocks the mighty tree.
All crimson is her shining breast,
Like to the red, red rose;
Her wing is the changeful green and blue
That the neck of the peacock shows.
Thou, happy, happy humming-bird,
No winter round thee lours;
Thou never saw’st a leafless tree,
Nor land without sweet flowers.
A reign of summer joyfulness
To thee for life is given;
Thy food, the honey from the flower,
Thy drink, the dew from heaven!
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Hummingbirds Quotes
“I had the metabolism of a hummingbird on crack.”- Ilona Andrews
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“Either you take in believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird.”- Henry Miller
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“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.” – Rumi
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- “He has the attention span of a hummingbird.”- Christopher Moore
- “Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.”- Alice Walker
- “I’m going to get a job, I’m broke. Right now I couldn’t buy spats for a hummingbird.”– Robert Blake
- “My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird – equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.”- Mary Oliver
- “Charm is the enchanted dart, light and subtle as a hummingbird. But it is deceptive in one thing: like a sense of humor, if you think you’ve got it, you probably haven’t.”- Laurel Lea
- “My mother’s eyes were large and brown, like my son’s, but unlike Sam’s, they were always frantic, like a hummingbird who can’t quite find the flower but keeps jabbing around.”- Anne Lamott
- “I always loved those little creatures [hummingbird], always feel blessed when they appear nearby. There’s a magical quality to them. I finally put one in a song.”- Leonard Cohen
- “Some of my old memories feel trapped in amber in my brain, lucid and burning, while others are like the wing beat of a hummingbird, an intangible, ephemeral blur.”- Mira Bartok
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