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| O BONNIE bird, that in the brake, exultant, dost prepare thee, | |
| As poets do whose thoughts are true, for wings that will upbear thee— | |
| Oh! tell me, tell me, bonnie bird, | |
| Canst thou not pipe of hope deferred? | |
| Or canst thou sing of naught but Spring among the golden meadows? | 5 |
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| Methinks a bard (and thou art one) should suit his song to sorrow, | |
| And tell of pain, as well as gain, that waits us on the morrow; | |
| But thou art not a prophet, thou, | |
| If naught but joy can touch thee now; | |
| If, in thy heart, thou hast no vow that speaks of Nature’s anguish. | 10 |
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| Oh! I have held my sorrows dear, and felt, though poor and slighted, | |
| The songs we love are those we hear when love is unrequited; | |
| But thou art still the slave of dawn, | |
| And canst not sing till night be gone, | |
| Till o’er the pathway of the fawn the sun-beams shine and quiver. | 15 |
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| Thou art the minion of the sun that rises in his splendor, | |
| And canst not spare for Dian fair the songs that should attend her. | |
| The moon, so sad and silver-pale, | |
| Is mistress of the nightingale; | |
| And thou wilt sing on hill and dale no ditties in the darkness. | 20 |
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| For Queen and King thou wilt not spare one note of thine outpouring; | |
| And thou’rt as free as breezes be on Nature’s velvet flooring. | |
| The daisy, with its hood undone, | |
| The grass, the sunlight, and the sun— | |
| These are the joys, thou holy one, that pay thee for thy singing. | 25 |
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| Oh, hush! Oh, hush! how wild a gush of rapture in the distance— | |
| A roll of rhymes, a toll of chimes, a cry for love’s assistance; | |
| A sound that wells from happy throats, | |
| A flood of song where beauty floats, | |
| And where our thoughts, like golden boats, do seem to cross a river. | 30 |
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| This is the advent of the lark—the priest in gray apparel— | |
| Who doth prepare to trill in air his sinless summer carol; | |
| This is the prelude to the lay | |
| The birds did sing in Cæsar’s day, | |
| And will again, for aye and aye, in praise of God’s creation. | 35 |
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| O dainty thing, on wonder’s wing, by life and love elated, | |
| Oh! sing aloud from cloud to cloud, till day be consecrated; | |
| Till from the gateways of the morn, | |
| The sun, with all his light unshorn, | |
| His robes of darkness round him torn, doth scale the lofty heavens! | 40 |
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