THE SONGSTER
I hang him in the porch, that he may hear
The voices of the bobolink and thrush,
The robin's joyous gush,
The bluebird's warble, and the tunes of all
Glad matin songsters in the fields anear.
Then, as the blithe responses vary,
And rise anew and fall,
In every hush
He answers them again,
With his own wild, reliant strain,
As if he breathed the air of sweet Canary.
II
Bird, bird of the golden wing,
Thou lithe, melodious thing!
Where hast thy music found?
What fantasies of vale and vine,
Of glades where orchids intertwine,
Of palm-trees, garlanded and crowned,
And forests flooded deep with sound,—
What high imagining
Hath made this carol thine?
By what instinct art thou bound
To all rare harmonies that be
In those green islands of the sea,
Where thy radiant, wildwood kin
Their madrigals at morn begin,
Above the rainbow and the roar
Of the long billow from the Afric shore?
Asking other guerdon
None, than Heaven's light,
Holding thy crested head aright,
Thy melody's sweet burden
Thou dost proudly utter,
With many an ecstatic flutter
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