Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/329

1866.]

HEN Nature had made all her birds,

And had no cares to think on,

She gave a rippling laugh—and out

There flew a Bobolinkon.

She laughed again,—out flew a mate.

A breeze of Eden bore them

Across the fields of Paradise,

The sunrise reddening o'er them.

Incarnate sport and holiday,

They flew and sang forever;

Their souls through June were all in tune,

Their wings were weary never.

The blithest song of breezy farms,

Quaintest of field-note flavors,

Exhaustless fount of trembling trills

And demisemiquavers.

Their tribe, still drunk with air and light

And perfume of the meadow,

Go reeling up and down the sky,

In sunshine and in shadow.

One springs from out the dew-wet grass,

Another follows after;

The morn is thrilling with their songs

And peals of fairy laughter.

From out the marshes and the brook,

They set the tall reeds swinging,

And meet and frolic in the air,

Half prattling and half singing.

When morning winds sweep meadow lands

In green and russet billows,

And toss the lonely elm-tree's boughs,

And silver all the willows,

I see you buffeting the breeze,

Or with its motion swaying,

Your notes half drowned against the wind,

Or down the current playing.

When far away o'er grassy flats,

Where the thick wood commences,

The white-sleeved mowers look like specks

Beyond the zigzag fences,

Rh