Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v7.djvu/122

44 One warm summer's day the bluebirds came

And lighted on our tree,

But at first the wand'rers were not so tame

But they were afraid of me.

They seemed to come from the distant south,

Just over the Walden wood,

And they skimmed it along with open mouth

Close by where the bellows stood.

Warbling they swept round the distant cliff,

And they warbled it over the lea,

And over the blacksmith's shop in a jiff

Did they come warbling to me.

They came and sat on the box's top

Without looking into the hole,

And only from this side to that did they hop,

As 't were a common well-pole.

Methinks I had never seen them before,

Nor indeed had they seen me,

Till I chanced to stand by our back door,

And they came to the poplar tree.

In course of time they built their nest

And reared a happy brood,

And every morn they piped their best

As they flew away to the wood.

Thus wore the summer hours away

To the bluebirds and to me,