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| WHEN Nature had made all her birds, |
| With no more cares to think on, |
| She gave a rippling laugh, and out |
| There flew a Bobolinkon. |
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| She laughed again; out flew a mate; |
| A breeze of Eden bore them |
| Across the fields of Paradise, |
| The sunrise reddening o’er them. |
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| Incarnate sport and holiday, |
| They flew and sang forever; |
| Their souls through June were all in tune, |
| Their wings were weary never. |
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| 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. |
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| One springs from out the dew-wet grass; |
| Another follows after; |
| The morn is thrilling with their songs |
| And peals of fairy laughter. |
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| 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. |
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| When morning winds sweep meadowlands |
| In green and russet billows, |
| And toss the lonely elm-tree’s boughs, |
| And silver all the willows, |
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| I see you buffeting the breeze, |
| Or with its motion swaying, |
| Your notes half drowned against the wind, |
| Or down the current playing. |
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| When far away o’er grassy flats, |
| Where the thick wood commences, |
| The white-sleeved mowers look like specks |
| Beyond the zigzag fences, |
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| And noon is hot, and barn-roofs gleam |
| White in the pale blue distance, |
| I hear the saucy minstrels still |
| In chattering persistence. |
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| When Eve her domes of opal fire |
| Piles round the blue horizon, |
| Or thunder rolls from hill to hill |
| A Kyrie Eleison, |
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| Still merriest of the merry birds, |
| Your sparkle is unfading,— |
| Pied harlequins of June,—no end |
| Of song and masquerading. |
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| What cadences of bubbling mirth, |
| Too quick for bar and rhythm! |
| What ecstasies, too full to keep |
| Coherent measure with them! |
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| O could I share, without champagne |
| Or muscadel, your frolic, |
| The glad delirium of your joy, |
| Your fun unapostolic, |
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| Your drunken jargon through the fields, |
| Your bobolinkish gabble, |
| Your fine Anacreontic glee, |
| Your tipsy reveller’s babble! |
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| Nay, let me not profane such joy |
| With similes of folly; |
| No wine of earth could waken songs |
| So delicately jolly! |
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| O boundless self-contentment, voiced |
| In flying air-born bubbles! |
| O joy that mocks our sad unrest, |
| And drowns our earth-born troubles! |
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| Hope springs with you: I dread no more |
| Despondency and dulness; |
| For Good Supreme can never fail |
| That gives such perfect fulness. |
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| The life that floods the happy fields |
| With song and light and color |
| Will shape our lives to richer states, |
| And heap our measures fuller. |
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