Their voices melt in welcome dreams of spring, Green grass and leafy trees and sunny skies: My fancy decks the woods, the thrushes sing, Meadows are gay, bees hum and scents arise. And God the Maker doth my heart grow bold To praise for wintry works not understood, Who all the worlds and ages doth behold, Evil and good as one, and all as good. 10 A ROBIN Flame-throated robin on the topmost bough Of the leafless oak, what singest thou? Hark! he telleth how— ’Spring is coming now; Spring is coming now. Now ruddy are the elm-tops against the blue sky, The pale larch donneth her jewelry; Red fir and black fir sigh, And I am lamenting the year gone by. The bushes where I nested are all cut down, They are felling the tall trees one by one, And my mate is dead and gone, In the winter she died and left me lone. She lay in the thicket where I fear to go; For when the March-winds after the snow The leaves away did blow, She was not there, and my heart is woe: And sad is my song, when I begin to sing, As I sit in the sunshine this merry spring: Like a withered leaf I cling To the white oak-bough, while the wood doth ring. Spring is coming now, the sun again is gay; Each day like a last spring’s happy day.’— Thus sang he; then from his spray He saw me listening and flew away. 11 I never shall love the snow again Since Maurice died: With corniced drift it blocked the lane, And sheeted in a desolate plain The country side. The trees with silvery rime bedight Their branches bare. By day no sun appeared; by night The hidden moon shed thievish light In the misty air. We fed the birds that flew around In flocks to be fed: No shelter in holly or brake they found. The speckled thrush on the frozen ground Lay frozen and dead. We skated on stream and pond; we cut The crinching snow To Doric temple or Arctic hut; We laughed and sang at nightfall, shut By the fireside glow. Yet grudged we our keen delights before Maurice should come. We said, In-door or out-of-door We shall love life for a month or more, When he is home. They brought him home; ’twas two days late For Christmas day: Wrapped in white, in solemn state, A flower in his hand, all still and straight Our Maurice lay. And two days ere the year outgave We laid him low. The best of us truly were not brave, When we laid Maurice down in his grave Under the snow. 12 NIGHTINGALES