CAGED.
Our jest and gossip ceased at last;
It seem’d as if my lips were fast.
Ah me, such holy hopes loom’d then;
My mind could only think, “Amen.”
But soon she cried out, “How absurd!”
And laugh’d, whereat her little bird
Caught up the music of the word,
And trill’d an echo, loud and long,
Till, deafen’d quite, she check’d the song.
“That bird,” said she,—“Hush, hush, you thing!—
Flew in the window here, one spring.
We caught and caged him, and he grew
The sweetest pet that ever flew;
I hold my finger toward him so,
And down he flies and lights, you know,
And pecks my hair and lips, and oh,
How jauntily—you ought to see—
He perks his head and chirps for me!
“Last year, he flew away, one day,
And then, the scene we had! the way
We wept for him; and search’d the town!
And how it made the neighbors frown
The twentieth time we ask’d for him!
But, just as day was growing dim,
He lit on yonder ash-tree limb;
And ‘Dick,’ I call’d, and back he flew;
Now, didn’t you, birdie?—naughty you!”
With this again she laugh’d at him;
And I,—I thought the room grew dim;
And then, I whisper’d: “Dear, a word,—
For I—I know one other bird
That longs and longs to fly to you;
And, dearest, you may cage it, too;
’Twill sing, and serve, and be so true.”
And then she blush’d, and then she wept,
And then this bird of love she kept.