The inland wandering tern
Skreel as they forage and fly;
His loons on the lonely reach
Utter their querulous cry;
Over the floating lilies
A dragon-fly tacks and steers;
Far in the depth of the blue
A martin settles and veers;
To every roadside thistle
A gold-brown butterfly clings;
But he no more companions
All the dear vagrant things.
The strong red journeying sun,
The pale and wandering rain,
Will roam on the hills forever
And find him never again.
Then twilight falls with the touch
Of a hand that soothes and stills,
And a swamp-robin sings into light
The lone white star of the hills.
Alone in the dusk he sings,
And a burden of sorrow and wrong
Is lifted up from the earth
And carried away in his song.
Alone in the dusk he sings,
And the joy of another day
Is folded in peace and borne
On the drift of years away.
But there in the heart of the hills
My beautiful weary one
Sleeps where he laid him down;
And the large sweet night is begun.