The Lay of the Land

by Dallas Lore Sharp

Above the purple waves he hung,
And o’er the fragrant waters flung

His storm of ecstasy;

and the last stanza ran:—

He’s left the meadows burnt and hot,

He’s left me lone and drear;

But still within the white-birch lot
Cheeps Chickadee—whom I forgot

While Bobolink was here;

which means in plainer prose that chickadee does not sing a while in June and then fly away and leave us. He stays the year around; he is constant and faithful in his friendship, though I sometimes forget.

He cannot sing with bobolink. But suppose I could have only one of the birds? As it is, I get along for more than half the year without bobolink, but what would my out-of-doors be without chickadee? There is not a single day in the year that I cannot find him, no matter how hot, or cold, how hard it rains or snows. Often he is the only voice in all the silent woods, the only spark of life aglow in all my frozen winter world.