When the birds come back! There's a sky of sweeter blue,
With the breezes blowing softer and the blossoms peeping through;
There's a daisy in the meadows and a green upon the trees
With a welcome for the songsters and their swelling melodies;
And the pleasures trip the measures and their happiness unpack
Over all the waking wood-lands, when the birds come back!
When the birds come back! Ah, the wonders of the spring
And the blossoms that are longing for the choruses they sing!
And the roses that are sleeping through the darkness of the night
Till the love-song calls and summons to the lover and the light!
Then we sail the seas of laughter, though the tempests lower black,
As the blossoms greet the morning, when the birds come back!
When the birds come back! Ah, the days of heaven when
All the songs shall sing forever down the perfect ways of men,
And the lilies and the roses in the fields of death and doom
Shall engarland all the path-ways with the bright of bud and bloom!
What if long the wait and watching? What if sky and sun are black?
Songs and blossoms come to meet us, when the [birds come back!]
When the birds come back! When the birds come back!
O, the raptures and the rhapsodies that follow in their track!
How the memories of by-gones and the joys of other days
Smile again with angel faces down the world's entangled ways!
And the pleasures come and crown us with the garlands that we lack,
When the sunshine floods the valleys and the birds come back!
The Ways of Life.
The rough way, the hard way,
The way that seems so long!
Yet still the sweet and happy way
Across the fields of song!
The sad way, the dark way,
The way that leads above;
And still the bright and golden way
Across the fields of love!
The love way, the song way,
The way we gladly go,—
The way of blossoms sweet and fair
And all the dreams we know!