SO sat I yesterday, with weary eyes
Looking at leafless trees and snow-swept plains,
And broad Ontario's ice-encumbered sea.
My thoughts had wandered in a waking dream
Across the deep abyss of vanished years,
To that dear land I never saw again—
When suddenly a fluttering of wings
Shook the soft snow—a twittering of birds
Chirping a strange old note, but heard before
In English hedges and on roofs red-tiled,