Sweet, absurd, excited wag—
Lilliput-bird in Brobdingnag!
Hermann Hagedorn
SPRING SONG
Softly at dawn a whisper stole
Down from the Green House on the Hill,
Enchanting many a ghostly bole
And wood song with the ancient thrill.
Gossiping on the countryside,
Spring and the wandering breezes say
God has thrown heaven open wide
And let the thrushes out to-day.
William Griffith
NIGHTINGALES
At sunset my brown nightingales
Hidden and hushed all day,
Ring vespers, while the color pales
And fades to twilight gray:
The little mellow bells they ring,
The little flutes they play,
Are soft as though for practising
The things they want to say.
It's when the dark has floated down
To hide and guard and fold,
I know their throats that look so brown,
Are really made of gold.
No music I have ever heard
Can call as sweet as they!
I wonder if it is a bird
That sings within the hidden tree,
Or some shy angel calling me
To follow far away?
Grace Hazard Conkling