I wake! I feel the day is near;
I hear the red cock crowing!
He cries "'Tis dawn!" How sweet and clear
His cheerful call comes to my ear,
While light is slowly growing.
The white snow gathers flake on flake;
I hear the red cock crowing!
Is anybody else awake
To see the winter morning break,
While thick and fast 'tis snowing?
I think the world is all asleep;
I hear the red cock crowing!
Out of the frosty pane I peep;
The drifts are piled so wide and deep,
And wild the wind is blowing!
Nothing I see has shape or form;
I hear the red cock crowing!
But that dear voice comes through the storm
To greet me in my nest so warm,
As if the sky were glowing!
A happy little child, I lie
And hear the red cock crowing.
The day is dark. I wonder why
His voice rings out so brave and high,
With gladness overflowing.
Celia Thaxter.
The Singer
O Lark! sweet lark!
Where learn you all your minstrelsy?
What realms are those to which you fly?
While robins feed their young from dawn till dark,
You soar on high—
Forever in the sky.
O child! dear child!
Above the clouds I lift my wing
To hear the bells of Heaven ring;
Some of their music, though my flights be wild,
To Earth I bring;
Then let me soar and sing!
Edmund Clarence Stedman.
The Blue Jay
O Blue Jay up in the maple-tree,
Shaking your throat with such bursts of glee,
How did you happen to be so blue?
Did you steal a bit of the lake for your crest,
And fasten blue violets into your vest?
Tell me, I pray you,—tell me true!
Did you dip your wings in azure dye,
When April began to paint the sky,
That was pale with the winter's stay?
Or were you hatched from a bluebell bright,
'Neath the warm, gold breast of a sunbeam light,
By the river one blue spring day?
O Blue Jay up in the maple-tree,
A-tossing your saucy head at me,
With ne'er a word for my questioning,
Pray, cease for a moment your "ting-a-link,"
And hear when I tell you what I think,—
You bonniest bit of the spring.
I think when the fairies made the flowers,
To grow in these mossy fields of ours,
Periwinkles and violets rare,
There was left of the spring's own color, blue,
Plenty to fashion a flower whose hue
Would be richer than all and as fair.
So, putting their wits together, they
Made one great blossom so bright and gay,
The lily beside it seemed blurred;
And then they said, "We will toss it in air;
So many blue blossoms grow everywhere,
Let this pretty one be a bird!"