There's a merry brown thrush sitting up in the tree.
"He's singing to me! He's singing to me!"
And what does he say, little girl, little boy?
"Oh, the world's running over with joy!
Don't you hear? Don't you see?
Hush! Look! In my tree
I'm as happy as happy can be!"
And the brown thrush keeps singing, "A nest do you see,
And five eggs, hid by me in the juniper-tree?
Don't meddle! don't touch! little girl, little boy,
Or the world will lose some of its joy!
Now I'm glad! now I'm free!
And always shall be,
If you never bring sorrow to me."
So the merry brown thrush sings away in the tree,
To you and to me, to you and to me;
And he sings all the day, little girl, little boy,
"Oh, the world's running over with joy!
Don't you know? don't you see?
But long it won't be,
Unless we are as good as can be?"
Lucy Larcom.
THE GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH.
In the hot midsummer noontide,
When all other birds are sleeping,
Still one in the silent forest,
Like a sentry, watch in keeping,
Singing in the pine-tops spicy:
"I see, I see, I SEE, I SEE."
No one ever sees you, atom!
You are hidden too securely.
I have sought for hours to find you.
It is but to tease us, surely,
That you sing in pine-tops spicy:
"I see, I see, I SEE, I SEE."
Harriet E. Paine: Bird Songs of New England.