THE WHITE-THROATED SPARROW, a poem

"When the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows."

WOULD you feel the witching spell
     Of the whitethroat, listen!
There are secrets he can tell
Of the marsh, and of the dell
     Where the dewdrops glisten.

Poet of the brooding pine
     And the feathery larches,
Dawn-lit summits seem to shine,
Lucent in each throbbing line,
     Under azure arches.

All his soul a floating song,—
     Sweet, too sweet for sadness,—
At his bidding, hither throng
Memories that make us long
     With a plaintive gladness.

Ah, were all the woodland bare,
     Should those notes but quiver,
Straight I'd see it budding fair!—
And the lilies would be there,
     Floating on the river!

"The White-throated Sparrow" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (July 1911), The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume II.