In The Quiet Days - An Old-Year Song

As through the forest, disarrayed     By chill November, late I strayed,     A lonely minstrel of the wood     Was singing to the solitude     I loved thy music, thus I said,     When o'er thy perch the leaves were spread     Sweet was thy song, but sweeter now     Thy carol on the leafless bough.     Sing, little bird! thy note shall cheer     The sadness of the dying year.     When violets pranked the turf with blue     And morning filled their cups with dew,     Thy slender voice with rippling trill     The budding April bowers would fill,     Nor passed its joyous tones away     When April rounded into May:     Thy life shall hail no second dawn, -     Sing, little bird! the spring is gone.     And I remember - well-a-day! -     Thy full-blown summer roundelay,     As when behind a broidered screen     Some holy maiden sings unseen     With answering notes the woodland rung,     And every tree-top found a tongue.     How deep the shade! the groves how fair!     Sing, little bird! the woods are bare.     The summer's throbbing chant is done     And mute the choral antiphon;     The birds have left the shivering pines     To flit among the trellised vines,     Or fan the air with scented plumes     Amid the love-sick orange-blooms,     And thou art here alone, - alone, -     Sing, little bird! the rest have flown.     The snow has capped yon distant hill,     At morn the running brook was still,     From driven herds the clouds that rise     Are like the smoke of sacrifice;     Erelong the frozen sod shall mock     The ploughshare, changed to stubborn rock,     The brawling streams shall soon be dumb, -     Sing, little bird! the frosts have come.     Fast, fast the lengthening shadows creep,     The songless fowls are half asleep,     The air grows chill, the setting sun     May leave thee ere thy song is done,     The pulse that warms thy breast grow cold,     Thy secret die with thee, untold     The lingering sunset still is bright, -     Sing, little bird! 't will soon be night.     1874.