The Song-Sparrow

Glimmers gray the leafless thicket     Close beside my garden gate,     Where, so light, from post to picket     Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate;     Who, with meekly folded wing,     Comes to sun himself and sing.     It was there, perhaps, last year,     That his little house he built;     For he seems to perk and peer,     And to twitter, too, and tilt     The bare branches in between,     With a fond, familiar mien.     Once, I know, there was a nest,     Held there by the sideward thrust     Of those twigs that touch his breast;     Though 'tis gone now. Some rude gust     Caught it, over-full of snow, -     Bent the bush, - and stole it so.     Thus our highest holds are lost,     In the ruthless winter's wind,     When, with swift-dismantling frost,     The green woods we dwelt in, thinn'd     Of their leafage, grow too cold     For frail hopes of summer's mold.     But if we, with spring-days mellow,     Wake to woeful wrecks of change,     And the sparrow's ritornello     Scaling still its old sweet range;     Can we do a better thing     Than, with him, still build and sing?     Oh, my sparrow, thou dost breed     Thought in me beyond all telling;     Shootest through me sunlight, seed,     And fruitful blessing, with that welling     Ripple of ecstatic rest     Gurgling ever from thy breast!     And thy breezy carol spurs     Vital motion in my blood,     Such as in the sap-wood stirs,     Swells and shapes the pointed bud     Of the lilac; and besets     The hollow thick with violets.     Yet I know not any charm     That can make the fleeting time     Of thy sylvan, faint alarm     Suit itself to human rhyme:     And my yearning rhythmic word     Does thee grievous wrong, blithe bird.     So, however thou hast wrought     This wild joy on heart and brain,     It is better left untaught.     Take thou up the song again:     There is nothing sad afloat     On the tide that swells thy throat!