Bird of the brown wing and the dotted brest,
    Who dwells in deep woods, cool and dark and green;
In dewy, dim retreats he rears his nest,
    By all save barefoot truants left unseen.

In Spring and Summer, at the dusk and dawn,
    He floods the forest with his liquid trill;
At burning noon, in solitude withdrawn,
    The hours doze on while all his songs are still.

Like rival troubadours, from every spray,
    To all his notes his brethren make reply;
They speed the splendid sunrise on his way,
    And chant a requiem when the light must die.

When morning, like a tulip flecked with fire,
    In scarlet and in orange breaks in bloom,
Bird answers bird, and in one heavenly choir
    They hail him from their forest-temple's gloom:

"O day of joy, haste thy nimble feet!
    All earth is happy, like a sweet love-story.
Come on, come on, where Youth and Pleasure meet,
    To crown thee as thou risest in thy glory!"

When sunset lingers over Western hills
    In ashen purple, like an exiled king,
Bird answers bird in melancholy trills,
    Ah me, that song the wild wood-thrushes sing!

"O perfect day, how soon thy joys shall end!
    Thou wilt return, O never, never, never;
Far, O how far, thy weary feet must wend;
    O day of joy, farewell, farewell, forever!"