UNDER THE LIGHT-HOUSE.
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And many a homely, brown, red-breasted robin,
Whose voice no child forgets.
And yellow-birds—what shapes of perfect beauty!
What silence after song!
And mingled with them, unfamiliar warblers
That to far woods belong.
Clothing the gray rocks with a mournful beauty
By scores the dead forms lay,
That, dashed against the tall tower's cruel windows,
Dropped like the spent sea spray.
How many an old and sun-steeped barn, far inland,
Should miss about its eaves
The twitter and the gleam of these swift swallows!
And, swinging 'mid the leaves,
The oriole's nest, all empty in the elm-tree,
Would cold and silent be,
And never more these robins make the meadows
Ring with their ecstasy.
Would not the gay swamp-border miss the black- birds,
Whistling so loud and clear?
Would not the bobolinks' delicious music
Lose something of its cheer?
"Yet," thought the wistful children, gazing landward,
Whose voice no child forgets.
And yellow-birds—what shapes of perfect beauty!
What silence after song!
And mingled with them, unfamiliar warblers
That to far woods belong.
Clothing the gray rocks with a mournful beauty
By scores the dead forms lay,
That, dashed against the tall tower's cruel windows,
Dropped like the spent sea spray.
How many an old and sun-steeped barn, far inland,
Should miss about its eaves
The twitter and the gleam of these swift swallows!
And, swinging 'mid the leaves,
The oriole's nest, all empty in the elm-tree,
Would cold and silent be,
And never more these robins make the meadows
Ring with their ecstasy.
Would not the gay swamp-border miss the black- birds,
Whistling so loud and clear?
Would not the bobolinks' delicious music
Lose something of its cheer?
"Yet," thought the wistful children, gazing landward,
