A Song for the Return of Birds

Haste, little songsters, and return

To your nests in the silent wood;

The birches are lonely and they yearn

For your twittering brotherhood.

The leaves are green on the wakened trees

And the snow has left the moss;

The sighing breeze

With its symphonies

Suggests our greatest loss —

Haste, little birds, haste home!

Haste little songsters, for the Spring

Has come with her laughing train

Of radiant blossoms; and now the King

Is here, and the pattering rain.

The nights are warm and the days are long,

There is no more ice or frost;

And oh! we long

For a songbird's song,

For a music the woods have lost —

Haste, little birds, haste home!