Little Brown Bird

By Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

O LITTLE brown bird in the rain,

In the sweet rain of spring,

How you carry the youth of the world

In the bend of your wing!

For you the long day is for song

And the night is for sleep —

With never a sunrise too soon

Or a midnight too deep!

For you every pool is the sky,

Breaking clouds chasing through,—

A heaven so instant and near

That you bathe in its blue!—

And yours is the freedom to rise

To some song-haunted star

Or sink on soft wing to the wood

Where your brown nestlings are.

So busy, so strong and so glad,

So care-free and young,

So tingling with life to be lived

And with songs to be sung,

O little brown bird!— with your heart

That's the heart of the Spring —

How you carry the hope of the world

In the bend of your wing!