TO THE QUIET OBSERVER

Dear old friend of us all in need

Who know the worth of a friend indeed,

How rejoiced are we all to learn

Of your glad return.

We who have missed your voice so long —

Even as March might miss the song

Of the sugar-bird in the maples when

They're tapped again.

Even as the memory of these

Blended sweets,— the sap of the trees

And the song of the birds, and the old camp too,

We think of you.

Hail to you, then, with welcomes deep

As grateful hearts may laugh or weep!—

You give us not only the bird that sings,

But all good things.