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| WHEN winter’s cold tempests and snows are no more, | |
| Green meadows and brown-furrowed fields reappearing, | |
| The fishermen hauling their shad to the shore, | |
| And cloud-cleaving geese to the Lakes are a-steering; | |
| When first the lone butterfly flits on the wing; | 5 |
| When red glow the maples, so fresh and so pleasing, | |
| Oh then comes the blue-bird, the herald of spring! | |
| And hails with his warblings the charms of the season. | |
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| Then loud-piping frogs make the marshes to ring; | |
| Then warm glows the sunshine, and fine is the weather; | 10 |
| The blue woodland flowers just beginning to spring, | |
| And spicewood and sassafras budding together: | |
| Oh then to your gardens, ye housewives, repair! | |
| Your walks border up; sow and plant at your leisure; | |
| The blue-bird will chant from his box such an air | 15 |
| That all your hard toils will seem truly a pleasure. | |
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| He flits through the orchards, he visits each tree, | |
| The red-flowering peach and the apple’s sweet blossoms; | |
| He snaps up destroyers wherever they be, | |
| And seizes the caitiffs that lurk in their bosoms; | 20 |
| He drags the vile grub from the corn he devours, | |
| The worm from their webs where they riot and welter; | |
| His song and his services freely are ours, | |
| And all that he asks is in summer a shelter. | |
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| The ploughman is pleased when he gleans in his train, | 25 |
| Now searching the furrows, now mounting to cheer him; | |
| The gardener delights in his sweet simple strain, | |
| And leans on his spade to survey and to hear him; | |
| The slow-lingering schoolboys forget they ’ll be chid, | |
| While gazing intent as he warbles before ’em | 30 |
| In mantle of sky-blue, and bosom so red, | |
| That each little loiterer seems to adore him. | |
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| When all the gay scenes of the summer are o’er, | |
| And autumn slow enters so silent and sallow, | |
| And millions of warblers, that charmed us before, | 35 |
| Have fled in the train of the sun-seeking swallow, | |
| The blue-bird forsaken, yet true to his home, | |
| Still lingers, and looks for a milder to-morrow, | |
| Till, forced by the horrors of winter to roam, | |
| He sings his adieu in a lone note of sorrow. | 40 |
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| While spring’s lovely season, serene, dewy, warm, | |
| The green face of earth, and the pure blue of heaven, | |
| Or love’s native music, have influence to charm, | |
| Or sympathy’s glow to our feelings is given, | |
| Still dear to each bosom the blue-bird shall be; | 45 |
| His voice like the thrillings of hope is a treasure; | |
| For, through bleakest storms if a calm he but see, | |
| He comes to remind us of sunshine and pleasure! | |
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