| Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Second Book of Modern Verse. 1922. |
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| Yellow Warblers |
| | | Katharine Lee Bates (1859–1929) |
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| THE FIRST faint dawn was flushing up the skies | |
| When, dreamland still bewildering mine eyes, | |
| I looked out to the oak that, winter-long, | |
| —a winter wild with war and woe and wrong— | |
| Beyond my casement had been void of song. | 5 |
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| And lo! with golden buds the twigs were set, | |
| Live buds that warbled like a rivulet | |
| Beneath a veil of willows. Then I knew | |
| Those tiny voices, clear as drops of dew, | |
| Those flying daffodils that fleck the blue, | 10 |
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| Those sparkling visitants from myrtle isles, | |
| Wee pilgrims of the sun, that measure miles | |
| Innumerable over land and sea | |
| With wings of shining inches. Flakes of glee, | |
| They filled that dark old oak with jubilee, | 15 |
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| Foretelling in delicious roundelays | |
| Their dainty courtships on the dipping sprays, | |
| How they should fashion nests, mate helping mate, | |
| Of milkweed flax and fern-down delicate | |
| To keep sky-tinted eggs inviolate. | 20 |
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| Listening to those blithe notes, I slipped once more | |
| From lyric dawn through dreamland’s open door, | |
| And there was God, Eternal Life that sings, | |
| Eternal joy, brooding all mortal things, | |
| A nest of stars, beneath untroubled wings. | 25 |
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