One day in the bluest of summer weather, Sketching under a whispering oak, I heard five bobolinks laughing together, Over some ornithological joke.

When Nature had made all her birds, With no more cares to think on, She gave a rippling laugh and out There flew a Bobolinkon.

Thought is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught.

If there comes a little thaw,
Still the air is chill and raw,
Here and there a patch of snow,
Dirtier than the ground below,
Dribbles down a marshy flood;
Ankle-deep you stick in mud In the meadows while you sing,
"This is Spring."

When great poets sing, Into the night new constellations spring, With music in the air that dulls the craft Of rhetoric. So when Shakespeare sang or laughed The world with long, sweet Alpine echoes thrilled Voiceless to scholars' tongues no muse had filled With melody divine.

If there comes a little thaw, Still the air is chill and raw, Here and there a patch of snow, Dirtier than the ground below, Dribbles down a marshy flood; Ankle-deep you stick in mud In the meadows while you sing, "This is Spring."