Classic Poem

Full half a warm and budding day
Within a little grove I lay;
And still, from noon to evening's fall,
I heard a lonely wood-bird's call.
He wandered south; he wandered north;
With restless flitting back and forth;
And still his tender, 'plaining cry
Smote on my sympathizing ear;
And still I marked him fluttering by,
Now hurrying on, now pausing near.

The happy birds, the boughs among,
Were singing blithely as could be,
Love's bliss the theme of every song;
But still that pensive melody
Upon the tranquil air would float—
A sweetly melancholy note.

At last, for that one sound of woe,
I felt my foolish eyes o'erflow,
I pitied so the birdling's grief;
And thus, to give my heart relief,
“Poor bird!” I cried, “can this thing be?
Has Nature been unfair to thee?
And left thee, lonely and forlorn,
From dawn to eve disconsolate,
Thy only task thy fate to mourn,
Foredoomed to live without a mate?
Nay, little one, it is not so;
Somewhere, in some secluded spot,
There mourns a little bird, I know,
As discontented with her lot.
Flit on, sad heart, flit east and west;
With cries still ease thy burdened breast;
Fly on, fly on, fly far and fast;
For thou shalt find thy mate at last.”