Poems (Chitwood)/The Robin's Song

by Mary Louisa Chitwood

THE ROBIN'S SONG.

I hear a robin singing
 Out in the Autumn rain;
My soul its way is winging
 To childhood's time again;
I hear the south winds blowing,
The rush of the harvest mowing,
And the voice of the river flowing,
 Where lilies lived and died;
I rest beneath the shadow
Of the aspen in the meadow,
 With no hope crucified.

And now his song is over,
 I hear the falling rain,
But I seem to smell the clover
 With honeyed lips again;
And locks the world hath braided,
And eyes the tomb hath shaded,
Come back undimmed, unfaded,
 To my glad heart once more;
And all the sky is lighter,
And all the world is brighter,
 Until my dream is o'er.

Oh, frail ties, fair and golden,
 That bind us to the past—
Oh, dreams when hours the olden
 Seem all come back at last;
Slight are the spells that take us
To sweetest thoughts, and wake us
From heartless things that make us
 Of sordid life the slaves;
And through the world's rough bustle
There come the rush an rustle
 Of angel-wings, like waves.