My First Bobolink 



My First Bobolink 



At mid-morning yesterday, up in the hills 



I met a strange bird with such wonderful trills 



And magical blending of music and noise, 



(Like the composite voice of a group of small boys, 



Or perhaps, better still, like a half-dozen girls. 

 Some chatting, some singing, in eddies and whirls 



Of small talk and melody, all in a mix). 



He stopped and dumfounded me quite with his tricks. 



Now who can he be, thought I, thus to pour forth 

 Such warm southern ecstas}^ here in the north? 



He's new to me surely — yet surely I've read 

 Somewhere of those black and white wings, and that 

 head 



Tilted upward so pert, with its saucy buff cap — 

 So far back and so small that the slightest mishap 



Might, methought, jar it off in a trice to the ground — 

 Oh, who is this very bird-Babel of sound? 



Thus I questioned in wonder — yet not lacking 



delight. 

 As, with all its confusion, his voice charmed me 



quite : 



For the sunshine was in't — when the plashing of rain 

 Of a sweet April day — then the sunshine again; 



[81] 



