162 THE SINGING OF BIRDS 



I know his name, I know his note, 

 That so with rapture takes my soul ; 



Like flame the gold beneath his throat, 

 His glossy cope is black as coal. 



O oriole, it is the song 



You sang me from the cottonwood, 

 Too young to feel that I was young, 



Too glad to guess if life were good. 



And while I hark, before my door, 

 Adown the dusty Concord Road, 



The blue Miami flows once more 

 As by the cottonwood it flowed. 



And on the bank that rises steep, 

 And pours a thousand tiny rills, 



From death and absence laugh and leap 

 My schoolmates to their flutter-mills. 



The blackbirds jangle in the tops 

 Of hoary-antlered sycamores ; 



The timorous killdee starts and stops 

 Among the driftwood on the shores. 



Below, the bridge a noonday fear 

 Of dust and shadow shot with sun 



Stretches its gloom from pier to pier, 

 Far unto alien coasts unknown. 



And on those alien coasts, above, 



Where silver ripples break the stream's 



Long blue, from some roof-sheltering grove 

 A hidden parrot scolds and screams, 



