WAYLAYING THE DAWN 



you find it. The mother bird had been 

 frightened from her nest by the crush 

 of my foot at its side in the darkness, 

 and she did not dare come back, for I 

 had unwittingly sat down beneath the 

 pine almost across the entrance. Fright- 

 ened for her nest as well as herself, 

 she fluttered about like a bird ghost, 

 now dozing in the thicket for a time, 

 then waking to strangeness and fear, 

 and making her plaint again. 



The wood thrush, brooding her eggs 

 in the thicket near by, heard it and 

 was wakeful, and her mate, never far 

 off, now and again lifted his head from 

 beneath his wing and drowsily tintin- 

 nabulated a reassuring note or two, but 

 I did not stir. I was not sure that I 

 was the cause of the oven bird's trouble, 

 and if so to move about in the darkness 

 might well bring her worse disaster. 



