THE GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER 



joyous cackle wherewith he announces 

 his return from his winter sojourn in the 

 South has not gained him another, and 

 that love note, so like the slow whetting 

 of a knife upon a steel, still another. 

 Perhaps it is because they are especially 

 sounds of spring and seldom if ever 

 heard after the season of joyful arrival 

 and love-making. 



During the same season you frequently 

 hear him attuning his harsh sharp voice 

 to its softest note of endearment, a long- 

 drawn and modulated variation of his 

 cackle. When household cares begin, 

 the lord and lady of the wooden tower, 

 like too many greater and wiser two- 

 legged folk, give over singing and soft 

 words. At home and abroad their de- 

 portment is sober and business-like, and 

 except for an occasional alarm-cry they 

 are mostly silent. 



As you wander through the orchard 

 of an early midsummer day and pause 

 beside an old apple-tree to listen to the 

 cuckoo's flute or admire the airy fabric 

 of the wood pewee's nest, a larger scale 

 of lichen on the lichened boughs, you 

 hear a smothered vibrant murmur close 

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