100 OUR FRIENDS, THE BIRDS. 
SONG SPARROW. 
BY GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP. 
Glimmers gray the leafless thicket 
Close beside my garden gate, 
Where so light, from post to picket, 
Hops the Sparrow, blithe, sedate; 
Who with meekly folded wing, 
Comes to sun himself and sing. 
It was there, perhaps last year, 
That his little house he built; 
For he seems to perk and peer, 
And to twitter too, and tilt 
The bare branches in between, 
With a fond, familiar mien. 
Once, I know there was a nest, 
Held there by the sideward thrust 
Of those twigs that touch his breast; 
Though ’tis gone now. Some rude gust 
Caught it, over full of snow,— 
Bent the bush and robbed it so. 
Thus cur brightest hopes are lost 
By the restless winter’s wind, 
When, with swift, dismantling frost 
The green woods we dwell in, thinned 
Of their leafage, grow too cold 
For frail hopes of summer’s mold. 
