OUR FRIENDS, THE BIRDS. 
To drink blue air and to feel it flowing 
Through every dainty plume, 
Uplifting, pillowing, bearing, blowing, 
And the earth below in bloom. 
Is it far to heaven, O Swallow, Swallow ? 
The heavy-hearted sings; 
I watch thy flight and I long to follow 
The while I wait for wings. 
THE SWALLOW. 
BY OWEN MEREDITH. 
O Swallow, chirping in the sparkling eaves, 
Why hast thou left far south thy fairy homes, 
To build between these drenched April leaves, 
And sing me songs of Spring before it comes? 
Too soon thou singest! Yon black stubborn thorn, 
Bursts not a bud; the sneaping wind drifts on. 
She that once flung thee crumbs and in the morn 
Sang from the lattice where thou sings’t is gone. 
Here is no Spring. Thy flight yet further follow. 
Fly off, vain Swallow! 
Thou com’st to mock me with remembered things, 
I love thee not, O bird for me too gay, 
That which I want thou hast,—the gift of wings; 
Grief—which I have—thou hast not. Fly away! 
105 
