124 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
flagration of the woods. And now and then as 
I rose and went forward blithely but leisurely 
I saw a blue bird’s nest in a knotted hollow of 
the apple tree or a robin’s nest perched in the 
branch of the trees and intruded on by the 
apples, and I heard along the apple orchard a 
blue bird’s voice “ber-mu-da-ing” as being lonely 
and on the wing for the sunny South where 
winter is pushed aside by spring. And I confess 
that I love not the blue bird’s sky blue of gar- 
ment or his springtime song more than I love 
his autumnal garment and his autumn song. 
Both haunt me and heal my heart. In the 
robin’s silent house where birdlings were, leaves 
now are the nestlings. The robins have with 
easy stages taken their way south. Again I 
hear the blue bird’s voice and love him for it. 
His migration more accentuates the blue bird’s 
lovely note, not strong as its springtime lyric, but 
sadly sweet like a good-by said in music. I 
wished the blue bird would not go south in 
winter when I stay north, yet they will do their 
blue-bird way to the end of their blue-birding. 
Now their song says: “We linger but we must 
go. We want to stay but the tug of the South 
is on us and our wings want the sky, the sunny 
sky, the haunting sky.” And they flew past 
me like blue leaves from a gaudy forest, still 
saying, “Grieve not for us; we shall be back in 
the spring, ber-mu-da, ber-mu-da—and the spring.” 
It was a song like the heartache of the falling leaf 
