The Bobolink

Black bird scudding

Under the rainy sky,

How wet your wings must be!

And your small head how sleek and cold with water.

Oh, Bobolink, 'tis you!

Over the buffeted orchard in the summer draught,

Chuckling and singing, charging the rainy cloud,

A little bird gone daft,

A little bird with a secret.

Only the bobolink on the rainy

Rhubarb blossom,

Knows my heart.

For whom adversity has not a word to say that can be heard

Above the din of summer.

The rain has taught us nothing.

And the hooves of cattle, and the cat in the grass

Have taught us nothing

The hawk that motionless above the hill

In the pure sky

Stands like a blackened planet

Has taught us nothing,–seeing him shut his wings and fall

Has taught us nothing at all.

In the shadow of the hawk we feather our nests.

Bobolink, you and I, an airy fool and an earthy,

Chuckling under the rain!

I shall never be sad again.

Ah, sweet, absurd,

Beloved, bedraggled bird!