While the Robins Sang: An Idyl

“ THE tune means naught to you,” the captain said,
“ Only a quaint old melody ; but to me
’T is as a breath of fire. At earliest, dawn
Our bands would play our Yankee Doodle ; then
From far and far away across the dusk
Of ghostly morning land an echo came,
Elf-beautiful, elf-changed, the rebel bands
Faint chiming Dixie.”

I had played the air
On the piano in the parlor’s dusk,
Before we started on our sunset walk,
My friend the captain and myself; and now
We faced the sunset in a cool clear gloom,
Breathing moist pleasant smell, and listening
To robin-carols. Tender shone the west, —
Peach-pink and violet-bloom along the hills,
And delicate gold above ; and long we stood
Musing and silent, till he spoke again :
“ So glowed the sky, but not so beautiful,
After a raid: we looked back south at dusk,
And half the heavens were lit with burning barns.”

A robin somewhere near began to sing
An intricate melody, buoyant lyric love
At utterance from cool tongue and silver throat
High in the sycamore. Dreaming we heard,
And dreaming he resumed:

“ In willow-wilds
And cedar-swamps by deadly Murfreesboro’,
For days we fed the wounded in the woods
On robins: there were myriads of them there
Into the bush at night with clubs and bags
We went, and came back loaded : every eve
Their gay and frolic passion fluted crisp
To wests as rich as this ; and every night
We slew that music for the Nation’s wounds,
Stanched blood with bird-songs, stilled the cold sweet air
Of all that keen roulading and fine grace
To make a dainty food for death. So I,”
He said, “ give honor to these blithe orange-breasts:
The robins helped to save the stars and stripes
From being sadly torn.”

Reluctantly
We turned, and faced a drowsy purple east,
And faint gold staining all the budding trees:
Familiar bluebirds laughed about the slopes,
And twitter-wingèd turtle-doves passed o’er
To croon a-distant; and the meadow-larks
Dropped plaintive violin-sweetness down the dusk ;
And on ahead across the twilight slope
The girls were out for frolic, racing gay,
With birdlike shrieks and somewhat of a show
Of glimmering ankles, till they saw us come,
And blew away upon a windy laugh:
But with the robins our hearts flew a-low,
Skimming the grass, and calling lovers home,
And piping to the earliest of the stars.