What The Birds Told
"WHAT a dreary, sorrowful world is this!"
Said the owl from his hollow tree;
"Yet the lark is glad for the dazzling light,
And the robin can sing in glee.
Poor, foolish birds, they are merry now,
But the angry storms will beat
Through the leaves that shelter their shallow nest
With the snow and the cutting sleet."
But higher and higher the little lark soared,
Till the earth lay far below;
The verdant valleys, the waving woods,
Smiled bright in the sunlight's glow.
"What a beautiful world has the Father made!"
She sang as she upward flew;
"The land, the water, and over them all
He has spread the warm sky's blue.
"Wherever on wayward wings we soar,
O'er ocean, o'er earth, through air,
The humblest, the weakest, by night and day,
He guards with a patient care.
He has given us each some song to sing,
And we utter them not in vain,
For he hears the hum of the lowliest bee,
And the sparrow's tremulous strain."
From her peaceful nest, on the swaying bough
The robin sang soft and low:
"Oh! Kind is the Father that made the leaves,
And bade the green grass grow.
He made the brooklets that we might drink,
The fruits that, are rich and sweet
He hangs on the boughs, when the flowers are gone
That we may be glad and eat.
"We know that the summer that lingers now
Will vanish at his command;
That the flowers will die, and the leaves will fall,
When winter shall shroud the land.
But the frailest wing, will his good hand guide
Through spaces of pathless air,
To climes where the date and the citron grow,
And summer dwells always there.
"He loves the creatures that he has made,
And nothing is mean or small;
For tender compassion and boundless love
Are lavished alike on all.
So the world is bright if our hearts are bright,
And fair if our souls are fair;
For the gifts of his beauty may come to all,
With the bounty of sun and air."
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