The Project Gutenberg eBook of The hermit thrush

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Title: The hermit thrush

Author: F. Schuyler Mathews

Release date: February 10, 2023 [eBook #70006]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: L Prang & Co, 1896

Credits: Steve Mattern, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HERMIT THRUSH ***

The Hermit Thrush

BY
F· Schuyler Mathews
L·PRANG·&·Co:
Boston:
1

The Hermit Thrush

The sweet fresh air of the new springtime
Breathes o’er the woods where the blue hills climb
Aloft from a belt of spruce and pine
That hides their feet in a dark green line.
On the edge of the wood where the white birch trees
2

WHERE THE BLUE HILLS CLIMB
ALOFT FROM A BELT OF SPRUCE AND PINE

3
Nod and bend in the passing breeze,
A hermit lives who never is seen
Nearer the meadow’s rolling green
Than the pasture bars beside the hill,
Where the road is lonely, dark, and still,
And scarcely anyone passes by
But the boy and cows, and squirrels shy.
This hermit is brown, and small in size,
And hides away from curious eyes;
He wears no cowl and studies no book,
4

THE PASTURE BARS
BESIDE THE HILL

5
Nor sits in a cave or sheltered nook;
But up in the top of the tallest tree
At the edge of the wood, alone sits he,
And sings his song in a wild sweet way,
Of the distant world so blithe and gay;
How he retired from its youthful folly—
And here there’s a touch of melancholy
In cadence soft; and the song’s complete,
With such a wealth of melody sweet
As never the organ’s pipe could blow,
6
Or ever musician could think or know.
Sometimes he sits in the gloaming still,
On the leaning birch beside the mill
And the old mill’s shaky, clumsy wheel,
Worn out with the work of grinding meal,
Frets and fusses and sputters away,
And beats the water to foam and spray;
Its broken buckets dipping along
In ill marked time to the thrush’s song.
Never was music softer nor tune
7

SOMETIMES HE SITS IN THE GLOAMING STILL
ON THE LEANING BIRCH BESIDE THE MILL:

Sweeter than his in the afternoon
When the lowering sun shines slanting across
The rugged old pines, and the rocks, and moss.
Should you wish to hear this hermit thrush sing,
And his song in the woods and welkin ring,
Then come where the blue notch mountains rise
Far up in the north and pierce the skies;
Where Kinsman’s dome stands full and round,
And Lafayette’s pyramid peak is found;
Where Pemigewasset’s silvery stream
8

THE LOWERING SUN
SHINES SLANTING ACROSS

9
Winds through the valley with glint and gleam;
There you will hear the heaven-born note
Swell from the thrush’s slender throat,
And listening nature will breathless lie,
To hear the sweetest song of the sky!
10

COME GENTLE SPRING