To A. E. B. M.
Hushed are the birds that lately thrilled
The morning world with melody.
At eventide their songs are stilled—
What can this woodland silence be?
High in a hammock, zephyr-swung,
Low in a locust’s thorny bough,
Deep in a dell, the reeds among,
The birds have better business now.
Let summer end, and o’er the hill
The sylvan chorus sounds again;
Robin and thrush and bluebird trill
This message to the hearts of men:
“Though April hopes be memories,
‘Tis small content regret can give.
Put grieving by! Enough it is
To live and love, to love and live.”
The verse of Nebraska-born Leonard Harmon Robbins appeared regularly in the Newark News between 1901 and 1917. These lines are from his collection Jersey Jingles published in 1907.
newarkpoems 