A Song in the Wood

I found a shy little violet root
Half hid in the woods, on a day of spring,
And a bird flew over, and looked at it, too,
And for joy, as he looked, he began to sing.

The sky was the tenderest blue above,—
And the flower like a bit of the sky below;
And between them the wonderful winds of God
On heavenly errands went to and fro.

Away from the summer, and out of the South
The bird has followed a whisper true,
As out from the brown and desolate sod
Stepped the shy little blossom, with eyes of blue.

And he sang to her, in the young spring day,
Of all the joy in the world astir;
And her beauty and fragrance answered him,
While the spring and he bent over her.