Summer Friends - An 1855 Poem
By Frederic S. Cozzens.
- "When spring the fields in daisies dressed
- And flushed the woods with maple buds
- I espied a little blue birds nest
- Within a cedar's branchy studs.
-
- "Its old gray grass, inlaid with hair,
- The summer's sun had withered up,
- And autumn's acorns still were there,
- Though snows had brimmed its tiny cup.
-
- "What then! I heard a pilgrim hymn;
- And half forgave the long neglect,
- When perched upon the threshold rim
- A little feathered architect.
-
- "And straw by straw the walls he wrought,
- And hair by hair the floor he spread.
- And when his blue bird wife he brought,
- They slept within the nuptial bed.
-
- "Oh! how I loved my pranksome guest!
- For him I loved his help-mate too;
- With jealous care I fenced their nest,
- And watched them as they sang or flew.
-
- "So April passed, and gentle May
- Went murmuring by with leaves and bees;
- And two small blue-winged chicks had they
- When summer broadened on the tree.
-
- "My very solitude had made
- That tiny household seem more sweet;
- And often to the bank I strayed
- To watch the nestlings chirp and eat.
-
- "But when the painted autumn came,
- And shook the boughs, and bared the wood,
- I scarce the feathered brood could blame
- Though void their puny wigwam stood;
-
- "For summer friends had come like these,
- Like these the summer friends had flown;
- When stormy winter stripped the trees,
- They left the cold and me alone."
February 3, 1855. Washington D.C. Evening Star 5(651): 1. Also February 6, 1858 in the Alti-slavery Bugle 13(25): 4.