The Pewee

In the hush of the drowsy afternoon, When the very wind on the breast of June Lies settled, and hot white tracery Of the shattered sunlight filters free Through the unstinted leaves to the pied cool sward; On a dead tree branch sings the saddest bard Of the birds that be; 'Tis the lone Pewee. Its note is a sob, and its note is pitched In a single key, like a soul bewitched To a mournful minstrelsy.
    "Pewee, Pewee," doth it ever cry; A sad, sweet minor threnody That threads the aisles of the dim hot grove Like a tale of a wrong or a vanished love; And the fancy comes that the wee dun bird Perchance was a maid, and her heart was stirred By some lover's rhyme In a golden time, And broke when the world turned false and cold; And her dreams grew dark and her faith grew cold In some fairy far-off clime.
    And her soul crept into the Pewee's breast; And forever she cries with a strange unrest For something lost, in the afternoon; For something missed from the lavish June; For the heart that died in the long ago; For the livelong pain that pierceth so: Thus the Pewee cries, While the evening lies Steeped in the languorous still sunshine, Rapt, to the leaf and the bough and the vine Of some hopeless paradise.