This is the time for birds to mate;
        To-day the dove
     Will mark the ancient amorous date
        With moans of love;
     The crow will change his call to prate
        His hopes thereof.

     The starling will display the red
        That lights his wings;
     The wren will know the sweet things said
        By him who swings
     And ducks and dips his crested head
        And sings and sings.

     They are obedient to their blood,
        Nor ask a sign,
     Save buoyant air and swelling bud,
        At hands divine,
     But choose, each in the barren wood,
        His valentine.

     In caution's maze they never wait
        Until they die;
     They flock the season's open gate
        Ere time steals by.
     Love, shall we see and imitate,
        You, love, and I?

     When in this room I turn in pondering pace
     And find thine eyes upon me where I stand,
     Led on, as by Enemo's silken strand,
     I come and gaze and gaze upon thy face.

     Framed round by silence, poised on pearl-white grace
     Of curving throat, too sweet for beaded band,
     It seems as if some wizard's magic wand
     Had wrought thee for the love of all the race.

     Dear face, that will not turn about to see
     The tulips, glorying in the casement sun,
     Or, other days, the drizzled raindrops run

     Down the damp walls, but follow only me,
     Would that Pygmalion's goddess might be won
     To change this lifeless image into thee!

     If I have had some merry times
      In roaming up and down the earth,
     Have made some happy-hearted rhymes
      And had my brimming share of mirth,
     And if this song should live in fame
      When my brief day is dead and gone,
     Let it recall with mine the name
      Of old man Jesse Covington.

     Let it recall his waggish heart—
      Yeke-hey, yeke-hey, hey-diddle-diddle—
     When, while the fire-logs fell apart,
      He snatched the bow across his fiddle,
     And looked on, with his eyes half shut,
      Which meant his soul was wild with fun,
     At our mad capers through the hut
      Of old man Jesse Covington.

     For all the thrilling tales he told,
      For all the tunes the fiddle knew,
     For all the