The Songster
Music, music with throb and swing,
Of a plaintive note, and long;
’Tis a note no human throat could sing,
No harp with its dulcet golden string,—
Nor lute, nor lyre with liquid ring,
Is sweet as the robin’s song.
He sings for the love of the season
When the days grow warm and long,
For the beautiful God-sent reason
That his breast was born for song.
Calling, calling so fresh and clear,
Through the song-sweet days of May;
Warbling there, and whistling here,
He swells his voice on the drinking ear,
On the great, wide, pulsing atmosphere
’Till his music drowns the day.
He sings for love of the season
When the days grow warm and long,
For the beautiful God-sent reason
That his breast was born for song.
From Flint and Feather: The Complete Poems of E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) (The Musson Book Co., Limited, 1917) by Emily Pauline Johnson. This poem is in the public domain.
Emily Pauline Johnson
Emily Pauline Johnson, who also published under her paternal grandfather’s Mohawk name Tekahionwake (“double wampum”), was born on March 10, 1861, on the Six Nations Reserve, Canada West. She was the fourth and youngest child born to George Henry Martin Johnson (Onwanonsyshon), a Mohawk who was both a hereditary and elected chief of the Six Nations. Johnson’s father was fluent in six Indigenous languages, which allowed him to work as a translator. Johnson’s mother, Emily Susanna Howells, was an English-born Canadian from Bristol. Johnson’s father died in 1884.