by Mary Howitt
How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Flitting about in each leafy tree:
In the leafy trees so broad and tall,
Like a green and beautiful palace-hall
With its airy chambers light and boon,
That open to sun, and stars, and moon!
That open unto the bright blue sky.
And the frolicsome winds as they wander by.
They have left their nests in the forest bough;
Those homes of delight they need not now;
And the young and the old they wander out
And traverse their green world round about;
And hark! at the top of this leafy hall,
How one to the other they lovingly call:
“Come up, come up!” they seem to say,
“Where the topmost twigs in the breezes sway!”
“Come up, come up, for the world is fair
Where the merry leaves dance in the summer air,”
And the birds below give back the cry:
“We come, we come, to the branches high!”
How pleasant the life of a bird must be
Flitting about in a leafy tree;
And away through the air what joy to go,
And to look on the bright green earth below.
How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Wherever it listeth there to flee;
To go, when a joyful fancy calls,
Dashing adown ‘mong the waterfalls,
Then wheeling about with its mates at play,
Above and below, and among the spray,
Hither and thither, with screams as wild
As the laughing mirth of a rosy child!
How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Skimming about on the breezy sea,
Cresting the billows like silvery foam,
And then wheeling away to its cliff-built home
What joy it must be to sail, upborne
By a strong free wing, through the rosy morn,
To meet the young sun face to face,
And pierce like a shaft the boundless space!
What joy it must be, like a living breeze,
To flutter about ‘mong the flowering trees;
Lightly to soar and to see beneath
The wastes of the blossoming purple heath,
And the yellow furze like fields of gold
That gladden some fairy regions old!
On mountain tops, on the billowy sea,
On the leafy stems of the forest tree,
How pleasant the life of a bird must be!