Maryland Yellowthroat

Down by the swamp in the alder tangle
Brisk little dandy with raiment gay.
Maker of ditties that daintily dangle—
MARYLAND YELLOWTHROAT whistles all day.

Smartly he flits in the willows and birches.
Smartly he sings at a silvery pitch.
Rollicking ballads unfitted for churches:
"Witchery, witchery, witchery, witch!"

Witchery, truly, you dear little fifer.
Watching me quaintly with curious eye:
Witchery more than a sage could decipher,
Under your caroling, jauntily spry.

Black masked face uncannily hidden.
Breast aglimmer with golden bloom.
Where is the mystical steed you have ridden—
Where is your sly little witch's broom?

Witchery, witchery all around you.
Summer magic in blossom and tree.
Summer spells in the rhythm that bound you.
Pipe of the cricket and boom of the bee.

Witchery most of all in your singing.
Poet or vagabond, no one knows which.
Over the meadows your silvery ringing:
"Witchery, witchery, witchery, witch!"

Wells

The west side of my shop is only six feet high and the large windows of clear glass give almost on the ground. For twenty years a pair of Yellowthroats have pre-empted the blackberry patch outside and often in Spring the sociable little bandits (from insect viewpoint) pause in their house-building or hunting to peer at the strange animal at work behind the glass.

Last Spring (1929) the male took exception to my appearance in the shop and chip-chipped his displeasure from a white-flowered brier spray that nodded within two feet of the window. The home was being constructed scarcely three yards away. I think it was the same bird that sang the rollicking flight song late in August — even at two o'clock in the morning! On September 3rd a south-bound Nighthawk zoomed close to the home and Blackmask shot into the air with defiant treble just to show that fellow he wasn't the only bird around!