The clear notes fall like crystal rain
An echo of all lost delights,
Of hidden joy and secret pain.
Of love's soft music, heard no more
But dreamt of and remembered long.
How can mortal bird outpour
Such joy and longing in a song?
—Roberts
Few birds are more intimately woven in memory's skein with the deep Maine woods — dawns, noons and sunsets. There are still WHITETHROATS here altho May has come. I watch while they gather scratchfeed for supper but recollection turns back the hour to campfires among spruces, while we talked of many things and watched Alderbaran diadem a conifer.
In Spring the lilt tells of dawning Summer — in Autumn, whispers the cadence of a fading year.
Within the mirrored bushes
There wakes a little stir.
A Whitethroat moves and hushes
The nestlings under her.
Central and Eastern North America from Great Bear Lake and Hudson Bay south in Winter to Gulf Coast.