Why, throstle, do you sing <br />In this November haze? <br />Singing for what? for whom? <br />Deem you that it is Spring, <br />Or that your lonely lays <br />Will stave off Winter's gloom? <br /> <br />Then did the bird reply: <br />``I sing because I know <br />That Spring will surely come: <br />That is the reason why, <br />Though menaced by the snow, <br />Even now I am not dumb. <br /> <br />``But few are they that hear, <br />And fewer still that feel, <br />The meaning of my song, <br />Until the note be clear, <br />Re-echoed be the peal, <br />Early, and late, and long. <br /> <br />``But you have heard and owned <br />The sound of my refrain, <br />Yet tentative and low. <br />Thus, poet, be intoned <br />Your own foreshadowing strain, <br />Trusting that some will know: <br /> <br />``That some will know and say, <br />When greetings of the Spring <br />Wake Winter from its bed, <br />This is the self-same lay <br />We overheard him sing <br />When dead hearts deemed him dead.''<br /><br />Alfred Austin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-november-note/
