The birds return,
The blossom brightens again the cherry bough.
The hedges are green again
In the airless lane,
And hedge and blossom and bird call, Now, now, now!

O birds, return!
Who will care if the blossom die on the bough,
Or the hedge be bare again
In the screaming lane?
For what they were these are not, are not now.

The one gone makes
All that remain seem strange and lonely now.
She will not walk here again
In the blossoming lane:--
And there's a dead bough in every blossoming bough.