AT rest upon some quiet limb
And singing to his pretty 'marrow,'
Sweet-breasted friend of child and man,
I love the bright eyes and the tan,
Gray-mottled coat that suits the trim
And winsome singing-sparrow.

He seeks no dear and lofty ground;
His home is every ridge and furrow;
In the low alder bushes he's
At home, and in the wayside trees;
Wherever man lives I have found
The nest of the song-sparrow,

Except among the chimney-tops
A-smoking where the streets are narrow;
Where man has banished living green
And scarce a blade of grass is seen
He rarely comes, he never stops,
The little rustic sparrow.

Where twigs are small and branches low
And scarce the name of woods can borrow,
He flits and sings the whole day long
And 'Rivers run,' is still his song,
'And flowers blossom, breezes blow,
And all for the song-sparrow!'

I meet him in the tufted field
Among the clover-tops and yarrow;
I hear him by the quiet brook,
And always with the open look
Of one who would not be concealed;
And then I meet the sparrow

When golden lights at evening run
Among the trees the copses thorough;
And there I catch his joyous song,
Stealing the moments that belong
To songsters of the setting sun
And not to the song-sparrow.

When touches of the coming night
Set free the bands of hidden sorrow
The night-bird sounds his ringing note,
And from his melancholy throat
The hermit pours a sad delight,
And no one hears the sparrow.

His song is tuned for his to-day,
With hope and promise for the morrow;
More lofty notes are upward sent,
But none more simple and content,
None cheerfuller in work and play
Than that of the song-sparrow.