Classic Poem

A lovelier thing I do not know
Than blue jays flying in the snow.
Junco, with your ashen breast,
Nuthatch, with your steely crest,
Little friendly chickadees,
Crying in the cedar trees;
Crow, that never seems so black
As upon a Winter track;
Did you see them going by,
Like small bits of the blue sky,
Hidden now behind something
Dusky gray like a bird's wing?

As blue flowers delicate
Laid upon a china plate,
As an orchid suddenly
Blooming on a barren tree,
They were with me yesterday
In the snow and shadows gray,
Earnest of the lovely things
In the pack that April brings.

Now my faith is strong again
In dogwood and in cyclamen,
And I believe in iris now,
And flowers on the apple bough,
And under the great drifts of snow
I see the pale arbutus grow,
Although the wind is loud and cold
And all the trees look hard and old.

As if some bed of blossoms blue
Suddenly took wings and flew,
The blue jay chattered, as jays will,
And flew over my Winter hill,
And then the gentle chickadee
Came down to sing familiarly,
And where I'd tied a lump of fat
A black and white woodpecker sat,
And the blue glory had gone by,
And it is Winter still. But I
Can shut my eyes and see them go
Like morning glories in the snow.