Azephyr paused by my window-seat
And floated the filmy curtain in,—
From the top of a cedar a blue-bird sang—
“The hearts of the world are all akin.”

I wondered and pondered within my own,
Of the ties of love, of the tithes of hate,
But the mother cuddled her birdlings down,
To drink in the melody of her mate.

I half believed, in my pensive mood,
Far from the hurry and bustle and din,
And its cadences clung like a trembling prayer,
“The hearts of the world are all akin.”

Over the way, ere the gathering dusk,
Trudged prosperous poverty, homeward turned,
But a beggar crept to the laborer's feet—
Miserable, helpless, homeless, spurned;

And the horny hand in its honest truth,
Gave from the old purse, long and thin—
He passed and I blent with his whistled tune,
“The hearts of the world are all akin.”

Over the way, he hurried along,
A man in his worldliness, chilling and bleak,
But he paused to lift up a stumbling child,
And wiped the dust from its tear-stained cheek.

The hard face thawed, as he set on its way
The child of poverty, want, and sin;
And I whispered low, in the gathering gray,
“The hearts of the world are all akin.”

For the laborer gave what was hardest to him,
Of the fruitage his toil and labor had wrought,
And the rich man gave what was rarest to him,
The tenderness lucre could never have bought.

So the blue-bird whistles and weaves the chords,
With mystical melody out and in,
For children of darkness and children of light,—
“The hearts of the world are all akin.”