Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MISSING, by ESTHER BARSTOW HAMMAND


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MISSING, by                    
First Line: The thrush who owns my cottonwood
Last Line: At spring's glad reveille.
Subject(s): Birds; Thrushes


The thrush who owns my cottonwood
Did not come back this year.
I wake at dawn and listen for
A song I do not hear.

The robin and the gold-finch,
The catbird and the wren,
The swallow and the woodpecker
Have all come back again;

But the lordling of the bird-bath
With proud and courtly mien;
The thrush who owns my cottonwood
Is nowhere to be seen.

I wonder if he found somewhere
A finer tree than mine;
Or if some rival tempted him
On richer crumbs to dine;

Or if, somewhere in Dixie land
Beneath a tulip tree,
He went to sleep and did not wake
At spring's glad reveille.





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