Although I'm in prison
Thy song is uprisen,
Thou'rt singing away to the feathery cloud,
In the blueness of morn,
Over fields of green corn,
With a song sweet and trilling, and rural and loud.

When the day is serenest,
When the corn is the greenest,
Thy bosom mounts up and floats in the light,
And sings in the sun,
Like a vision begun
Of pleasure, of love, and of lonely delight.

The daisies they whiten
Plains the sunbeams now brighten,
And warm thy snug nest where thy russet eggs lie,
From whence thou'rt now springing,
And the air is now ringing,
To show that the minstrel of Spring is on high.

The cornflower is blooming,
The cowslip is coming,
And many new buds on the silken grass lie:
On the earth's shelt'ring breast
Thou hast left thy brown nest,
And art towering above it, a speck in the sky.

Thou'rt the herald of sunshine,
And the soft dewy moonshine
Gilds sweetly the sleep of thy brown speckled breast:
Thou'rt the bard of the Spring,
On thy brown russet wing,
And of each grassy close thou'rt the poet and guest.

There's the violet confiding,
In the mossy wood riding,
And primrose beneath the old thorn in the glen,
And the daisies that bed
In the sheltered homestead—
Old friends with old faces, I see them again.

And thou, feathered poet,
I see thee, and know it—
Thou'rt one of the minstrels that cheered me last Spring:
With Nature thou'rt blest,
And green grass round thy nest
Will keep thee still happy to mount up and sing.