Have you ever heard of the sing-away bird,

That sings where the run-away river

Runs down with its rills from the bald-headed hills

That stand in the sunshine and shiver?

Oh, sing, sing away, sing away!

How the pines and the birches are stirred

By the trill of the sing-away bird!

And beneath the glad sun, every glad-hearted one

Sets the world to the tune of its gladness;

The swift rivers sing it, the wild breezes wing it,

Till earth loses thought of her sadness.

Oh, sing, sing away, sing away!

Oh, sing, happy soul, to joy’s giver—

Sing on, by Time’s run-away river.

—Lucy Larcom.