The golden days are waning,
And far away the skies are gray,
To-morrow it may be raining.
(Sing, bird in the alder!)
The night comes soon and dreary;
Above the town the hills are brown,
And the heart is lone and weary.
(Sing, bird in the alder!)
Ah, me, but the hours are lonely!
I bow and weep . . . Awake, asleep,
I want thee and thee only.
(Sing, bird in the alder!)
“A Threnody” as it appears in Higginson’s The Voice of April-Land and Other Poems (1903).