O birdsong on the morning wind, how I
missed you. You gracious bells, and pleasant chimes,
You stage of love and strife and wittering,
When times were no less simple still, but I
a simpler man, a boy in homely fields,
You come to me again when without sleep,
I come to you again when strange dreams writhe,
Afresh, I'm human in His light and song.

Small of a kind,
The little ones and their massive eyes,
Their attention held but for a breath,
And in the next they're off again.
Down the train of thought you think,
Until you see your solemn face and blink,
They hadn't known just half your words!
And in the next you're off again,
To join the hilarities of a nascent world.

Running round in the cooling eve,
A fiasco by the swaying trees,
And out we go,
One down,
Two down,
And alas, I follow,
Marching to the side to cheer,
The frenzied shouts I hear,
Soon we'll be back within the game again.