A Hill Song Poem by Helen M. Merrill

THERE is a little hint of spring,
A subtle, silent, unseen thing
By shadowed wall and open way,
And I, a gypsy for the day,
Go straying far beneath the sky,
And far into the windy hills,
Where distant, dim horizons lie,
And earth with gleams of heaven fills.

My quest is but a singing bird,
Whose voice on uplands lone is heard,
And this my path where none hath been,
And this my tent, an evergreen;
The hills are mine own open way–
I hate the smother of the town–
I love by breezy hills to stray,
Where thawing streams come leaping down.

Oh, joy it is and free of care,
With the sun and the wind in my face and my hair,
Alone with the shining clouds which trail
Silently each like a phantom sail,
Over the hills, on the blue of heaven;
Oh, joy it is to wander here,
Where the wilding heart of the young, sweet year,
Quickens the earth, and spring is near!

And joy it is, the shorelark's cry–
Full well I know he walketh by;
A sudden winnow of grey wings,
And in the light he soars and sings,
And pausing in his heavenward flight,
A heart-beat, on from height to height,
He trails his silver strains of song
By paths eye may not follow long;
Grey glimpses in the azure fade,
I only hear sweet sounds in the skies
As if the soul of song had strayed
Invisible from paradise.