A little picture haunts me;
It comes and comes again;
It is a tiny bird's-nest,
All ragged from the rain.
It clings within a birch-tree
Upon the moorland's edge,
Between the barren branches,
Above the swaying sedge.
The sky is gray behind it,
And when the north winds blow,
The birch-tree bends and shivers,
And tosses to and fro.
I wonder, does it haunt them,
The birds that flew away?
And will they come to seek it,
Some sunny summer day?
I wonder, does some redbreast
Upon an orange-bough,
Still picture it as plainly
As I can see it now?
Ah me! I would forget it,
Yet still, with sense of pain,
I see this little bird's-nest
Within the driving rain.