Snow Birds

What is it gives the little birds their cheer
When death and darkness crows the inverted year,
When the deep snow has buried every weed
That locks their living in its hardy seed?
How can they sing such songs of simple glee
While the winds groan in every tree,
And men sit cowering by their fires to growl
If heavens grow gloomy and the North winds howl!

I only know, despite the frozen clod
And the piled snow, they live more near to God
Their little lives are just a tiny beat
Of the great Heart that gives its vital heat
To the great sun; and so, with never a doubt,
They feel that He lives though the sun go out!

Trust is the instinct that in them survives
The buried Summer, and defends their lives
From the dull cares and ever-brooding fears
That blacken half the sunshine of our years.

If things that live so simply from the heart
Of Life’s great Lord, and unimpaired by art,
Have such clear joy in Winter’s dreariest hour,
Poor is our wisdom that shall give less power
To conquer fate, and make itself a year, —
Within, all sunshine, — though without, all drear!