A November Note

Why, throstle, do you sing 
In this November haze? 
Singing for what? for whom? 
Deem you that it is Spring, 
Or that your lonely lays 
Will stave off Winter's gloom? 

Then did the bird reply: 
"I sing because I know 
That Spring will surely come:
That is the reason why, 
Though menaced by the snow, 
Even now I am not dumb. 

"But few are they that hear, 
And fewer still that feel, 
The meaning of my song, 
Until the note be clear, 
Re-echoed be the peal, 
Early, and late, and long. 

"But you have heard and owned 
The sound of my refrain, 
Yet tentative and low. 
Thus, poet, be intoned 
Your own foreshadowing strain, 
Trusting that some will know: 

"That some will know and say, 
When greetings of the Spring 
Wake Winter from its bed, 
This is the self-same lay 
We overheard him sing 
When dead hearts deemed him dead."