John Audubon's Towhee Bunting and Emily Dickinson's poem remind us that spring is nigh!
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Before You Thought of Spring
John Audubon's Towhee Bunting and Emily Dickinson's poem remind us that spring is nigh!
Part Two: Nature
VIII
Before you thought of spring,
Except as a surmise,
You see, God bless his suddenness,
A fellow in the skies
Of independent hues,
A little weather-worn,
Inspiriting habiliments
Of indigo and brown.
With specimens of song,
As if for you to choose,
Discretion in the interval,
With gay delays he goes
To some superior tree
Without a single leaf,
And shouts for joy to nobody
But his seraphic self!
Source: Emily Dickinson. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1924).
Pictured: John James Audubon, 1785 Haiti–1851 USA, Towhee Bunting, 1812, chalk, pencil, watercolor, and ink on paper, 9 3/8 x 11 1/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U. S. National Museum.