To The Quiet Observer
By James Whitcomb Riley
AFTER HIS LONG SILENCE
Dear old friend of us all in need
Who know the worth of a friend indeed,
How rejoiced are we all to learn
Of your glad return.
We who have missed your voice so long -
Even as March might miss the song
Of the sugar-bird in the maples when
They're tapped again.
Even as the memory of these
Blended sweets, - the sap of the trees
And the song of the birds, and the old camp too,
We think of you.
Hail to you, then, with welcomes deep
As grateful hearts may laugh or weep! -
You give us not only the bird that sings,
But all good things.