The heat had set in as the summer began   I had just ceased to sing winter's sore tune   And rested my arm on the forgotten farmer   Of all that I can call my fortune      Fall broke the beak of the small bird that beat   In his breast and out through his heels   And I heartsunk to think of it's stammering wing   Beneath heavy and relentless wheels!      I pulled up in the evening while he was still sleeping   Out jumped I and ran 'cross his floor   And there he lay white and a guardian darling   Caught up in slumber and I caught at his door      "He blushes therefore he is guilty," cried I,   "Of some private reverie grand!" So I took him   And shook him and made to unhook him   By squeezing and slapping his hand      The slow work of a blank book hung where we met   And he slept in the depths of his bed   And I, oh, kissed the sweat from his head   Right or wrong, to him alone I come to be fed.      I said, "Come back to me love, come comet or dove,   To my garden, come bladed or bled!"