The Oven Bird

Source

Source: Project Gutenberg #3021 / #3026 / #29345 Source URL: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3021 Public domain basis: Frost’s first three books (1913–1916) via PG; US public domain. Coverage: Complete individual poem extracted from parent edition frost-early-poems at bytes 151912-152535; checksum d01c01716a014c9a50b71ca9832e7ca8164626206d4d0b341c239ac118add80a.

# The Oven Bird

The Oven Bird

There is a singer everyone has heard, Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall is past When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers On sunny days a moment overcast; And comes that other fall we name the fall. He says the highway dust is over all. The bird would cease and be as other birds But that he knows in singing not to sing. The question that he frames in all but words Is what to make of a diminished thing.