Morning and I
By JAMES OPPENHEIM
WHEN the corn is full of glory from the wind-play,
Morning, the blue-caped singer,
Crosses his legs on the hills, and with sun-eye winking,
Sings me this song:
Why laugh as you loaf alone in the garden?
Why laugh?
It 's seven o'clock, and no one 's up,
Saving, of course, the chicks,
Saving, of course, the calves.
No one 's up;
I pick a seckel pear from the grass.
Bite it, and wink back slowly at laughing Morning,
And, looking careless.
Sing him this stave:
I laugh because of a mighty secret that 's mine;
That 's why.
Is it seven o'clock? Then let it be;
Let the chicks go pecking the corn.
And the calves go cropping the grass.
Am I alone?
Then Morning bursts out laughing; twenty birds are startled to song;
And he and I in the silence
Wink once again to each other.
Had n't he been blowing kisses to Earth millions of years before
I was born?
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1927.
The author died in 1932, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 80 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.