Across the snow-filled hollow, circled 'round
By family groups of huddling alpine firs,
Your throbbing, drum-like love call swells and wanes,
While Nature, restless now in slumber, stirs.
Your throaty cry seems near, yet faintly far;
Its booming source is neither here, nor there;
No strutting form appears, no fir bough sways.
An eerie voice no presence to declare!
Oh sooty cock, chant on your lone refrain!
Man calls you "fool hen", for you fear him not,
But what ventriloquist among his hosts
Can stand and sing, and no one mark the spot?
Sing on, oh featured suitor of the heights,
For 'though the snow be deep and winds still chill,
When your sad hooting haunts the wooded slopes
Then Spring will soon be coming o'er the hill.
Natt Dodge,
Ranger-Naturalist.
