Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?

"Thrice welcome, darling of the spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery."

"O blithe new-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O cuckoo, shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?"

"Not in Utopia, - subterranean fields, -
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us, - the place where, in the end,
We find our happiness, or not at all!"

Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated.