"O bluebird, welcome back again..."
Meher Mount
Your Friday photo is in honor of National Poetry Month…
This photo of a bluebird in the pond at Meher Mount was taken by guest caretaker and photographer Juan Mendez.
“O bluebird, welcome back again,
Thy azure coat and ruddy vest
Are hues that April loveth best,-
Warm skies above the furrowed plain.”
The Bluebird
A wistful note from out the sky,
“Pure, pure, pure,” in plaintive tone,
As if the wand’rer were alone,
And hardly knew to sing or cry.
But now a flash of eager wing,
Flitting, twinkling by the wall,
And pleading sweet and am’rous call,
Ah, now I know his heart doth sing!
O bluebird, welcome back again,
Thy azure coat and ruddy vest
Are hues that April loveth best,
Warm skies above the furrowed plain.
The farm boy hears thy tender voice,
And visions come of crystal days,
With sugar-camps in maple ways,
And scenes that make his heart rejoice.
The lucid smoke drifts on the breeze,
The steaming pans are mantling white,
And thy blue wing’s a joyous sight,
Among the brown and leafless trees.
Now loosened currents glance and run,
And buckets shine on sturdy boles,
The forest folk peep from their holes,
And work is play from sun to sun.
The Downy beats his sounding limb,
The nuthatch pipes his nasal call,
And robin perched on treetop tall
Heavenward lifts his evening hymn.
Now go and bring thy homesick bride,
Persuade her here is just the place
To build a home and found a race
In Downy’s cell, my lodge beside.
~John Burroughs, Writer & Naturalist
John Burroughs was one of the preeminent naturalists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was a distinguished writer and conservationist.
For Burroughs, the return of the bluebird was one of the first signs of impending spring and a joyous occasion. His reference in the last line to “Downey’s cell” is the abandoned hole of a Downy Woodpecker.
Source
10,000 Birds website, “The Bluebird by John Burroughs,” accessed March 19, 2026.