To trace it in its green retreat
      I sought among the boughs in vain;
      And followed still the wandering strain,
    So melancholy and so sweet
      The dim-eyed violets yearned with pain. 
    ’Twas now a sorrow in the air,
    Some nymph’s immortalized despair
    Haunting the woods and waterfalls;
    And now, at long, sad intervals,
    Sitting unseen in dusky shade,
    His plaintive pipe some fairy played,
      With long-drawn cadence thin and clear,—­
          “Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!”

    Long-drawn and clear its closes were,—­
      As if the hand of Music through
      The sombre robe of Silence drew
    A thread of golden gossamer: 
      So sweet a flute the fairy blew. 
    Like beggared princes of the wood,
    In silver rags the birches stood;
    The hemlocks, lordly counsellors,
    Were dumb; the sturdy servitors,
    In beechen jackets patched and gray,
    Seemed waiting spellbound all the day
      That low entrancing note to hear,—­
          “Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!”

    I quit the search, and sat me down
      Beside the brook, irresolute,
      And watched a little bird in suit
    Of sober olive, soft and brown,
      Perched in the maple-branches, mute: 
    With greenish gold its vest was fringed,
    Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged,
    With ivory pale its wings were barred,
    And its dark eyes were tender-starred. 
    “Dear bird,” I said, “what is thy name?”
    And thrice the mournful answer came,
      So faint and far, and yet so near,—­
          “Pe-wee!  Pe-wee!  Peer!”

    For so I found my forest-bird,—­
      The pewee of the loneliest woods,
      Sole singer in these solitudes,
    Which never robin’s whistle stirred,
      Where never bluebird’s plume intrudes. 
    Quick darting through the dewy morn,
    The redstart trills his twittering horn,
    And vanisheth:  sometimes at even,
    Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven,
    The high notes of the lone wood-thrush
    Fall on the forest’s holy hush: 
      But thou all day complainest here,—­
          “Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!”

    Hast thou too, in thy little breast,
      Strange longings for a happier lot,—­
      For love, for life, thou know’st not what,—­
    A yearning, and a vague unrest,
      For something still which thou hast not?—­
    Thou soul of some benighted child
    That perished, crying in the wild! 
    Or lost, forlorn, and wandering maid,
    By love allured, by love betrayed,
    Whose spirit with her latest sigh
    Arose, a little winged cry,
      Above her chill and mossy bier! 
          “Dear me! dear me! dear!”