Away in the shadows a lone bird is singing,
The wind whispers low in a sighing refrain;
Their music makes memory’s voices go winging:
The Ash Grove in beauty I see once again;
The voices of friends that the log years have taken,
Oh faintly I hear them, the song and the word.
How much in the heart can so little awaken:
The wind in the leaves and the song of a bird.

How little we knew, as we laughed there so lightly,
And time seemed to us to stretch endless away,
The hopes that then shone like a vision so brightly
Could fade as a dream at the coming of day!
And still, spite of sorrow, whene’er I remember,
My thoughts will return like a bird to the nest,
No matter though summer may wane to December,
And there in the ash grove my heart be at rest.