Explore "The Echo in the Heart (Lyrics of Labour and Romance)" by Henry Van Dyke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It's little I can tell / About the birds in books; / And yet I know them well, / By their music and their looks: / When May comes down the lane, / Her airy lovers throng / To welcome her with song, / And follow in her train: / Each minstrel weaves his part / In that wild-flowery strain, / And I know them all again / By their echo in my heart.
It's little that I care / About my darling's place / In books of beauty rare, / Or heraldries of race: / For when she steps in view, / It matters not to me / What her sweet type may be, / Of woman, old or new.
I can't explain the art, / But I know her for my own, / Because her lightest tone / Wakes an echo in my heart.