

![]()
o you ask what the birds say ? The sparrow, the dove,
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The linnet, and thrush say, "I love and I love!"
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In the winter they're silent, the wind is so strong ;
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What it says I don't know, but it sings a loud song.
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But green leaves and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,
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And singing and loving, all come back together;
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Then the lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
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The green fields below him, the blue sky above,
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That he sings, and he sings, and forever sings he,
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"I love my Love, and my Love loves me."
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"Answer to a Child's Question" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge from The Posy Ring: A Book of Verse for Children [1903], chosen and classified by Kate Douglas Wiggins and Nora Archibald Smith. Illustration by P. J. Lemos, from Uncle Ben's Cobblestones [1904] by W. H. B Miller.