Alas for the Meadowlark

[The Rev. Robert E. Lee Craig, Episcopal minister of Omaha, while out in Central Nebraska, holding past Lenten services and baptising some babies, for shooting 21 meadow larks was fined $110.]

He stole a summer song, dear,
This godly man of mark,
He made the spring day silent,
He killed a meadow lark.

The plowman in the morn, dear,
Will miss the dawn-tipped wings,
That soaring upward taught him
To think of nobler things.

And the children off to school, dear
Across the fresh turned sod,
Will seek in vain the songster
That kept them close to God.

And all the summer long, dear
Each day when it is done
We'll wonder who tomorrow
Will welcome up the sun.

For he is head and cold, dear,
Our little meadow lark.
And he sang a song of love to
That godly man of mark.