by Léon Bazille Perrault (1832 – 1908)
Happy who for a season may
Absent themselves on buoyant wing!
The birds that Winter drives away
Will surely come again with Spring.
They of our ills will mindful be,
And when at length the storm has passed,
They will return to this same tree
Which has so often felt the blast.
Then to our fertile vale will they
A more auspicious presage bring!
The birds that Winter drives away
Will surely come again with Spring.
― Pierre-Jean de Béranger, The Birds (translated from the French by Percy Reeve)