Recall in a Sound

The other day, a chorus of mockingbirds in a nearby tree brought back an earlier time when their notes were a familiar sound.  Thomas Hardy's poem "The Selfsame Song" celebrates" the return of those we have lost in the bird song.

                         SELF SAME  SO NG

                           A bird sings the selfsame song
                           With never a fault in its flow,
                            That we listened to here those long
                                               Long years ago.

                             A pleasing marvel is how
                             A strain of such rapturous rote
                            Should have gone on thus till now
                                                Unchanged in a note!

                            --But it's not the selfsame bird--
                            No:  perished to dust is he...
                            As also are those who heard
                                                That song with me.

​                              Thomas Hardy  (1840-1928)