My song is not so much a tune that lies underneath the words. Instead I consider the music 
to be a poem in and of itself. The two -- the lyrical poem and the tone poem -- then 
support each other in a contrapuntal manner that I am particularly pleased with. The birds 
in the background are red-wing black-birds for those of you not up on your bird sounds. 
Being a child of my mother, an avid birder, I dared not use anything but black-bird sounds 
in this piece.

A JUNE DAY
Words by Sara Teasdale, Music by James E. Nelson

I heard a red-winged black-bird singing
Down where the river sleeps in the reeds;
That was morning, and at noontime
A humming-bird flashed on the jewel-weeds;
Clouds blew up, and in the evening
A yellow sunset struck through the rain,
Then blue night, and the day was ended
That never will come again.