Robert of Lincoln is telling his name:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

Snug and safe is that nest of ours,
Hidden among the summer flowers.
Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln is gaily dressed,

Wearing a bright black wedding-coat;
White are his shoulders and white his crest.
Hear him call in his merry note:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

Look, what a nice new coat is mine,
Sure there was never a bird so fine.
Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife,

Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings,
Passing at home a patient life,

Broods in the grass while her husband sings:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

Brood, kind creature; you need not fear
Thieves and robbers while I am here.

Chee, chee, chee.

-William Cullen Bryant

The Sand-Piper

CROSS the narrow beach we flit,

A One little sand-piper and I;

And fast I gather, bit by bit,

The scattered drift-wood, bleached and dry. The wild waves reach their hands for it,

The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit—
One little sand-piper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud black and swift across the sky;
Like silent ghosts, in misty shrouds
Stand out the white light-houses nigh.
Almost as far as eye can reach,

I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach-
One little sand-piper and I.

I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;
He starts not at my fitful song,

Or flash of fluttering drapery:

He has no thought of any wrong,

He scans me with a fearless eye;

Staunch friends are we, well-tried and strong, This little sand-piper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night,

When the loosed storm breaks furiously?

My drift-wood fire will burn so bright!

To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky,
For are we not God's children both,
Thou little sand-piper and I?

-Celia Thaxter

From "The Birds of Killingsworth"

O you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?

taught

The dialect they speak, where melodies alone are the

interpreters of thought

Whose household words are songs in many keys,

Sweeter than instrument of men e'er caught!

Whose habitations in the tree-tops even

Are half-way houses on the road to heaven!

Think, every morning when the sun peeps through
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove,
How jubilant the happy birds renew
Their old, melodious madrigals of love!
And when you think of this, remember too,
'Tis always morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents, from shore to shore,
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.

-H. W. Longfellow

1

To a Waterfowl 1

'HITHER, 'midst falling dew,

WH

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean's side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coastThe desert and illimitable air

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,

Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

1 From "Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant." By special permission of D. Appleton & Company.

Thou'rt gone! the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,

And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone

Will lead my steps aright.

-William Cullen Bryant

BLACKSMITHS

The Village Blacksmith

UNDE

'NDER a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;

The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,

His face is like the tan;

His brow is wet with honest sweat,

He earns whate'er he can,

And looks the whole world in the face,

For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;