Spink, spank, spink,
Never was I afraid of man,
Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can. Chee, chee, chee.
Six white eggs on a bed of hay, Flecked with purple, a pretty sight: There as the mother sits all day, Robert is singing with all his might: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink,
Nice good wife that never goes out,
Keeping house while I frolic about.
Chee, chee, chee.
Soon as the little ones chip the shell,
Six wide mouths are open for food;
Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well,
Gathering seeds for the hungry brood:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink,
This new life is likely to be
Hard for a gay young fellow like me.
Chee, chee, chee.
Robert of Lincoln at length is made Sober with work, and silent with care, Off is his holiday garment laid,
Half forgotten that merry air:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink,
Nobody knows but my mate and I,
Where our nest and our nestlings lie.
Chee, chee, chee.
Summer wanes: the children are grown : Fun and frolic no more he knows; Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone; Off he flies, and we sing as he goes:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink.
When you can pipe that merry old strain,
Robert of Lincoln, come back again.
Rest is not quitting
The busy career;
Rest is the fitting
Of self to one's sphere:
'Tis the brook's motion,
Clear without strife;
Fleeting to ocean,
After its life :
'Tis loving and serving
The highest and best;
'Tis onward, unswerving,
And this is true rest.
To sea! to sea! the calm is o'er,
The wanton water leaps in sport,
And rattles down the pebbly shore,
The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort,
And unseen mermaid's pearly song
Comes bubbling up, the weeds among.
Fling broad the sail, deep dip the oar:
To sea! to sea! the calm is o'er.
To sea! to sea! our white-winged bark
Shall billowing cleave its watery way,
And with its shadows, fleet and dark,
Break the caved Tritons' azure day,
Like mountain eagle soaring light
O'er antelopes on Alpine height.
The anchor heaves! The ship swings free!
Our sails swell full! To sea! to sea!
On sunny slope and beechen swell
The shadowed light of evening fell;
And, where the maple's leaf was brown,
With soft and silent lapse came down
The glory that the wood receives
At sunset, in its brazen leaves.
Far upward in the mellow light
Rose the blue hills.
Around a far uplifted cone,
In the warm blush of evening shone ;
An image of the silver lakes
By which the Indian's soul awakes.
But soon a funeral hymn was heard
Where the soft breath of evening stirred
The tall, gray forest; and a hand
Of stern in heart, and strong in hand,
Came winding down beside the wave,
To lay the red chief in his grave.
They sang, that by his native bowers
He stood, in the last moon of flowers,
And thirty snows had not yet shed
Their glory on the warrior's head;
But, as the summer fruit decays,
So died he in those naked days.
A dark cloak of the rocbuck's skin
Covered the warrior, and within
Its heavy folds the weapons, made
For the hard toils of war, were laid;
The cuirass, woven of plaited reeds.
And the broad belt of shells and beads.
Before, a dark-haired virgin train
Chanted the death-dirge of the slain;
Behind, the long procession cac
Of hoary men and chiefs of fame,
With heavy hearts, and eyes of grief,
Leading the war-horse of their chief.
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