Modest and shy as a nun is she;

One weak chirp is her only note. Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat:Bob-o-link, bob-o-link,

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;

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,

When

Spink, spank, spink;

you can pipe that merry old strain,
Robert of Lincoln, come back again.
Chee, chee, chee.

THE GLADNESS OF NATURE

WILLIAM
IAM CULLEN BRYANT

TS this a time to be cloudy and sad,

When our mother Nature laughs around;

When even the deep blue heavens look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground

There are notes of joy from the hangbird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground squirrel gayly chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by..

The clouds are at play in the azure space,

And their shadows at play on the bright green vale, And here they stretch to the frolic chase,

And there they roll on the easy gale.

There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower,
There's a twitter of winds in that beechen tree,
There's a smile on the fruit and a smile on the flower,
And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea.

And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles
On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray,
On the leaping waters and gay young isles;
Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

HE melancholy days have come, the saddest of the

THE

year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.

Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie

dead;

They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the

jay,

And from the wood top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?

Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers

Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of

ours.

The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November

rain

Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again.

The windflower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier rose and the orchis died amid the summer

glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the

wood,

And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty

stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the

plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm, mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance

late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no

more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side; In the cold, moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief; Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of

ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

BES

WAITING BY THE GATE

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

ESIDE a massive gateway, built up in years gone by, Upon whose top the clouds in eternal shadow lie, While streams the evening sunshine on quiet wood and lea,

I stand and calmly wait till the hinges turn for me.

The tree tops faintly rustle beneath the breeze's flight,
A soft and soothing sound, yet it whispers of the night;
I hear the wood thrush piping one mellow descant more,
And scent the flowers that blow when the heat of day is
o'er.

Behold the portals open, and o'er the threshold, now,
There steps a weary one, with a pale and furrowed brow;
His count of years is full, his allotted task is wrought;
He passes to his rest from a place that needs him not.

In sadness then I ponder how quickly fleets the hour Of human strength and action, man's courage and his power.