Littell's Living Age/Volume 136/Issue 1753/Valentine's Day, 1873

by Charles Kingsley

VALENTINE'S DAY, 1873.

AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.

Oh! I wish I were a tiny browny bird from out the south,
⁠Settled among the alder-holts, and twittering by the stream;
I would put my tiny tail down, and put up my tiny mouth,
⁠And sing my tiny life away in one melodious dream.

I would sing about the blossoms, and the sunshine and the sky.
⁠And the tiny wife I meant to have in such a cosy nest;
And if some one came and shot me dead, why then I could but die,
⁠With my tiny life and tiny song just ended at their best.

Macmillan's Magazine.Charles Kingsley