This poem was published again later in Traits and Trial of Early Life, 1836 pp145-146. However, as there are minor variations, the text below is transcribed from F. J. Sypher’s Poems from the Annuals. This poem should have an accompanying plate, "The Dead Robin", painted by H. Thomson, R.A. and engraved by W. Greatbach.
THE DEAD ROBIN.
IT is dead—it is dead—it will wake no more
With the earliest light, as it waked before—
And singing, as if it were glad to wake,
And wanted our longer sleep to break;
We found it a little unfledged thing,
With no plume to smooth and no voice to sing;
The father and mother both were gone,
And the callow nursling left alone!
For a wind, as fierce as those from the sea,
Had broken the boughs of the apple tree:
The scattered leaves lay thick on the ground,
And among them the nest and the bird we found.
We warmed it, and fed it, and made it a nest
Of Indian cotton, and watched its rest;
Its feathers grew soft, and its wings grew strong,
And happy it seemed as the day was long.
