16
To listen and admire her, in her pride
Of conscious excellence; like beauty, vain,
And claiming such our homage as her right:—
While my own merry Robin comes to cheer
Our gloomy winter with his lively song;
He comes to us, and, perched on twig or gate,
Or on the chimney top, or window sill,
Sits warbling sweetly on his welcome lay.
The rose is for the nightingale,
The heather for the lark;
But the holly greets the red-breast
'Mid winter drear and dark;
And the snow-drop, wakened by his song,
Peeps tremblingly forth,
From her bed of cold still slumber,
To gaze upon the earth.
For the merry voice above her
Seemed a herald of the Spring,
As o'er the sleeping flowers
Blithe robin came to sing—
"Up, up! my lady snow-drop,
No longer lie in bed,
But dance unto my melody
And wave your graceful head."
The bulbul wooes the red, red rose,
The lark the heathery dell;
But the robin has the holly tree
And the snow-drop's virgin bell.
