Poem by Emily Jane Pfeiffer

To a Fledgling Robin

ROBIN, thou art too young as yet to wear
The badge of robinhood in full confest—
The burning breast-plate on the conscious breast—
And hast not learnt to build, to sing, or care;
Only to live, filled with the liberal air,
Which, when it gently breathed from south or west,
Found and o'erflowed thee in thy sheltered nest
To dwell as marrow in thy feathers fair.

I, weary thinker 'neath the aspen trees,
See thee win past me, lightsome as a bubble—
No labouring bark, with purblind thought to steer it,
But a plumed will that rules with sovereign ease;
Approach, glad life, as free of doubt as trouble—
I feel as if in presence of a spirit.

1. A Ballad of the “Thuner-See”
2. The Soudan
3. In the Riviera
4. Beating the Air
5. Dreaming

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