Childhood songs / by Lucy Larcom [electronic text]

SIR ROBIN.

ROLLICKING Robin is here again. What does he care for the April rain? Care for it? Glad of it. Doesn't he know That the April rain carries off the snow, And coaxes out leaves to shadow his nest, And washes his pretty red Easter vest, And makes the juice of the cherry sweet, For his hungry little robins to eat?

'"Ha! ha! ha!" hear the jolly bird laugh. "That isn't the best of the story, by half!"

Gentleman Robin, he walks up and down, Dressed in orange-tawny and black and brown. Though his eye is so proud and his step so firm, He can always stoop to pick up a worm. With a twist of his head, and a strut and a hop, To his Robin-wife, in the peach-tree top, Chirping her heart out, he calls: "My dear, You don't earn your living! Come here! Come here! Ha! ha! ha! Life is lovely and sweet; But what would it be if we'd nothing to eat?"

Robin, Sir Robin, gay, red-vested knight, Now you have come to us, summer's in sight. You never dream of the wonders you bring,— Visions that follow the flash of your wing. How all the beautiful By-and-by Around you and after you seems to fly!

Sing on, or eat on, as pleases your mind! Well have you earned every morsel you find. "Aye! Ha! ha! ha!" whistles Robin. "My dear, Let us all take our own choice of good cheer!"