SCHOOL DEPARTMENT 



Edited by ALICE HALL "WALTER 



Address all communications relative to the work of this depart- 

 ment to the Editor, 67 Oriole Avenue, Providence, R. I. 



The Winter Robin 



Surstim corda 



Now is that sad time of the year So give thanks at Christmas-tide: 



When no flower or leaf is here; Hopes of spring-time yet abide! 



When in misty Southern ways See, in spite of darksome days, 



Oriole and jay have flown, Wind and rain and bitter chill. 



And of all sweet birds, alone Snow, and sleet-hung branches, still 



The robin stays. The robin stays! 



The woodland silence, one time stirred 

 By the soft pathos of some passing bird. 



Is not the same it was before. 

 The spot where once, unseen, a flower 

 Has held its fragrant chalice to the shower, 

 Is different for evermore. 

 Unheard, unseen, 

 A spell has been! 



— Excerpt from "Seeming Defeat." 



So in her arms did Mother Nature fold 

 Her poet, whispering that of wild and sweet 

 Into his ear— the state-affairs of birds, 

 The lore of dawn and sunset, what the wind 

 Said in the tree-tops — fine, unfathomed things 

 Henceforth to turn to music in his brain : 

 x\ various music, now like notes of flutes 

 And now like blasts of trumpets blown in wars. 



— Excerpt from "Elmwood." 

 Note: These brief quotations from Thomas Bailey Aldrich express — in delicate 

 imagery and with a deep sense of the meaning of Nature — what many who come into 

 real contact with the outside world feel but cannot describe. Even though this poet 

 may not have known that the Jay is a permanent resident, he had observed it and had 

 also found a Robin lingering to brave a New England winter; he had felt the spell of 

 the Ice King from the North as well as the enfolding care of the great Earth Mother; 

 the wind and birds and sun and the winter silences all spoke to him, in words which it 

 was his gift to pass on to us in the music of poetry. — A. H. W.] 



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