250 Birds Every Child Should Know 



Above our heads the sullen clouds 



Scud black and swift across the sky; 

 Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds 



Stand out the white light-houses high. 

 Almost as far as eye can reach 



I see the close-reefed vessels fly, 

 As fast we flit along the beach,-~- 



One little sandpiper and I. 



I watch him as he skims along 



Uttering his sweet and mournful cry; 

 He starts not at my fitful song, 



Or flash of fluttering drapery. 

 He has no thought of any wrong; 



He scans me with a fearless eye. 

 Stanch friends are we, well-tried and strong. 



The little sandpiper and I. 



Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night 



When the loosed storm breaks furiously? 

 My driftwood fire will burn so bright! 



To what warm shelter canst thou fly? 

 I do not fear for thee, though wroth 



The tempest rushes through the sky: 

 For are we not God's children both. 



Thou, little sandpiper, and I? 



Almost every child I know is more familiar 

 with Celia Thaxter's poem about the little sand- 

 piper than with the bird itself. But if you have 

 the good fortune to be at the seashore in the 

 late summer, when flocks of the friendly mites 

 come to visit us from the Arctic regions on their 

 way south, you can scarcely fail to become 

 acquainted with the companion of Mrs. Thax- 

 ter's lonely walks along the beach at the Isles 

 of Shoals where her father kept the lighthouse. 



