BIEDS AND POETS 33 



What fire burns in that little chest, 

 So frolic, stout, and self-possest ? 

 Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine ; 

 Ashes and jet all hues outshine. 

 Why are not diamonds black and gray, 

 To ape thy dare-devil array ? 

 And I afSrm, the spacious North 

 Exists to draw thy virtue forth. 

 I think no virtue goes with size; 

 The reason of all cowardice 

 Is, that men are overgrown. 

 And, to be valiant, must come down 

 To the titmouse dimension.' 



" I think old Caesar must have heard 

 In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, 

 And, echoed in some frosty wold, 

 Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold. 

 And I will write our annals new 

 And thank thee for a better clew. 

 I, who dreamed not when I came here 

 To find the antidote of fear, 

 Now hear thee say in Koman key, 

 Pcean!, Veni, vidi, vici." 



A. late bird-poem, and a good one of its kind, is 

 Celia Thaxter's "Sandpiper," whicli recalls Bryant's 

 "Water-fowl" in its successful rendering of the 

 spirit and atmosphere of the scene, and the distinct- 

 ness with which the lone bird, flitting along the 

 beach, is brought before the mind. It is a woman's 

 or a feminine poem, as Bryant's is characteristically 

 a man's. 



The sentiment or feeling awakened by any of the 

 aquatic fowls is preeminently one of loneliness. The 

 wood duck which your approach starts from the 

 pond or the marsh, the loon neighing down out of 



