66 
ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 
ROBIN REDBREAST’S SECRET. 
I ’M a little Robin Redbreast ; 
My nest is in a tree ; 
If you look up in yonder elm, 
My pleasant home you’ll see. 
We made it very soft and nice,— 
My pretty mate and I,— 
And all the time we worked at it 
We sang most merrily. 
The green leaves shade our lovely home 
From the hot, scorching sun ; 
So many birds live in the tree. 
We do not want for fun. 
The light breeze gently rocks our nest, 
And hushes us to sleep ; 
We’re up betimes to sing our song, 
And the first daylight greet. 
I have a secret I would like 
The little girls to know ; 
But I won’t tell a single boy— 
They rob the poor birds so ! 
We have four pretty little eggs; 
We watch them with great care , 
Full twenty nests are in this wood— 
Don’t tell the boys they’re there ! 
Joe Thomson robbed my nest last year. 
And year before,— Tom Brown; 
I’ll tell it loud as I can sing 
To every one in town. 
Swallow and sparrow, lark and thrush. 
Will tell you just the same ; 
To make us all so sorrowful, 
Is just a wicked shame. 
O, did you hear the concert 
This morning from our tree? 
We give it ever}’- morning 
Just as the clock strikes three. 
We praise our great Creator, 
Whose hoi}’- love we share : 
Dear children, learn to praise Him,, too. 
For all His tender care. 
JOY OF SPRING. 
F OR lo ! no sooner has the cold withdrawn, 
Than the bright elm is tufted on the lawn ; 
The merry sap has run up in the bowers, 
And burst the windows of the buds in flowers - y 
With song the bosoms of the birds run o’er, 
The cuckoo calls, the swallow’s at the door. 
And apple-trees at noon, with bees alive, 
Burn with the golden chorus of the hive. 
Now all these sweets, these sounds, this vernal blaze. 
Is but one joy, expressed a thousand ways: 
And honey from the flowers, and song from birds, 
Are from the poet’s pen his overflowing words. 
Leigh Hunt. 
