ART thou the bird whom Man loves best,

The pious bird with the scarlet breast,
Our little English Robin;

The bird that comes about our doors
When Autumn-winds are sobbing?

Art thou the Peter of Norway Boors?
Their Thomas in Finland,

And Russia far inland?

The bird that by some name or other1
All men who know thee call their brother.
The darling of children and men?
Could Father Adam open his eyes

And see this sight beneath the skies,
He'd wish to close them again.

-If the Butterfly knew but his friend,
Hither his flight he would bend;

And find his way to me,

Under the branches of the tree:

In and out, he darts about;

Can this be the bird, to man so good,

That after their bewildering,

See Paradise Lost, Book XI., when Adam points out to Eve the ominous sign of the Eagle chasing "two Birds of gayest plume," and the gentle Hart and Hind pursued by their enemy. 1815.

Covered with leaves the little children,1

So painfully in the wood?

What ailed thee, Robin, that thou could'st pursue

A beautiful creature,

That is gentle by nature?

Beneath the summer sky

From flower to flower let him fly;

"Tis all that he wishes to do.

The cheerer Thou of our in-door sadness,

He is the friend of our summer gladness:

What hinders, then, that ye should be
Playmates in the sunny weather,

And fly about in the air together!
His beautiful wings in crimson are drest,
A crimson as bright as thine own: 2
Would'st thou be happy in thy nest,3
O pious Bird! whom man loves best,
Love him, or leave him alone!

[Written in the Orchard, Town-end, Grasmere.]

I'VE watch'd you now a full half-hour,
Self-poised upon that yellow flower:

Did cover with leaves

3

1807.

Like the hues of thy breast,

His beautiful wings in crimson are drest,
A brother he seems of thine own:

1807.

1835.

If thou would'st be happy in thy nest,

1807.

And, little Butterfly! indeed

I know not if you sleep or feed.

How motionless !-not frozen seas
More motionless! and then

What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister's flowers,

Here rest your wings when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!1

Come often to us, fear no wrong;

Sit near us on the bough!

We'll talk of sunshine and of song,

And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long

As twenty days are now.

Many of the flowers in the orchard at Dove Cottage were planted by Dorothy Wordsworth. The "summer days" of childhood are referred to in the previous poem To a Butterfly, written on the 14th of March 1802. See also note to previous poem, The Redbreast Chasing the Butterfly (p. 264).-ED.

[Also composed in the Orchard, Town-end, Grasmere.]

THAT is work of waste and ruin- 2

Do as Charles and I are doing!

1 1836.

Strawberry-blossoms, one and all
We must spare them-here are many:
Look at it the flower is small,
Small and low, though fair as any:
Do not touch it! summers two

I am older, Anne, than you.

Pull the primrose, sister Anne!
Pull as many as you can.
-Here are daisies, take your fill;
Pansies, and the cuckoo-flower:
Of the lofty daffodil

Make your bed, or 1 make your bower;
Fill your lap, and fill your bosom ;
Only spare the strawberry-blossom!

Primroses, the Spring may love them—
Summer knows but little of them:

Violets, a barren kind,2

Withered on the ground must lie;

Daisies leave no fruit behind

When the pretty flowerets die;
Pluck them, and another year
As many will be blowing here.3

God has given a kindlier power
To the favoured strawberry-flower.

and make

1807.

1807.

1807.

Hither soon as spring is fled

You and Charles and I will walk ;1
Lurking berries, ripe and red,

Then will hang on every stalk,

Each within its leafy bower;

And for that promise spare the flower!2

Wednesday, 28th April (1802).-Copied the Prioress's Tale. Wm. was in the orchard. He worked away at his poem, though he was ill, and tired. I happened to say that when I was a child I would not have pulled a strawberry blossom; I left him, and wrote out the Manciple's Tale. At dinner time he came in with the poem of 'Children gathering flowers,' but it was not quite finished, and it kept him long from his dinner. It is now done. He is working at the Tinker." (Dorothy Wordsworth's Diary). At an earlier date in the same year, Jan. 31st, 1802,-the following occurs in the same Diary: "I found a strawberry blossom in a rock. The little slender flower had more courage than the green leaves, for they were but half expanded and half grown, but the blossoms was spread full out. I uprooted it rashly, and I felt as if I had been committing an outrage; so I planted it again. It will have but a stormy life of it, but let it live if it can.”ED.

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. It is remarkable that this flower, coming out so early in the spring as it does, and so bright and beautiful, and in such profusion, should not have been noticed earlier in English verse. What adds much to the interest that attends it is its habit of shutting itself up and opening out according to the degree of light and temperature of the air.]