The drifts along the fences are settling. The brooks are brimming full. The open fields are bare. A warm knoll here and there is tinged with green. A smell of earth is in the air. A shadow darts through the apple tree;" it is the robin!

Robin! You and I were lovers when yet my years were few. We roamed the fields and hills together. We explored the brook that ran up into the great dark woods and away over the edge of the world. We knew the old squirrel who lived in the maple tree. We heard the first frog peep. We knew the minnows that lay under the mossy log. We knew how the cowslips bloomed in the lushy swale. We heard the first soft roll of thunder in the liquid April sky.

Robin! The fields are yonder! You are my better self. I care not for the birds of paradise; for whether here or there, I shall listen for your carol in the apple tree. —L. H. B.

See also The Robin