Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ROBIN by GEORGE DANIEL

First Line: POOR BIRD! I DO NOT ENVY THEE
Last Line: WHAT I WOULD SPEAK.
Subject(s): ROBINS;
Poor bird! I doe not envy thee;
Pleas'd in the gentle Melody
Of thy own Song.
Let crabbed winter Silence all
The winged Quire; he never shall
Chain up thy Tongue:
Poor Innocent!
When I would please my self, I look on thee;
And guess some sparks of that Felicitie,
That Self-Content.
When the bleak Face of winter Spreads
The Earth, and violates the Meads
Of all their Pride;
When Sapless Trees and Flowers are fled,
Back to their Causes, and lie dead
To all beside:
I see thee Set,
Bidding defiance to the bitter Air,
Upon a wither'd Spray; by cold made bare,
And drooping yet.
There, full in notes, to ravish all
My Earth, I wonder what to call
My dullness; when
I hear thee, pretty Creature, bring
Thy better odes of Praise, and Sing,
To puzzle men:
Poor pious Elf!
I am instructed by thy harmony,
To sing the Time's uncertainty,
Safe in my Self.
Poore Redbreast, carol out thy Lay,
And teach us mortalls what to say.
Here cease the Quire
Of ayerie Choristers; no more
Mingle your notes; but catch a Store
From her Sweet Lire;
You are but weak,
Mere summer Chanters; you have neither wing
Nor voice, in winter. Pretty Redbreast, Sing,
What I would speak.




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