To The Same Robin On Beginning His Song

SIT at my table, welcome guest, and sing

The olden song, with young unpractised throat;

I hold my breath to hear the perfect note

Thy tender organs cannot yet make ring.

Sing to me, unpaired fledgling of the spring,

Sing, solace me, as if I were thy mate;

Teach me fond patience as I sit and wait,

Brooding quick thoughts with unprogressive wing.

Thy song is faint as breath of unblown flowers,

And only that it shakes thy budding breast,

I could have deemed it homeless; as I hear it,

With lowered eyelids and suspended powers,

I, too, from doubt, and toil, and strain find rest,

And, Spirit! seem to hear thee in the spirit.