Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/309

 THE ROSE OF THE RING. 303

The nest, though I love it so dearly, Holds trouble and turmoil and sin,

For Jack, greedy bird ! is the strongest, And grasps the supply I bring in,

While poor little Dick, thin and hungry, Feels slighted because he is small,

And Scrawney is always protesting I give him no dinner at all.

There was Sweetie, who fell in the fountain, Out looking for me from the nest ;

It seems to me always that Sweetie Was dearest and brightest and best.

So you see, little sorrowful lady,

That even the birds of the air Cannot fly from the ills that beset them,

Nor flutter through life without care.

There is sorrow for women, for robins In tree-top and wide dwelling too

But I know of a country that s better To seek in the autumn do you ?

��THE ROSE OF THE RING.

&quot; T I TELL, Nelly, I m sorry a most, after all, VV That I took you to see the big show :

A circus is not very much to my taste, But I knew how you wanted to go.

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