Child Songs of Cheer

<h2><SPAN name="THE_LITTLE_NEST" id="THE_LITTLE_NEST"></SPAN>THE LITTLE NEST</h2> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">A little picture haunts me;<br/></span> <span class="i2">It comes and comes again;<br/></span> <span class="i0">It is a tiny bird's-nest,<br/></span> <span class="i2">All ragged from the rain.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">It clings within a birch-tree<br/></span> <span class="i2">Upon the moorland's edge,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Between the barren branches,<br/></span> <span class="i2">Above the swaying sedge.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">The sky is gray behind it,<br/></span> <span class="i2">And when the north winds blow,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The birch-tree bends and shivers,<br/></span> <span class="i2">And tosses to and fro.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">I wonder, does it haunt them,<br/></span> <span class="i2">The birds that flew away?<br/></span> <span class="i0">And will they come to seek it,<br/></span> <span class="i2">Some sunny summer day?<br/></span> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</SPAN></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">I wonder, does some redbreast<br/></span> <span class="i2">Upon an orange-bough,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Still picture it as plainly<br/></span> <span class="i2">As I can see it now?<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Ah me! I would forget it,<br/></span> <span class="i2">Yet still, with sense of pain,<br/></span> <span class="i0">I see this little bird's-nest<br/></span> <span class="i2">Within the driving rain.<br/></span></div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</SPAN></span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />