Ambition, and Other Poems/Letters
Letters
If these six letters came from birds, What gossip we would hear!The Thrush would tell me how he sang For twenty hours in twenty-four.The Starling, too, would thank me for A ribbon found down here;To give his home a lovely line, As well as comfort there.And hear what Robin Redbreast says, I read his letter now:'My happiest hours are when my legs Are more than half-way up in snow.'Hear what the poor Hedge Sparrow writes, To ease her troubled breast;She says a Cuckoo lately dumped An extra youngster in her nest.The Cuckoo, that forgiven bird, Writes from his Mediterranean place—'I hope to be in England soon, The tenth of April, by God's grace.'And, Lord, to read the Nightingale— 'My voice,' she says, 'to my own wonder,Rose into Heaven, all clear and strong, To lead a chorus full of thunder!'