To The Same Robin On Beginning His Song Poem by Emily Pfeiffer

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.