“Good morning, sweet Jenny!” said Robin again.

Then chirping and flirting and hopping and bobbing

Together sat down Jenny Wren and Cock Robin.

Then Jenny broke silence:—“Ah me! if you knew,

Dear Robin, how this little heart beats for you,

It hardly would happen that poor Jenny Wren

“Sweet Jenny!” said he, “you don’t surely suppose

That Robins can trifle like jackdaws and crows!

You know birds of my quality must be decorous;

Though between you and me, sweet, it may sometimes bore us.”

“Then come, my dear Robin! then come to my bower,

Now the trees are all leaf and the fields are all flower:

The world may tell stories,—I don’t care a fig,

While pretty Cock Robin is perch’d on my twig.”

Cock Robin was tickled, and thrice chirp’d aloud,

Then he bustled and rustled and whittled so high,

That he woke a dull owl who was dozing close by.

“Whit-a-whoo!” cried the owl, as he blink’d with surprise:

“Where is he?—this sun is too bright for my eyes.”

But a cloud passing over, as if fate was in it,

He pounced upon Robin at that very minute.

Poor Cock Robin! alas, that he should be so frail!

How could he give ear to her flattering tale!

The Owl minced him for supper: but, had he been wise,

He had still supp’d himself on Dame Robin’s mince-pies.