The scene was the bank of a crystal brook

Where a saucy young robin had paused to look,

As the morning sun had gilded the waves

Which sparkled and sang thro' the autumn days.

He glanced at the leaves, that had copied his breast,

The leaves that in springtime had shielded his nest;

Then turning his head with a bird like grace,

He searched in the stream for his mirrored face.

Not his mottled coat of rusty brown

He saw in the brook-bed sloping down,

But a touch of gray with an amber dab—

The reflected form of a brooklet crab.

He gazed in surprise at the specter-like thing,

Then chirping aloud and raising each wing,

In terror he turned from the ghost-haunted place

And met on the bank the real crab face to face.

Young Robins, like "others," are inclined to be "gay,"

And our hero's misfortune occurred in this way:

He considered a moment; his foe seemed quite weak,

And he ventured a peck with his slim, shiny beak.

A flutter, a scream—up the bank Robin came;

He found two could play at the same little game,

And the waves as they fled, with a smile and a gleam,

Carried crab and brown feathers adown with the stream.