Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By A Summer Night and Other Poems (1891). II. Two SongsGraham R. Thomson (Rosamund Marriott Watson) (18601911)
T
The air breathes fresh and chill;
On the barn-roof yellow with lichen
A robin is singing shrill.
Like a dead leaf is his wing;
He is glad of the coming winter
As the thrush is glad of the spring.
Comes down from a distant fold,
Like the ripple of running water,
As tuneless, and sweet, and cold.
Like and unlike are they,
For one sounds tired and plaintive,
And one rings proud and gay.
The bird and the shepherd lad;
But the bird-voice thrills with rapture,
And the human note is sad.