A YOUNG GIRL TO A YOUNG BIRD

When one is young, you know, then one can sing

Of anything:

One is so young—so pleasurably so—

How can one know

If God made little apples, or yet pears,

Or ... if God cares?

You are young, maybe, Grackle; that is why

I want to cry

Seeing you watch the poems that I say

To-night, to-day ...

This little boy-bird seems to nod to me

With sympathy:

He is so young: it must be that is why ...

As young as I!

Marguerite Wilkinson

(Advancing with sedate courtesy in a long-sleeved, high-necked lecture costume.)