Sauntering on with the birds and the flowers,

Talking of things that we know or we knew—

Of the pretty wishes that once were ours

In long-ago times when our years were few:

A wild little bird skims rapidly by;

And I tell of a day when my heart was stirr'd,

And I cried as only a child can cry,

That I was a girl instead of a bird.

'And oh!' in an eager manner I cried,

'I am feeling the very same wish to-day: