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.