And eats up all our fishes on the sly;
There seems to be but one he deigns to like,
For all I hear him say is simply “Pike.”
Tree-creepers, like some busy brown field-mice,
Unwearying chase the furtive fat wood-lice,
Then round the oak-tree’s bole they slyly peep
And tell you what you thought you knew—“We creep.”
This is the way the sparrow calls his mate;
He says it early and he says it late,
He says it softly, but he says it clear: