Kids Poems » The Sorrowful Yellow Bird

They've caught my little brother ;
And he was to me a twin !
They stole him from our mother ;
And the cage has shut him in.

I flitted by and found him.
Where he looked so sad and sick,
With the gloomy wires around him,
As he crouched upon a stick.

And when I tried to cheer him
With the cherry in my bill,
To see me there so near him
Oh ! it made him sadder still.

His tender eye was shining
With the brightness of despair,
With sorrow and repining,
As he bade me have a care !

He said they'd come and take me,
As they'd taken him ; and then
A hopeless prisoner make me,
In the fearful hands of men :-

That, once in their dominion,
I should have to pine away,
And never stretch a pinion,
To my very dying day :-

That the wings which God had made him
For freedom in the air,
Since man had thus betrayed him,
Were stiff and useless there.

And the little darling fellow,
As he showed his golden breast,
He said, beneath the yellow,
He'd a sad and aching breast :-

That since he'd been among them,
They had ruffled it so much,
The only song he'd sung them
Was a shriek beneath their touch.

How can they love to see him
So sickly and so sad,
When, if they would but free him,
He'd be so well and glad ?

My hapless little brother !
I would fain his bondage share :
I never had another ;
And he's a captive there !