Poetry and Animals

106POETRY AS FIELD GUIDE

Without a Button—I c’d vouch—

Unto a Velvet Limb—

You’ll know Her—by Her Vest—

Tight fitting—Orange—Brown—

Inside a Jacket duller—

She wore when she was born—

Her Cap is small—and snug—

Constructed for the Winds—

She’d pass for Barehead—short way off—

But as she closer stands—

So finer ‘tis than Wool—

You cannot feel the seam—

Nor is it clasped unto of Band—

Nor held upon—of Brim—

You’ll know Her—by Her Voice—

At first—a doubtful Tone—

A sweet endeavor—but as March

To April—hurries on—

She squanders on your Head

Such Arguments of Pearl—

You beg the Robin in your Brain

To keep the other—still—^39

Although, as Skinner notes, the American enthusiasm for bird-watching
began two or three decades after 1863, when this poem was written, the
poem is explicitly about the process of recognizing the American robin
and assumes the reader’s interest in identifying the species. Interest-
ingly, the robin is so common in North America, and so emblematic
of songbirds in general, that it is a bird we all already “know.” That adult
readers will not need this information to identify the bird suggests that