The pretty red squirrel
Lives up in a tree,
A little blithe creature
As ever can be;
He dwells in the boughs
Where the stock-dove broods,
Far in the shades
Of the green summer woods;
His food is the young
Juicy cones of the pine,
And the milky beech-nut
Is his bread and his wine.
In the joy of his nature
He frisks with a bound
To the topmost twigs,
And then down to the ground.
Then up again like
A winged thing,
And from tree to tree
With a vaulting spring;
Then he sits up aloft,
And looks ragged and queer,
As if he would say:
"Ay, follow me here!"
And then he grows pettish,
And stamps his foot;
And then with a chatter,
He cracks his nut;
And thus he lives
All the long summer through,
Without either a care
Or a thought of rue.