The Rivals — Summary

At dawn, a speaker hears a bird singing sweetly about the dew on the lawn and the wind on the lea. Instead of stopping to listen, he shrugs it off: the bird isn’t singing to him. The twist is that the speaker is doing exactly the same thing—singing about the very same dew and wind, and, he insists, just as prettily. So the two of them carry on side by side, each wrapped up in his own music, neither paying attention to the other. It’s a playful, gently comic moment about rivalry and self-absorption. The speaker isn’t angry or sad; he sounds proud, a little competitive, and quietly amused. The mood is light and fresh, like a small joke shared at sunrise.