Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Titmouse" narrates the poet's encounter with a
Black-capped Chickadee during a winter storm. The poet praises the tiny chickadee as a
"scrap of valor" (234) and learns from it a lesson on self reliance:
I think no virtue goes with size;
The reason of all cowardice
Is, that men are overgrown,
And to be valiant, must come down
To the titmouse dimension . . . .
(236)