The varying plumes, with drooping violets mixed,
Disclosed the death the beauteous bird had died.
Where are your haunts, ye helpless birds of song, When winter's cloudy wing begins to shade The emptied fields; when ripening sloes assume Their deepest jet, and wild plums purple hang Tempting, yet harsh till mellowed by the frost? Ah, now ye sit crowding upon the thorns, Beside your former homes, all desolate,
And filled with withered leaves; while FIELDFARE flocks From distant lands alight, and, chirping, fly
From hedge to hedge, avoiding man's approach.
Of all the tuneful tribes, the Redbreast sole
Confides himself to man; others sometimes
Are driven within our lintel-posts by storms,
And, fearfully, the sprinkled crumbs partake:
He feels himself at home. When lours the year,
He perches on the village turfy copes,
And, with his sweet but interrupted trills,
Bespeaks the pity of his future host,
But long he braves the season, ere he change
The heaven's grand canopy for man's low home;
Oft is he seen, when fleecy showers bespread
The house tops white, on the thawed smiddy roof,
Or in its open window he alights,
And, fearless of the clang, and furnace glare,
Looks round, arresting the uplifted arm,
While on the anvil cools the glowing bar.
But when the season roughens, and the drift
Flies upward, mingling with the falling flakes
In whirl confused, then on the cottage floor
He lights, and hops, and flits, from place to place,
Restless at first, till, by degrees, he feels
He is in safety: Fearless then he sings
The winter day; and when the long dark night
Has drawn the rustic circle round the fire,
Waked by the dinsome wheel, he trims his plumes,
And, on the distaff perched, chaunts soothingly
His summer song; or, fearlessly, lights down
Upon the basking sheep-dog's glossy fur;
Till, chance, the herd-boy, at his supper mess,
Attract his eye, then on the milky rim
Brisk he alights, and picks his little share.
Besides the Redbreast's note, one other strain,
One summer strain, on wintry days is heard.
Amid the leafless thorn, the merry Wren,
When icicles hang dripping from the rock,
Pipes her perennial lay; even when the flakes,
Broad as her pinions, fall, she lightly flies
Athwart the shower, and sings upon the wing.
While thus the smallest of the plumy tribes Defies the storm, others there are that fly, Long ere the winter lours, to genial skies; Nor this cold clime revisit, till the blooms Of parting spring blow 'mid the summer buds.
How
ow sweet the first sound of the CUCKOO's note!-
Whence is the magic pleasure of the sound?
How do we long recal the very tree,
Or bush, near which we stood, when on the ear
The unexpected note, cuckoo! again,
And yet again, came down the budding vale?
It is the voice of spring among the trees;
It tells of lengthening days, of coming blooms;
It is the symphony of many a song.
But, there, the stranger flies close to the ground,
With hawklike pinion, of a leaden blue.
Poor wanderer! from hedge to hedge she flies,
And trusts her offspring to another's care:
The sooty-plum'd hedge-sparrow frequent acts
The foster-mother, warming into life
The youngling, destined to supplant her own.
Meanwhile, the cuckoo sings her idle song,
Monotonous, yet sweet, now here, now there,
Herself but rarely seen; nor does she cease
Her changeless note, until the broom, full blown,
Give warning, that her time for flight is come.
Thus, ever journeying on, from land to land,
She, sole of all the innumerous feathered tribes,
Passes a stranger's life, without a home.
Home! word delightful to the heart of man, And bird, and beast!-small word, yet not the less Significant :-Comprising all!
Whatever to affection is most dear,
Is all included in that little word,
Wife, children, father, mother, brother, friend.
At mention of that word, the seaman, clinging
Upon the dipping yard-arm, sees afar
The twinkling fire, round which his children cow'r,
And speak of him, counting the months, and weeks,
That must pass dreary o'er, ere he return.
He sighs to view the sea-bird's rapid wing.
O, had I but the envied power to chuse My home, no sound of city bell should reach
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