WHILE thus the imprison'd leaves and waking flowers
Burst from their tombs, the birds that lurk'd unseen
Amid the hybernal shade, in busy tribes
Pour their forgotten multitudes, and catch
New life, new rapture from the smile of Spring.
The oak's dark canopy, the moss-grown thorns
Flutter with hurried pinions, and resound
With notes that suit a forest; some, perchance,
Rude singly, yet with sweeter notes combined
In unison harmonious; notes that speak,
In language vocal to the listening wood,
The fears and hopes, the griefs and joys that heave
The feather'd breast. Proud of cerulean stains,
From heaven's unsullied arch purloin'd, the jay
Screams hoarse. With shrill and oft repeated cry,
Her angular course, alternate rise and fall,
The woodpecker prolongs; then to the trunk
Close clinging with unwearied beak assails
The hollow bark: through every cell the strokes
Roll the dire echoes that from wintry sleep
Awake her insect prey; the' alarmed tribes
Start from each chink that bores the mouldering
[foe Their scatter'd flight with lengthening tongue the Pursues; joy glistens on her verdant plumes, And brighter scarlet sparkles on her crest. From bough to bough the restless magpie roves, And chatters as she flies. In sober brown Dress'd, but with nature's tenderest pencil touch'd,
The wryneck* her monotonous complaint
Continues, harbinger of her who, doom'd
Never the sympathetic joy to know
That warms the mother cowering o'er her young,
A stranger robs, and to that stranger's love
Her egg commits unnatural: the nurse,
Unwitting of the change, her nestling feeds.
With toil augmented; its portentous throat
Wondering she views with ceaseless hunger gape,
Starts at the glare of its capacious eyes,
Its giant bulk, and wings of hues unknown.
Meanwhile the little songsters, prompt to cheer
Their mates close brooding in the brake below,
Strain their shrill throats; or, with parental care,
From twig to twig their timid offspring lead,
Teach them to seize the unwary gnat, to poise
Their pinions,in short flights their strength to prove,
And venturous trust the bosom of the air.
BIRDS BUILDING THEIR NESTS.
Now every feather'd tenant of the grove
Labours his sweetest song, studious to cheer
His busy mate, a pensive architect,
That builds the woven wonder of the nest!
Laps in a gentle cradle lined with down
Her future brood, or vigilant expects
Day after day the pregnant egg to live
And supplicate provision not in vain.
Such care maternal needs the sweet relief
The Welsh consider this bird as the forerunner or servant of the cuckoo, and call it gwas y gog, or the cuckoo's atfendant. The Swedes regard it in the same light. In the midland counties of England the common people call it the cuckoo's maiden.
Of labour'd song, and sometimes, parent sir,
The free existence of a silent beak;
Enamour'd songsters, grateful is the task,
While you from every brake the rising orb
With sweet hosanna welcome, to admire
And mark the several energies that fill
Your morning anthem of spontaneous praise.
The sparrow couple with industrious bill
The scatter'd straw collect, contriving snug
Under the cottage eave or low-roof'd barn
Their genial couch. More than mere chirpers now,
They watch the floating feather as it flies,
Eye-serve the goose for his superfluous down,
Or dressing fowl, or self-adorning drake,
And bear triumphant the loose spoil away.
Nor these alone are busy.
Feathery pairs,
Innumerable as the kindling bud,
Of wedded cares partake, and build the nest,
And hopes divide with constancy that shames
Man's brittle contract and infirm regard.
Lo! to the steeple with alternate wing
Bears expeditious his long twig the daw,
Nor seldom struggles with his awkward freight,
And drops it, startled by the hooting boy
That shouts beneath. The solitary dove,
Which loves the still dilapidated tower
Of desert castle or the time-cleft arch
Of ancient chantry, whose unshelter'd shafts
Ivy in pity clothes, and verdant moss
Crowns in respect his weatherbeaten head,
With frequent wing alighting in the field
Bears the loose stubble thence, and builds on high
Her bed unseen beyond the pilferer's reach.
His airy nursery in the neighbouring elm
Constructs the social rook, and makes the grove
That girds the crumbling edifice around,
And every angle of its ruined pile
With the base note of his harsh love resound,
Tell me, philosopher, in what sage school
Of perfect wisdom were the feathery folk
Taught to diversify and labour each
The several nest of his peculiar race?
Where learn'd the sloven sparrow, little wise,
Or little studious to excel, his art
Inferior, the maternal cell to thatch?
Whence drew the marten his superior skill
To knead and temper, masonlike, the slime
Of street or stagnant pool, and build aloft
Beneath the cornice brink or shady porch
His snug depending couch, on nothing hung,
Founded in air, and finish'd with a neat
Convenient aperture, from whence he bolts
Sudden, and whither brisk returns with mouth
Fill'd for his hiant offspring? Whence received
The daw his lesson, or the rook, the one
Within his lonely unfrequented tower
Weaving his basket of unnumber'd twigs,
The other on the topmost elm sublime
His wicker cradle fixing, to be rock'd
By the rude nurse Adversity's strong gale?
Whence knew the sprightly golden pinion'd finch,
Of ruddy countenance, and ivory beak,
And coat of sleekest umber, his fond art
To line with locks and pave with neatest love
The verdant nest of interwoven moss,
Fast to the blushing apple's forked branch,
Amid the blossoms of the codlin tied?
Thou prying schoolboy, spare the neat design,
And think of Him whose all-protecting hand
Secretes the nestling with innumerous leaves,
And with abundant foliage makes obscure
And to the sight impervious, branches erst
Easily pierced, or by the solar ray
Or beam of human eye or arrowy gale,—
Dark and impenetrable now to all.
Think of His mercy that protects the nest;
And, kind to all, with more especial love
The linnet spare and finch of crimson face,
That twitter each the none-offending song
Of quiet prettiness, and pluck the down
Of the prolific thistle for their bread.
Not to destroy be earnest, but to save.
SUBDUED by hunger the poor feathery tribes
Small dread of man retain, though wounded oft,
Oft slain or scared by his resounding tube.
The fieldfare gray and he of ruddier wing
Hop o'er the field unheeding, easy prey
To him whose heart has adamant enough
To level thunder at their humble race.
The sable bird melodious from the bough
No longer springs alert and clamorous,
Short flight and sudden with transparent wing
Along the dyke performing, fit by fit:
Shuddering he sits in horrent coat outswoln;
Despair has made him silent, and he falls
From his loved hawthorn, of its berry spoil'd,
A wasted skeleton shot through and through
By the near-aiming sportsman. Lovely bird,
So end thy sorrows, and so ends thy song!
Never again in the still summer's eve,
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