Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns To let them joy, and purposes, in thought Elate, to make her night excel their day. The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake; The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove : Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze Pour'd out profusely, silent. Join'd to these Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw, And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone, Aid the full concert; while the stock-dove breathes A melancholy murmur through the whole.
'Tis love creates their melody, and all
This waste of music is the voice of love, That e'en to birds and beasts the tender arts Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind Try every winning way inventive love
Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates Pour forth their little souls. First, wide around, With distant awe, in airy rings they rove, Endeavouring, by a thousand tricks, to catch The cunning, conscious, half-averted glance Of their regardless charmer. Should she seem, Softening, the least approvance to bestow, Their colours burnish, and, by hope inspired, They brisk advance; then, on a sudden struck, Retire disorder'd; then again approach: In fond rotation spread the spotted wing, And shiver every feather with desire.*
Connubial leagues agreed, to the deep woods
For the best and most exhaustive history of the rivalship and selection which characterise the loves of the birds, see Darwin's most recent work The Descent of Man.
They haste away, all as their fancy leads, Pleasure, or food, or secret safety prompts; That Nature's great command may be obey'd: Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive Indulged in vain. Some to the holly-hedge Nestling repair, and to the thicket some: Some to the rude protection of the thorn Commit their feeble offspring. The cleft tree Offers its kind concealment to a few,
Their food its insects, and its moss their nests. Others apart, far in the grassy dale,
Or roughening waste, their humble texture weave. But most in woodland solitudes delight,
In unfrequented glooms, or shaggy banks, Steep, and divided by a babbling brook,
Whose murmurs soothe them all the live-long day, When by kind duty fix'd. Among the roots Of hazel, pendent o'er the plaintive stream, They frame the first foundation of their domes; Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid, And bound with clay together. Now 'tis nought But restless hurry through the busy air, Beat by unnumber'd wings. The swallow sweeps The slimy pool, to build his hanging house. Intent. And often, from the careless back Of herds and flocks, a thousand tugging bills Pluck hair and wool; and oft, when unobserved, Steal from the barn a straw: till soft and warm, Clean and complete, their habitation grows.
As thus the patient dam assiduous sits,
Not to be tempted from her tender task, Or by sharp hunger, or by smooth delight,
Though the whole loosen'd Spring around her blows, Her sympathising lover takes his stand
High on the opponent bank, and ceaseless sings The tedious time away, or else supplies Her place a moment, while she sudden flits To pick the scanty meal. The appointed time With pious toil fulfill'd, the callow young, Warm'd and expanded into perfect life,
Their brittle bondage break, and come to light,
A helpless family, demanding food With constant clamour. O what passions then, What melting sentiments of kindly care, On the new parents seize! Away they fly Affectionate, and undesiring bear
The most delicious morsel to their young; Which equally distributed, again
BE not the Muse ashamed, here to bemoan Her brothers of the grove, by tyrant man Inhuman caught, and in the narrow cage From liberty confined, and boundless air. Dull are the pretty slaves, their plumage dull, Ragged, and all its brightening lustre lost: Nor is that sprightly wildness in their notes, Which, clear and vigorous, warbles from the beech. O then, ye friends of love and love-taught song, Spare the soft tribes, this barbarous art forbear! If on your bosom innocence can win, Music engage, or piety persuade.
But let not chief the nightingale lament Her ruin'd care, too delicately framed To brook the harsh confinement of the cage. Oft when, returning with her loaded bill,
The astonish'd mother finds a vacant nest, By the hard hand of unrelenting clowns
Robb'd, to the ground the vain provision falls : Her pinions ruffle and, low-drooping, scarce Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade; Where, all abandon'd to despair, she sings
Her sorrows through the night; and, on the bough Sole-sitting, still at every dying fall
Takes up again her lamentable strain
Of winding woe: till, wide around, the woods Sigh to her song, and with her wail resound.
THE AUTHOR OF LIGHT AND LIFE.
PRIME cheerer, Light!
Of all material beings first, and best!
Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe ! Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun! Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen Shines out thy Maker! may I sing of thee?
'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force, As with a chain indissoluble bound, Thy system rolls entire; from the far bourne Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round Of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye, Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze. Informer of the planetary train,
Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous orbs Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead,
And not, as now, the green abodes of life!
How many forms of being wait on thee, Inhaling Spirit; from the unfetter'd mind By thee sublimed, down to the daily race, The mixing myriads of thy setting beam! The vegetable world is also thine, Parent of Seasons! who the pomp precede That waits thy throne, as through thy vast domain, Annual, along the bright ecliptic road,
In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime. Meantime the expecting nations, circled gay With all the tribes of foodful earth, Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up
A common hymn; while, round thy beaming car, High-seen the Seasons lead, in sprightly dance Harmonious knit, the rosy-finger'd hours, The zephyrs floating loose, the timely rains, Of bloom ethereal the light-footed dews, And soften'd into joy the surly storms. These, in successive turn, with lavish hand, Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower;
Herbs, flowers, and fruits; till, kindling at thy touch, From land to land is flush'd the vernal year.
The very dead creation, from thy touch, Assumes a mimic life. By thee refined, In brighter mazes the relucent stream Plays o'er the mead. The precipice abrupt, Projecting horror on the blacken'd flood, Softens at thy return. The desert joys Wildly, through all his melancholy bounds. Rude ruins glitter: and the briny deep, some pointed promontory's top, blue horizon's utmost verge, flects a floating gleam. But this,
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