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WINTER BIRDS.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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265

WINTER BIRDS.

“Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing,
That in the merry months of spring
Delighted me to hear thee sing,
What comes of thee?
Where wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing,
And close thy e'e?”
Burns.

When the last red leaves have disappeared,
And icicles hang from December's beard,
Through the naked woods I love to stroll,
While the leaden clouds above me roll.
Though the landscape wears a frosty dress
I feel not a sense of loneliness,
For chirping voices on the breeze,
Come from the mossy bolls of trees.
The titmouse, restless little bird!
Tapping the mouldering bark, is heard;
His nimble figure ill-descried
On the beechen trunk's opposing side.
And “Picus minor” plies his trade,
Hunting for dens by insects made;
Knocking off flakes of dropping wood
To pound with his hammer their loathsome brood.
Snow on the blast is whirling by,
But “chink! chink!” is his cheerful cry;
What cares he for the blinding storm?
Both have their mission to perform.
The farmer, lacking wisdom, hears
Thy shrilly note with idle fears;
Growling, while sounds each measured rap,
“Death to the robber that bores for sap!”

266

Toward thee he should be kind of heart,
For a guardian of his trees thou art;
Thou leavest not a grub alive,
And after thy visits they better thrive.
The gray elm, shorn of his leafy crown,
Finds a loyal friend in the Creeper brown,
Hunting for vermin in crevices dark,
That health may return to the wounded bark.
“Quank! quank!” the Nuthatch sings,
As his horny bill on the white-oak rings;
Ill will the bug and spider fare,
For a spear-like tongue explores their lair.
The rain that freezes as it falls,
Drives not him from the forest-halls;
Though stem and twig are with ice encased,
His note still rings through the wintry waste.
From the larger boughs I have seen him launch
To the swaying tip of the lightest branch,
Then round it track his spiral way,
Probing the spots of old decay.
Blithe little birds of winter wild!
I loved ye when a happy child;
Now manhood's beard is on my chin,
But draughts of delight from ye I win.
Ye are links that bind me to the past,
That realm enchanted, dim and vast;
And my paths through the dreary, drifting snow,
Ye cheered in the winters of long ago.
May ill befall the man or boy,
Who one of your number would destroy!
Ye are never false to your native bowers—
Ye are doers of good in this world of ours.