Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The woodland song, the various vocal quires,
That harmonize fair Scotia's streamy vales;
Their habitations, and their little joys;
The winged dwellers on the leas, and moors,
And mountain cliffs; the woods, the streams, them-selves,
The sweetly rural, and the savage scene,—
Haunts of the plumy tribes,—be these my theme!

Come, Fancy, hover high as eagle's wing:
Bend thy keen eye o'er Scotland's hills and dales;
Float o'er her farthest isles; glance o'er the main;
Or, in this briery dale, flit with the wren,

From twig to twig; or, on the grassy ridge,
Low nestle with the lark: Thou, simple bird,
Of all the vocal quire, dwell'st in a home
The humblest; yet thy morning song ascends
Nearest to heaven,—sweet emblem of his song,
Who sung thee wakening by the daisy's side!

With earliest spring, while yet the wheaten blade
Scarce shoots above the new-fall'n shower of snow,
The skylark's note, in short excursion, warbles:
Yes! even amid the day-obscuring fall,
I've marked his wing winnowing the feathery flakes,
In widely-circling horizontal flight.
But, when the season genial smiles, he towers
In loftier poise, with sweeter, fuller pipe,
Chearing the ploughman at his furrow end,—
The while he clears the share, or, listening, leans
Upon his paddle-staff, and, with raised hand,
Shadows his half-shut eyes, trying to scan
The songster melting in the flood of light.

On tree, or bush, no Lark is ever seen:
The daisied lea he loves, where tufts of grass
Luxuriant crown the ridge; there, with his mate,
He founds their lowly house, of withered bents,

And coarsest speargrass; next, the inner work
With finer, and still finer fibres lays,
Rounding it curious with his speckled breast.
How strange this untaught art! it is the gift,
The gift innate of Him, without whose will
Not even a sparrow falleth to the ground.

And now the assiduous dam her red-specked treasure,
From day to day increases, till complete
The wonted number, blythe, beneath her breast,
She cherishes from morn to eve,—from eve
To morn shields from the dew, that globuled lies
Upon her mottled plumes: then with the dawn
Upsprings her mate, and wakes her with his song.
His song full well she knows, even when the sun,
High in his morning course, is hailed at once
By all the lofty warblers of the sky:
But most his downward-veering song she loves;
Slow the descent at first, then, by degrees,
Quick, and more quick, till suddenly the note
Ceases; and, like an arrow-fledge, he darts,
And, softly lighting, perches by her side.

But now no time for hovering welkin high,
Or downward-gliding strain; the young have chipped,
Have burst the brittle cage, and gaping bills

Claim all the labour of the parent pair.
Ah, labour vain! the herd-boy long has marked
His future prize; the ascent, and glad return,
Oft has he viewed; at last, with prying eyes,
He found the spot, and joyful thought he held
The full-ripe young already in his hand,
Or bore them lightly to his broom-roofed bield:
Even now he sits, amid the rushy mead,
Half-hid, and warps the skep with willow rind,
Or rounds the lid, still adding coil to coil,
Then joins the osier hinge: the work complete
Surveying, oft he turns, and much admires,
Complacent with himself; then hies away
With plundering intent. Ah, little think
The harmless family of love, how near
The robber treads! he stoops, and parts the grass,
And looks with eager eye upon his prey.
Quick round and round the parents fluttering wheel,
Now high, now low, and utter shrill the plaint
Of deep distress.—But soon forgot their woe:
Not so with man! year after year he mourns,
Year after year the mother weeps her son,
Torn from her struggling arms by ruffian grasp,
By robbery legalised.

Low in a glen,
Down which a little stream had furrowed deep,
'Tween meeting birchen boughs, a shelvy channel,

And brawling mingled with the western tide;
Far up that stream, almost beyond the roar
Of storm-bulged breakers, foaming o'er the rocks
With furious dash, a lowly dwelling lurked,
Surrounded by a circlet of the stream.
Before the wattled door, a greensward plat,
With daisies gay, pastured a playful lamb;
A pebbly path, deep-worn, led up the hill,
Winding among the trees, by wheel untouched,
Save when the winter fuel was brought home,—
One of the poor man's yearly festivals.
On every side it was a sheltered spot,
So high and suddenly the woody steeps
Arose. One only way, downward the stream,
Just o'er the hollow, 'tween the meeting boughs,
The distant wave was seen, with, now and then,
The glimpse of passing sail; but, when the breeze
Crested the distant wave, this little nook
Was all so calm, that, on the limberest spray,
The sweet bird chaunted motionless, the leaves
At times scarce fluttering. Here dwelt a pair,
Poor, humble, and content: one son alone,
Their William, happy lived at home to bless
Their downward years; he, simple youth,
With boyish fondness, fancied he would love
A seaman's life, and with the fishers sailed,
To try their ways, far 'mong the western isles,

Far as Saint Kilda's rock-walled shore abrupt,
O'er which he saw ten thousand pinions wheel
Confused, dimming the sky: These dreary shores
Gladly he left; he had a homeward heart:
No more his wishes wander to the waves.
But still he loves to cast a backward look,
And tell of all he saw, of all he learned;
Of pillared Staffa, lone Iona's isle,
Where Scotland's kings are laid; of Lewis, Sky,
And of the mainland mountain-circled lochs;
And he would sing the rowers timing chaunt,
And chorus wild. Once on a summer's eve,
When low the sun behind the highland hills
Was almost set, he sung that song, to cheer
The aged folks: upon the inverted quern
The father sat; the mother's spindle hung
Forgot, and backward twirled the half-spun thread;
Listening with partial well-pleased look, she gazed
Upon her son, and inly blessed the Lord,
That he was safe returned: Sudden a noise
Bursts rushing through the trees; a glance of steel
Dazzles the eye, and fierce the savage band
Glare all around, then single out their prey.
In vain the mother clasps her darling boy,
In vain the sire offers their little all:
William is bound; they follow to the shore,

Implore, and weep, and pray; knee-deep they stand,
And view, in mute despair, the boat recede.

But let me quit this scene, and bend my way
Back to the inland vales, and up the heights,
(Erst by the plough usurped,) where now the heath,
Thin scattered up and down, blooming begins
To re-appear: Stillness, heart-soothing, reigns,
Save, now and then, the partridge's late call;
Featly athwart the ridge she runs, now seen,
Now in the furrow hid; then, screaming, springs,
Joined by her mate, and to the grass-field flies:
There, 'neath the blade, rudely she forms
Her shallow nest, humble as is the lark's,
But thrice more numerous her freckled store.
Careful she turns them to her breast, and soft,
With lightest pressure sits, scarce to be moved;
Yes, she will sit, regardless of the scythe,
That nearer, and still nearer, sweep by sweep,
Levels the swarthe: Bold with a mother's fears,
She, faithful to the last, maintains her post,
And, with her blood, sprinkles a deeper red
Upon the falling blossoms of the field;—
While others, of her kind, content to haunt
The upland ferny braes, remote from man,
Behold a plenteous brood burst from the shell,
And run; but soon, poor helpless things, return,

And crowd beneath the fond inviting breast,
And wings outstretching, quivering with delight.
They grow apace; but still not far they range,
Till on their pinions plumes begin to shoot;
Then, by the wary parents led, they dare
To skirt the earing crofts; at last, full fledged,
They try their timorous wings, bending their flight
Home to their natal spot, and pant amid the ferns.
Oft by the side of sheep-fold, on the ground
Bared by the frequent hoof, they love to lie
And bask. O, I would never tire to look
On such a scene of peacefulness as this!
But nearer as I draw, with cautious step,
Curious to mark their ways, at once alarmed,
They spring; the startled lambs, with bickering haste,
Flee to their mother's side, and gaze around:
Far o'er yon whins the covey wing their way,
And, wheeling round the broomy know, elude
My following eye.—Fear not, ye harmless race;
In me no longer shall ye find a foe!
Even when each pulse beat high with bounding health,
Ere yet the stream of life, in sluggish flow,
Began to flag, and prematurely stop
With ever-boding pause, even then my heart
Was never in the sport; even then I felt,—
Pleasure from pain was pleasure much alloyed.

Alas, he comes! yes, yonder comes your foe,
With sure determined eye, and in his hand
The two-fold tube, formed for a double death.
Full soon his spaniel, ranging far and wide,
Will lead his footsteps to the very spot,
The covert thick, in which, falsely secure,
Ye lurking sit, close huddled, wing to wing:
Yes, near and nearer still the spaniel draws,
Retracing oft, and crossing oft his course,
Till, all at once, scent-struck, with pendant tongue,
And lifted paw, stiffened he panting stands.
Forward, encouraged by the sportsman's voice,
He hesitating creeps; when, flush, the game
Upsprings, and, from the levelled turning tubes,
The glance, once and again, bursts through the smoke.

Nor, 'mid the rigours of the wintry day,
Does savage man the enfeebled pinion spare;
Then not for sport, but bread, with hawk-like eye,
That needs no setter's aid, the fowler gaunt
Roams in the snowy fields, and downward looks,
Tracing the triple claw, that leads him on,
Oft looking forward, to some thawing spring,
Where, 'mid the withered iushes he discerns
His destined prey; sidelong he stooping steps,
Wary, and, with a never-erring aim,

Scatters the flock wide fluttering in the snow;—
The purpled snow records the cruel deed.

With earliest spring, while yet in mountain cleughs
Lingers the frozen wreath, when yeanling lambs,
Upon the little heath-encircled patch
Of smoothest sward, totter,—the gorcock's call
Is heard from out the mist, high on the hill;
But not till when the tiny heather bud
Appears, are struck the spring-time leagues of love.
Remote from shepherd's hut, or trampled fold,
The new-joined pair their lowly mansion pitch,
Perhaps beneath the juniper's rough shoots;
Or castled on some plat of tufted heath,
Surrounded by a narrow sable moat
Of swampy moss. Within the fabric rude,
Or e'er the new moon waxes to the full,
The assiduous dam eight spotted spheroids sees,
And feels beneath her heart, fluttering with joy.
Nor long she sits, till, with redoubled joy,
Around her she beholds an active brood
Run to and fro, or through her covering wings
Their downy heads look out; and much she loves
To pluck the heather crops, not for herself,
But for their little bills. Thus, by degrees,
She teaches them to find the food, which God
Has spread for them amid the desart wild,

And seeming barrenness. Now they essay
Their full-plumed wings, and, whirring, spurn the ground;
But soon alight fast by yon moss-grown cairn,
Round which the berries blae (a beauteous tint
Of purple, deeper dyed with darkest blue)
Lurk 'mid the small round leaves. Enjoy the hour,
While yet ye may, ye unoffending flock!
For not far distant now the bloody morn,
When man's protection, selfishly bestowed,
Shall be withdrawn, and murder roam at will.

Low in the east, the purple tinge of dawn
Steals upward o'er the clouds that overhang
The welkin's verge. Upon the mountain side,
The wakening covey quit their mother's wing,
And spread around: Lost in the mist,
They hear her call, and, quick returning, bless
A mother's eye. Meantime, the sportsman keen
Comes forth; and, heedless of the winning smile
Of infant day, pleading on mercy's side,
Anticipates, with eager joy, the sum
Of slaughter, that, ere evening hour, he'll boast
To have achieved;—and many a gory wing,
Ere evening hour, exultingly he sees,
Drop, fluttering, 'mid the heath,—even 'mid the bush,

Beneath whose blooms the brooding mother sat,
Till round her she beheld her downy young.

At last mild twilight veils the insatiate eye,
And stops the game of death. The frequent shot
Resounds no more: Silence again resumes
Her lonely reign; save that the mother's call
Is heard repeated oft, a plaintive note!
Mournful she gathers in her brood, dispersed
By savage sport, and o'er the remnant spreads
Fondly her wings; close nestling 'neath her breast,
They cherished cower amid the purple blooms.

While thus the heathfowl covey, day by day,
Is lessened, till, perhaps, one drooping bird
Survives,—the plover safe her airy scream
Circling repeats, then to a distance flies,
And, querulous, still returns, importunate;
Yet still escapes, unworthy of an aim.
Amid the marsh's rushy skirts, her nest
Is slightly strewn; four eggs, of olive hue,
Spotted with black, she broods upon: her young,
Soon as discumbered of the fragile shell,
Run lively round their dam. She, if or dog,
Or man, intrude upon her bleak domain,
Skims, clamouring loud, close at their feet, with wing
Stooping, as if impeded by a wound;

Meantime her young, among the rush-roots, lurk
Secure. Ill-omened bird! oft in the times
When monarchs owned no sceptre but the sword,—
Far in the heathy waste, that stretches wide
From Avendale to Loudon's high-coned hill,
Thou, hovering o'er the panting fugitive,
Through dreary moss and moor, hast screaming led
The keen pursuer's eye: oft hast thou hung,
Like a death flag, above the assembled throng,
Whose lips hymned praise, their right hands at their hilts;
Who, in defence of conscience, freedom, law,
Looked stern, with unaverted eyes, on death
In every form of horror. Bird of woe!
Even to the tomb thy victims, by thy wing,
Were haunted; o'er the bier thy direful cry
Was heard, while murderous men rushed furious on,
Profaned the sacred presence of the dead,
And filled the grave with blood. At last, nor friend.
Nor father, brother, comrade, dares to join
The train, that frequent winds adown the heights.
By feeble female hands the bier is borne,
While on some neighbouring cairn the aged sire
Stands bent, his gray locks waving in the blast.
But who is she that lingers by the sod,
When all are gone? 'Tis one who was beloved
By him who lies below: Ill-omened bird!

She never will forget, never forget,
Thy dismal soughing wing, and doleful cry.

Amid these woodless wilds, a small round lake
I've sometimes marked, girt by a spungy sward
Of lively green, with here and there a flower
Of deep-tinged purple, firmly stalked, of form
Pyramidal,—the shores bristling with reeds,
That midway over wade, and, as they bend,
Disclose the water lily, dancing light
On waves soft-rippled by the July gale;
Hither the long and soft-billed snipe resorts,
By suction nourished; here her house she forms;
Here warms her fourfold offspring into life.
Alas! not long her helpless offspring feel
Her fostering warmth; though suddenly she mounts,
Her rapid rise, and vacillating flight,
In vain defend her from the fowler's aim.

But let me to the vale once more descend,
And mingle with the woodland choir, and join
Their various song, and celebrate with them
The woods, the rocks, the streams, the bosky bourne,
The thorny dingle, and the open glade;
For 'tis not in their song, nor in their plumes,
Nor in their wonderous ways, that all their charm
Consists; No, 'tis the grove, their dwelling place,

That lends them half their charm, that still is linked,
By strong association's half-seen chain,
With their sweet song, wherever it is sung.
And while this lovely, this congenial theme,
I slightly touch, O, may I ne'er forget,
Nature, thy laws! be this my steady aim,
To vindicate simplicity; to drive
All affectation from the rural scene.

There are, who, having seen some lordly pile,
Surrounded by a sea of lawn, attempt,
Within their narrow bounds, to imitate
The noble folly. Down the double row
Of venerable elms is hewn. Down crash,
Upon the grass, the orchard trees, whose sprays,
Enwreathed with blooms, and waved by gentlest gales,
Would lightly at the shaded window beat,
Breaking the morning's slumber with delight,
Vernal delight. The ancient moss-coped wall,
Or hedge impenetrable, interspersed
With holly evergreen, the domicile
Of many a little wing, is swept away;
While, at respectful distance, rises up
The red brick-wall, with flues, and chimney tops,
And many a leafy crucifix adorned.
Extends the level lawn with dropping trees
New planted, dead at top, each to a post

Fast-collared, culprit like. The smooth expanse
Not one irregularity presents,
Not even one grassy tuft, in which a lark
Might find a home, and cheer the dull domain.
Around the whole, a line vermicular,
Of melancholy fir, and leaning larch,
And shivering poplar, skirting the way side,
Is thinly drawn. But should the tasteful Power,
Pragmatic, which presides, with pencilling hand,
And striding compasses, o'er all this change,
Get in his thrall some hapless stream, that lurks
Wimpling through hazelly shaw, and broomy glen,
Instant the axe resounds through all the dale,
And many a pair, unhoused, hovering lament
The barbarous devastation: All is smoothed,
Save here and there a tree; the hawthorn, brier.
The hazel bush, the bramble, and the broom,
The sloe-thorn, Scotia's myrtle, all are gone;
And on the well-sloped bank arise trim clumps,
Some round, and some oblong, of shrubs exotic,
A wilderness of poisons, precious deemed
In due proportion to their ugliness.

What though fair Scotland's vallies rarely vaunt
The oak majestical, whose aged boughs
Darken a roodhreadth! yet no where is seen,
More beauteously profuse, wild underwood;

No where 'tis seen more beauteously profuse,
Than on thy tangling banks, well-wooded Esk,
And, Borthwick, thine, above that fairy nook
Formed by your blending streams. The hawthorn there,
With moss and lichen grey, dies of old age;
Up to the topmost branches climbs the rose,
And mingles with the fading blooms of May;
While round the brier the honeysuckle wreaths
Entwine, and, with their sweet perfume, embalm
The dying rose: A never-failing blow,
From spring to fall, expands; the sloethorn white,
As if a flaky shower the leafless sprays
Had hung; the hawthorn, May's fair diadem;
The whin's rich dye; the bonny broom; the rasp
Erect; the rose, red, white, and faintest pink;
And long extending bramble's flowery shoots.

The bank ascend, an open height appears
Between the double streams that wind below:
Look round; behold a prospect wide and fair;—
The Lomond hills, with Fife's town-skirted shore,
The intervening sea, Inchkeith's grey rocks,
With beacon-turret crowned; Arthur's proud crest,
And Salisbury abrupt; the Pentland range,
Now peaked, and now, with undulating swell,
Heaved to the clouds: More near, upon each hand,

The sloping woods, bulging into the glade,
Receding then with easy artless curve.
Behind, a grove, of ancient trees, surrounds
The ruins of a blood-cemented house,
Half prostrate laid, as ever ought to lie
The tyrant's dwelling. There no martin builds
Her airy nest; not even the owl alights
On these unhallowed walls: The murderer's head
Was sheltered by these walls; hands blood-embrued
Founded these walls,—Mackenzie's purpled hands!—
Perfidious minion of a sceptred priest!
The huge enormity of crime on crime,
Accumulated high, but ill conceals
The reptile meanness of thy dastard soul;
Whose favourite art was lying with address,
Whose hollow promise helped the princely hand
To screw confessions from the tortured lips.
Base hypocrite! thy character, pourtrayed
By modern history's too lenient touch,
Truth loves to blazon, with her real tints,
To limn, of new, thy half-forgotten name,
Inscribe with infamy thy time-worn tomb,
And make the memory hated as the man.

But better far truth loves to paint yon house
Of humbler wall, half stone, half turf; with roof
Of mended thatch, the sparrow's warm abode;

The wisp-wound chimney, with its rising wreathe:
The sloping garden, filled with useful herbs,
Yet not without its rose; the patch of corn
Upon the brow; the blooming vetchy ridge.
But most the aged man, now wandering forth,
I love to view; for 'neath yon homely guise
Dwell worth, and simple dignity, and sense,
Politeness natural, that puts to shame
The world's grimace, and kindness crowning all.
Why should the falsely great, the glittering names,
Engross the muse's praise? My humble voice
They ne'er engrossed, and never shall: I claim
The title of the poor man's bard: I dare
To celebrate an unambitious name;
And thine, Kilgour, may yet some few years live,
When low thy reverend locks mix with the mould.

Even in a bird, the simplest notes have charms
For me: I even love the yellow-hammer's song.
When earliest buds begin to bulge, his note,
Simple, reiterated oft is heard
On leafless brier, or half-grown hedge-row tree;
Nor is he silent until autumn's leaves
Fall fluttering round his head of golden hue.
Fair plumaged bird! cursed by the causeless hate
Of every schoolboy, still by me thy lot
Was pitied! never did I tear thy nest:

I loved thee, pretty bird! for 'twas thy nest
Which first, unhelped by older eyes, I found.
The very spot I think I now behold!
Forth from my low-roofed home I wandered blythe,
Down to thy side, sweet Cart, where 'cross the stream
A range of stones, below a shallow ford,
Stood in the place of the now spanning arch;
Up from that ford a little bank there was,
With alder-copse and willow overgrown,
Now worn away by mining winter floods;
There, at a bramble root, sunk in the grass,
The hidden prize, of withered field-straws formed,
Well lined with many a coil of hair and moss,
And in it laid five red-veined spheres, I found.
The Syracusan's voice did not exclaim
The grand Heureka, with more rapturous joy,
Than at that moment fluttered round my heart.

How simply unassuming is that strain!
It is the redbreast's song, the friend of man.
High is his perch, but humble is his home,
And well concealed. Sometimes within the sound
Of heartsome mill-clack, where the spacious door,
White-dusted, tells him, plenty reigns around,—
Close at the root of brier-bush, that o'erhangs
The narrow stream, with shealings bedded white,—
He fixes his abode, and lives at will.

Oft near some single cottage, he prefers
To rear his little home; there, pert and spruce,
He shares the refuse of the goodwife's churn,
Which kindly on the wall for him she leaves:
Below her lintel oft he lights, then in
He boldly flits, and fluttering loads his bill,
And to his young the yellow treasure bears.

Not seldom does he neighbour the low roof
Where tiny elves are taught:—a pleasant spot
It is, well fenced from winter blast, and screened,
By high o'er-spreading boughs, from summer sun.
Before the door a sloping green extends
No farther than the neighbouring cottage-hedge,
Beneath whose boortree shade a little well
Is scooped, so limpid, that its guardian trout
(The wonder of the lesser stooping wights)
Is at the bottom seen.—At noontide hour,
The imprisoned throng, enlarged, blythesome rush forth
To sport the happy interval away;
While those from distance come, upon the sward,
At random seated, loose their little stores:
In midst of them poor Redbreast hops unharmed,
For they have read, or heard, and wept to hear,
The story of the Children in the Wood;
And many a crumb to Robin they will throw.

Some Redbreasts love amid the deepest groves
Retired, to pass the summer days: their song,
Among the birchen boughs, with sweetest fall,
Is warbled, pausing, then resumed more sweet,
More sad; that, to an ear grown fanciful,
The babes, the wood, the man, rise in review,
And Robin still repeats the tragic line.
But should the note of flute, or human voice,
Sound through the grove, the madrigal at once
Ceases; the warbler flits from branch to branch,
And, stooping, sidelong turns his listening head.

Ye lovers of his song, the greenwood path
Each morn duly bestrew with a few crumbs:
His friendship thus ye'll gain; till, by degrees,
Alert, even from your hand, the offered boon
He'll pick, half trustingly. Yes, I have seen
Him, and his mate, attend, from tree to tree,
My passing step; and, from my open hand,
The morsel pick, timorous, and starting back,
Returning still, with confidence increased.

What little birds, with frequent, shrillest chirp,
When honeysuckle flowers succeed the rose,
The inmost thicket haunt!—their tawny breasts,
Spotted with black, bespeak the youngling thrush,

Though less in size; it is the Redbreast's brood,
New flown, bewildered, still the downy tufts
Upon their heads. But soon their full fledged wings,
Long hesitating, quivering oft, they stretch:
At last, encouraged by the parent voice,
And leading flight, they reach the nearest bush,
Or, falling short, lie panting on the ground;
But, reassured, the destined aim attain.
Nor long this helpless state: Each day adds strength,
Adds wisdom, suited to their little sphere,
Adds independence, first of heavenly boons!

Released from all the duties, all the cares,
The keen, yet sweet solicitudes, that haunt
The parent's breast,—again the Redbreast's song
Trills from the wood, or from the garden bough.
Each season in its turn he hails; he hails,
Perched on the naked tree, spring's earliest buds:
At morn, at chilly eve, when the March sun
Sinks with a wintry tinge, and Hesper sheds
A frosty light, he ceases not his strain:
And when staid Autumn walks with rustling tread,
He mourns the falling leaf. Even when each branch
Is leafless, and the harvest morn has clothed
The fields in white, he, on the hoar-plumed spray,
Delights, dear trustful bird! his future host.

But farewell lessening days, in summer smile
Arrayed. Dark winter's frown comes like a cloud,
Whose shadow sweeps a mountain side, and scowls
O'er all the land. Now warm stack-yards, and barns,
Busy with bouncing flails, are Robin's haunts.
Upon the barn's half door he doubting lights,
And inward peeps.—But truce, sweet social bird!
So well I love the strain, when thou'rt my theme,
That now I almost tread the winter snows,
While many a vernal song remains unsung.

When snowdrops die, and the green primrose leaves
Announce the coming flower, the merle's note,
Mellifluous, rich, deep-toned, fills all the vale,
And charms the ravished ear. The hawthorn bush,
New-budded, is his perch; there the grey dawn
He hails; and there, with parting light, concludes
His melody. There, when the buds begin
To break, he lays the fibrous roots; and, see,
His jetty breast embrowned; the rounded clay
His jetty breast has soiled; but now complete,
His partner, and his helper in the work,
Happy assumes possession of her home;
While he, upon a neighbouring tree, his lay,
More richly full, melodiously renews.
When twice seven days have run, the moment snatch,
That she has flitted off her charge, to cool

Her thirsty bill, dipt in the babbling brook,
Then silently, on tiptoe raised, look in,
Admire: Five cupless acorns, darkly specked,
Delight the eye, warm to the cautious touch.
In seven days more expect the fledgeless young,
Five gaping bills. With busy wing and eye
Quick-darting, all alert, the parent pair
Gather the sustenance which heaven bestows.
But music ceases, save at dewy fall
Of eve, when, nestling o'er her brood, the dam
Has stilled them all to rest; or at the hour
Of doubtful dawning grey; then from his wing
Her partner turns his yellow bill, and chaunts
His solitary song of joyous praise.
From day to day, as blow the hawthorn flowers,
That canopy this little home of love,
The plumage of the younglings shoots and spreads,
Filling with joy the fond parental eye.
Alas! not long the parents' partial eye
Shall view the fledging wing; ne'er shall they see
The timorous pinion's first essay at flight.
The truant schoolboy's eager, bleeding hand,
Their house, their all, tears from the bending bush;
A shower of blossoms mourns the ruthless deed.
The piercing anguished note, the brushing wing,
The spoiler heeds not; triumphing, his way,

Smiling he wends: The ruined, hopeless pair,
O'er many a field follow his townward steps,
Then back return; and, perching on the bush,
Find nought of all they loved, but one small tuft
Of moss, and withered roots. Drooping they sit,
Silent: Afar at last they fly, o'er hill
And lurid moor, to mourn in other groves,
And soothe, in gentler grief, their hapless lot.

Meantime, the younger victims, one by one,
Drop off, by care destroyed, and food unfit.
Perhaps one, hardier than the rest, survives,
And 'tween the wicker bars, with fading weeds
Entwined, hung at some lofty window, hops
From stick to stick his small unvaried round;
While opposite, but higher still, the lark
Stands fluttering, or runs o'er his narrow field,
A span-breadth turf, tawny and parched, with wings
Quivering, as if to fly; his carol gay
Lightening the pale mechanic's tedious task.
Poor birds, most sad the change! of daisied fields,
Of hawthorn blooming sprays, of boundless air,
With melody replete, for clouds of smoke,
Through which the daw flies cawing steeple high;
Or creak of grinding wheels, or skillet tongue,
Shrilly reviling, more discordant still!

But what their wretchedness, parents or young,
Compared to that which wrings the human breast,
Doomed to lament a loss, than death more dire,—
The robbery of a child! Aye, there is wretchedness!
Snatched playful from the rosy bank, by hands
Inured to crimes, the innocent is borne
Far, far away. Of all the varying forms
Of human woe, this the most dire! To think
He might have been now sporting at your side,
But that, neglected, he was left a prey
To pirate hands! To think how he will shudder,
To see a hideous, haggard face attempt
To smile away his tears, caressing him
With horrible embrace, the while he calls
Aloud, in vain, to you! Nor does even time,—
Assuager of all other woes,—bring balm
To this: Each child, to boyish years grown up,
Reminds you of your boy! He might have been
Like this, fair, blooming, modest, looking down
With most engaging bashfulness: But now,
Instead of this, perhaps, with sable mask
Begrimed, he feebly totters 'neath a load,
More fitted to his cruel master's strength.
Perhaps, to manhood come, allured to sell
His life, his freedom, for some paltry pounds,
He now lies 'mong the numbered, nameless crowd,
That groan on gory fields, envying the dead!

Or, still more dreadful fate! dragged, trained, compelled,
To vice, to crimes, death-sentenced crimes, perhaps
Among those miserable names, which blot
The calendar of death, his is inscribed!

How much alike in habits, form, and size,
The merle and the mavis! how unlike
In plumage, and in song! The thrush's song
Is varied as his plumes; and as his plumes
Blend beauteous, each with each, so run his notes
Smoothly, with many a happy rise and fall.
How prettily, upon his parded breast,
The vividly contrasted tints unite
To please the admiring eye; so, loud and soft,
And high and low, all in his notes combine,
In alternation sweet, to charm the ear.

Full earlier than the blackbird he begins
His vernal strain. Regardless of the frown
Which winter casts upon the vernal day,
Though snowy flakes melt in the primrose cup,
He, warbling on, awaits the sunny beam,
That mild gleams down, and spreads o'er all the grove.
But now his song a partner for him gains;

And in the hazel bush, or sloe, is formed
The habitation of the wedded pair:
Sometimes below the never-fading leaves
Of ivy close, that overtwisting binds,
And richly crowns, with clustered fruit of spring,
Some riven rock, or nodding castle wall;
Sometimes beneath the jutting root of elm,
Or oak, among the sprigs, that overhang
A pebble-chiding stream, the loam-lined house
Is fixed, well hid from ken of hovering hawk,
Or lurking beast, or schoolboy's prowling eye;
Securely there the dam sits all day long,
While from the adverse bank, on topmost shoot
Of odour-breathing birch, her mate's blythe chaunt
Cheers her pent hours, and makes the wild woods ring.
Grudge not, ye owners of the fruited boughs,
That he should pay himself for that sweet music,
With which, in blossom time, he cheers your hearts!
Scare, if ye will, his timid wing away,
But, O, let not the leaden, viewless shower,
Vollied from flashing tube, arrest his flight,
And fill his tuneful, gasping bill with blood!

These two, all others of the singing quires,
In size, surpass. A contrast now behold:
The little woodland dwarf, the tiny wren,
That from the root-sprigs trills her ditty clear.

Of stature most diminutive herself,
Not so her wonderous house; for, strange to tell!
Her's is the largest structure that is formed
By tuneful bill and breast. 'Neath some old root,
From which the sloping soil, by wintry rains,
Has been all worn away, she fixes up
Her curious dwelling, close, and vaulted o'er,
And in the side a little gateway porch,
In which (for I have seen) she'll sit and pipe
A merry stave of her shrill roundelay.
Nor always does a single gate suffice
For exit, and for entrance to her dome;
For when (as sometimes haps) within a bush
She builds the artful fabric, then each side
Has its own portico. But, mark within!
How skilfully the finest plumes and downs
Are softly warped; how closely all around
The outer layers of moss! each circumstance
Most artfully contrived to favour warmth!
Here read the reason of the vaulted roof;
Here Providence compensates, ever kind,
The enormous disproportion that subsists
Between the mother and the numerous brood,
Which her small bulk must quicken into life.
Fifteen white spherules, small as moorland hare-bell,
And prettily bespecked like fox-glove flower,
Complete her number. Twice five days she sits,

Fed by her partner, never flitting off,
Save when the morning sun is high, to drink
A dewdrop from the nearest flowret cup.

But now behold the greatest of this train
Of miracles, stupendously minute;
The numerous progeny, demanding food,
Supplied by two small bills, and feeble wings
Of narrow range; supplied, aye, duly fed,
Fed in the dark, and yet not one forgot!

When whinny braes are garlanded with gold,
And, blythe, the lamb pursues, in merry chase,
His twin around the bush; the linnet, then,
Within the prickly fortress builds her bower,
And warmly lines it round, with hair and wool
Inwove. Sweet minstrel, may'st thou long delight
The whinny knowe, and broomy brae, and bank
Of fragrant birch! May never fowler's snare
Tangle thy struggling foot! Or, if thou'rt doomed
Within the narrow cage thy dreary days
To pine, may ne'er the glowing wire (Oh, crime accursed!)
Quench, with fell agony, thy shrivelling eye!
Deprived of air and freedom, shall the light
Of day, thy only pleasure, be denied?
But thy own song will still be left; with it,

Darkling, thou'lt soothe the lingering hours away;
And thou wilt learn to find thy triple perch,
Thy seed-box, and thy beverage saffron-tinged.
Nor is thy lot more hard than that which they
(Poor linnets!) prove in many a storied pile:
They see the light, 'tis true,—they see and know,
That light for them is but an implement
Of toil. In summer with the sun they rise
To toil, and with his setting beam they cease
To toil: nor does the shortened winter day
Their toil abridge; for, ere the cock's first crow,
Aroused to toil, they lift their heavy eyes,
And force their childish limbs to rise and toil;
And, while the winter night, by cottage fire,
Is spent in homebred industry, relieved
By harmless glee, or tale of witch, or ghost,
So dreadful, that the housewife's listening wheel
Suspends its hum, their toil protracted lasts:
Even when the royal birth, by wonderous grace,
Gives one half day to mirth, that shred of time
Must not be lost, but thriftily ekes out
To-morrow's and to-morrow's lengthened task.
No joys, no sports have they: what little time,
The fragment of an hour, can be retrenched
From labour, is devoted to a shew,

A boasted boon, of what the public gives,—
Instruction. Viewing all around the bliss
Of liberty, they feel its loss the more;
Freely through boundless air, they wistful see,
The wild bird's pinion past their prison flit;
Free in the air the merry lark they see
On high ascend; free on the swinging spray
The woodland bird is perched, and leaves at will
Its perch; the open quivering bill they see,
But no sweet note by them is heard, all lost,
Extinguished in the noise that ceaseless stuns the ear.

Here vice collected festers, and corrupts.
The female virtues fade; and in their stead,
Springs up a produce rank of noxious weeds.
And, if such be the effects of that sad system,
Which, in the face of nature's law, would wring
Gain from the labouring hands of playful children;
If such the effects, where worth and sense direct
The living, intellectual machines,
What must not follow, when the power is lodged
With senseless, sordid, heartless avarice?

Where, fancy, hast thou led me? No, stern truth,
'Tis thou hast led me from the pleasant sight
Of blossomed furze, and bank of fragrant birch.
And now once more I turn me to the woods,

With willing step, and list, closing my eyes,
The lulling, soothing sounds, that pour a balm
Into the rankled soul: the brooklet's murmur,
That louder to the ear, long listening, grows,
And louder still, like noise of many waters,
Yet not so loud but that the wild bee's buzz
Slung past the ear, and grasshopper's shrill chirp,
Are heard; for now the sultry hours unfurl
Each insect wing: the aimless butterflies,
In airy dance, cross and recross the mead;
The dragon-fly, in horizontal course,
Spins over-head, and fast eludes the sight.

At such a still and sultry hour as this,
When not a strain is heard through all the woods,
I've seen the shilfa light from off his perch,
And hop into a shallow of the stream,
Then, half afraid, flit to the shore, then in
Again alight, and dip his rosy breast
And fluttering wings, while dewlike globules coursed
The plumage of his brown-empurpled back.
The barefoot boy, who, on some slaty stone,
Almost too hot for touch, has watching stood,
Now thinks the well-drenched prize his own,
And rushes forward;—quick, though wet, the wing
Gains the first branches of some neighbouring tree,

And baulks the upward gazing hopeless eye.
The ruffling plumes are shook, the pens are trimmed,
And full and clear the sprightly ditty rings,
Cheering the brooding dam: she sits concealed
Within the nest deep-hollowed, well disguised
With lichens grey, and mosses gradual blent,
As if it were a knurle in the bough.

With equal art externally disguised,
But of internal structure passing far
The feathered concaves of the other tribes,
The goldfinch weaves, with willow down inlaid,
And cannach tufts, his wonderful abode.
Sometimes, suspended at the limber end
Of planetree spray, among the broad leaved shoots,
The tiny hammock swings to every gale;
Sometimes in closest thickets 'tis concealed;
Sometimes in hedge luxuriant, where the brier,
The bramble, and the plumtree branch,
Warp through the thorn, surmounted by the flowers
Of climbing vetch, and honeysuckle wild,
All undefaced by art's deforming hand.
But mark the pretty bird himself! how light,
And quick, his every motion, every note!
How beautiful his plumes! his red-ringed head;
His breast of brown; and see him stretch his wing,—
A fairy fan of golden spokes it seems.

Oft on the thistle's tuft he, nibbling, sits,
Light as the down; then, 'mid a flight of downs,
He wings his way, piping his shrillest call.
Proud Thistle! emblem dear to Scotland's sons!
Begirt with threatening points, strong in defence,
Unwilling to assault! By thee the arm
Of England was repelled; the rash attempt,
Oft did the wounded arm of England rue.
But fraud prevailed, where force had tried in vain:
Fraud undermined thy root, and laid thy head,
Thy crested head, low sullied in the dust.
Belhaven, Fletcher, venerated shades!
Long shall your glorious names, your words of fire,
Spite of beledgered Trade's corrupting creed,
That estimates a country by its gold,
And balances surrendered freedom's self,—
The life-blood of a people!—with a show
Of columns crowded full of pounds and pence;
Long shall your names illume the historic page,
Inspire the poet's lay, kindle the glow
Of noble daring in the patriot's breast!

Deep-toned (a contrast to the goldfinch note)
The cushat plains; nor is her changeless plaint
Unmusical, when with the general quire,
Of woodland harmony, it softly blends.

Her sprig-formed nest, upon some hawthorn branch,
Is laid so thinly, that the light of day
Is through it seen: So rudely it is formed,
That oft the simple boy, who counts the hours
By blowing off the dandelion downs,
Mistakes the witch-knots for the cushat's nest.
Sweet constant bird! the lover's favourite theme!
Protected by the love-inspiring lay,
Seldom thou mov'st thy home; year after year,
The self-same tree beholds thy youngling pair
Matured to flight.—There is a hawthorn tree,
With which the ivy arms have wrestled long;
'Tis old, yet vigorous: beneath its shade
A beauteous herb, so rare, that all the woods,
For far and near around, cannot produce
Its like, shoots upright; from the stalk
Four pointed leaves, luxuriant, smooth, diverge,
Crowned with a berry of deep purple hue.
Upon this aged thorn, a lovely pair
Of cushats wont to build: No schoolboy's hand
Would rob their simple nest; the constant coo,
That floated down the dell, softened his heart.
But ah! the pirate of the rock, the hawk,
Hovering, discerned the prize: Soft blew the gale
Of may, and full the greenwood chorus rose,
All but the sweet dove's note: In vain the ear
Turned listening; strewn upon the ground,

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.

Burns.

Thrush.

The allusion here is chiefly to Cotton-mills.

Chaffinch.

II. PART SECOND.

How 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

My ear; not even the cannon's thundering roar.
Far in a vale, be there my low abode,
Embowered in woods where many a songster chaunts.
And let me now indulge the airy dream!
A bow-shot off in front a river flows,
That, during summer drought, shallow and clear,
Chides with its pebbly bed, and, murmuring,
Invites forgetfulness; half hid it flows,
Now between rocks, now through a bush-girt glade,
Now sleeping in a pool, that laves the roots
Of overhanging trees, whose drooping boughs
Dip midway over in the darkened stream;
While ever and anon, upon the breeze,
The dash of distant waterfall is borne.
A range of hills, with craggy summits crowned,
And furrowed deep, with many a bosky cleugh,
Wards off the northern blast: There skims the hawk
Forth from her cliff, eyeing the furzy slope
That joins the mountain to the smiling vale.
Through all the woods the holly evergreen,
And laurel's softer leaf, and ivied thorn,
Lend winter shelter to the shivering wing.
No gravelled paths, pared from the smooth-shaved turf,
Wind through these woods; the simple unmade road,
Marked with the frequent hoof of sheep or kine,
Or rustic's studded shoe, I love to tread.
No threatening board forewarns the homeward hind,

Of man-traps, or of law's more dreaded gripe.
Pleasant to see the labourer homeward hie
Light hearted, as he thinks his hastening steps
Will soon be welcomed by his children's smile!
Pleasant to see the milkmaid's blythesome look,
As to the trysting thorn she gaily trips,
With steps that scarcely feel the elastic ground!
Nor be the lowly dwellings of the poor
Thrust to a distance, as unseemly sights.
Curse on the heartless taste that, proud, exclaims,
“Erase the hamlet, sweep the cottage off;
“Remove each stone, and only leave behind
“The trees that once embowered the wretched huts.
“What though the inmates old, who hoped to end
“Their days below these trees, must seek a home,
“Far from their native fields, far from the graves
“In which their fathers lie,—to city lanes,
“Darksome and close, exiled? It must be so;
“The wide extending lawn would else be marred,
“By objects so incongruous.” Barbarous taste!
Stupidity intense! Yon straw-roofed cot,
Seen through the elms, it is a lovely sight!
That scattered hamlet, with its burn-side green,
On which the thrifty housewife spreads her yarn,
Or half-bleached web, while children busy play,
And paddle in the stream,—for every heart,
Untainted by pedantic rules, hath charms.

I love the neighbourhood of man and beast:
I would not place my stable out of sight.
No; close behind my dwelling, it should form
A fence, on one side, to my garden plat.
What beauty equals shelter, in a clime
Where wintry blasts with summer breezes blend,
Chilling the day! How pleasant 'tis to hear
December's winds, amid surrounding trees,
Raging aloud! how grateful 'tis to wake,
While raves the midnight storm, and hear the sound
Of busy grinders at the well filled rack;
Or flapping wing, and crow of chanticleer,
Long ere the lingering morn; or bouncing flails,
That tell the dawn is near! Pleasant the path
By sunny garden-wall, when all the fields
Are chill and comfortless; or barn-yard snug,
Where flocking birds, of various plume, and chirp
Discordant, cluster on the leaning stack,
From whence the thresher draws the rustling sheaves.

O, nature! all thy seasons please the eye
Of him who sees a Deity in all.
It is His presence that diffuses charms
Unspeakable, o'er mountain, wood, and stream.
To think that He, who hears the heavenly choirs,
Hearkens complacent to the woodland song;
To think that He, who rolls yon solar sphere,

Uplifts the warbling songster to the sky;
To mark His presence in the mighty bow,
That spans the clouds, as in the tints minute
Of humblest flower; to hear his awful voice
In thunder speak, and whisper in the gale;
To know, and feel His care for all that lives;—
'Tis this that makes the barren waste appear
A fruitful field, each grove a paradise.
Yes! place me 'mid far stretching woodless wilds,
Where no sweet song is heard; the heath-bell there
Would soothe my weary sight, and tell of Thee!
There would my gratefully uplifted eye
Survey the heavenly vault, by day,—by night,
When glows the firmament from pole to pole;
There would my overflowing heart exclaim,
The heavens declare the glory of the Lord,
The firmament shews forth his handy work!

Less loud, but not less clear, His humbler works
Proclaim his power; the swallow knows her time,
And, on the vernal breezes, wings her way,
O'er mountain, plain, and far-extending seas,
From Afric's torrid sands to Britain's shore.
Before the cuckoo's note, she, twittering, gay,
Skims o'er the brook, or skiffs the greenwood tops,
When dance the midgy clouds in warping maze
Confused: 'tis thus, by her, the air is swept

Of insect myriads, that would else infest
The greenwood walk, blighting each rural joy:
For this,—if pity plead in vain—O, spare
Her clay-built home! Her all, her young, she trusts,
Trusts to the power of man: fearful, herself
She never trusts; free, the long summer morn,
She, at his window, hails the rising sun.—
Twice seven days she broods; then on the wing,
From morn to dewy eve, unceasing plies,
Save when she feeds or cherishes her young;
And oft she's seen, beneath her little porch,
Clinging supine, to deal the air-gleaned food.

From her the husbandman the coming shower
Foretells: Along the mead closely she skiffs,
Or o'er the streamlet pool she skims, so near,
That, from her dipping wing, the wavy circlets
Spread to the shore: then fall the single drops,
Prelusive of the shower.

The martins, too,
The dwellers in the ruined castle wall,
When low'rs the sky a flight less lofty wheel.
Presageful of the thunder peal, when deep
A boding silence broods o'er all the vale,
From airy altitudes they stoop, and fly
Swiftly, with shrillest scream, round and around
The rugged battlements; or fleetly dart

Through loopholes, whence the shaft was wont to glance;
Or thrid the window of the lofty bower,
Where hapless royalty, with care-closed eyes,
Woo'd sleep in vain, foreboding what befel,—
The loss of friends, of country, freedom, life!

Long ere the wintry gusts, with chilly sweep,
Sigh through the leafless groves, the swallow tribes,
Heaven-warned, in airy bevies congregate,
Or clustering sit, as if in deep consult
What time to launch; but, lingering, they wait,
Until the feeble of the latest broods
Have gathered strength, the sea-ward path to brave.
At last the farewell twitter spreading sounds;
Aloft they fly, and melt in distant air.
Far o'er the British sea, in westering course,
O'er the Biscayan mountain-waves they glide:
Then o'er Iberian plains, through fields of air,
Perfumed by orchard groves, where lowly bends
The orange bough beneath its juicy load,
Thence over Calpe's thunder-shielded rock
They stretch their course to Mauritania's plains.

There are who doubt this migratory flight.
But wherefore, from the distance of the way,
Should wonder verge on disbelief,—the bulk
So small, the buoyant wing so large and strong?

Behold the corn-craik; she, too, wings her way
To other lands: ne'er is she found immersed
In lakes, or buried torpid in the sand,
Though weak her wing contrasted with her bulk.
Seldom she rises from the grassy field,
And never till compelled; and, when upraised,
With feet suspended, awkwardly she flies;
Her flight a ridge-breadth: suddenly she drops,
And, running, still eludes the following foot.

Poor bird, though harsh thy note, I love it well!
It tells of summer eves, mild and serene,
When through the grass, waist-deep, I wont to wade
In fruitless chace of thee; now here, now there,
Thy desultory call. Oft does thy call
The midnight silence break; oft, ere the dawn,
It wakes the slumbering lark; he upward wings
His misty way, and, viewless, sings and soars.

III. PART THIRD.

Farewell the greenwood, and the welkin song!
Farewell the harmless bill!—The o'erfolding beak,
Incurvated: the clutching pounce; the eye,
Ferocious, keen, full-orbed; the attitude
Erect; the skimming flight; the hovering poise;
The rapid sousing stroke;—these now I sing!

How fleet the Falcon's pinion in pursuit!
Less fleet the linnet's flight!—Alas, poor bird!
Weary and weak is now thy flagging wing,
While close and closer draws the eager foe.
Now up she rises, and, with arrowed pinions,
Impetuous souses; but in vain: With turn

Sudden, the linnet shuns the deadly stroke,
Throwing her far behind; but quick again
She presses on: Down drops the feeble victim
Into the hawthorn bush, and panting sits.
The falcon, skimming round and round, espies
Her prey, and darts among the prickly twigs.
Unequal now the chace! struggling she strives,
Entangled in the thorny labyrinth,
While easily its way the small bird winds,
Regaining soon the centre of the grove.

But not alone the dwellers of the wood
Tremble beneath the falcon's fateful wing.
Oft hovering o'er the barn-yard is she seen,
In early spring, when round their ruffling dam
The feeble younglings pick the pattering hail:
And oft she plunges low, and swiftly skims
The ground; as oft the bold and threatening mien
Of chanticleer deters her from the prey.

Amid the mountain fells, or river cliffs
Abrupt, the falcon's eyry, perched on high,
Defies access: broad to the sun 'tis spread,
With withered sprigs hung o'er the dizzy brink.
What dreadful cliffs o'erhang this little stream!
So loftily they tower, that he who looks
Upward, to view their almost meeting summits,

Feels sudden giddiness, and instant grasps
The nearest fragment of the channel rocks,
Resting his aching eye on some green branch
That midway down shoots from the creviced crag.
Athwart the narrow chasm fleet flies the rack,
Each cloud no sooner visible than gone;
While 'tween these natural bulwarks, that deride
The art of man, murmurs the hermit brook,
And joins, with opened banks, the full-streamed Clyde.

How various are thy aspects, noble stream!
Now gliding silently by sloping banks,
Now flowing softly with a silver sound,
Now rushing, tumbling, boiling, through the rocks.
Even on that bulging verge smooth flows thy stream,
Then spreads along a gentle ledge, then sweeps
Compressed by an abutting turn, till o'er
It pours tremendously; again it sweeps
Unpausing, till, again, with louder roar,
It mines into the boisterous wheeling gulph;
While high the boulted foam, at times, displays
An Iris arch, thrown light from rock to rock;
And oft the swallow through the misty cloud
Flits fearlessly, and drinks upon the wing.
O, what an amphitheatre surrounds
The abyss, in which the downward mass is plunged,
Stunning the ear! High as the falcon's flight,

The rocks precipitous ascend, and bound
The scene magnificent; deep, deep below,
The snowy surge spreads to a dark expanse.

These are the rocks on which the youthful eye
Of Wallace gazed, the music this he loved.
Oft has he stood upon the trembling brink,
Unstayed by tree or twig, absorbed in thought;
There would he trace, with eager eye, the oak,
Uprooted from its bank by ice-fraught floods,
And floating o'er the dreadful cataract:
There would he moralize upon its fate;—
It re-appears with scarce a broken bough,
It re-appears,—Scotland may yet be free!

High rides the moon amid the fleecy clouds,
That glisten, as they float athwart her disk;
Sweet is the glimpse that, for a moment, plays
Among these mouldering pinnacles:—but, hark!
That dismal cry! It is the wailing owl.
Night long she mourns, perched on some vacant niche,
Or time-rent crevice: Sometimes to the woods
She bends her silent, slowly moving wing,
And on some leafless tree, dead of old age,
Sits watching for her prey; but should the foot
Of man intrude into her solemn shades,
Startled, he hears the fragile, breaking branch

Crash as she rises:—farther in the gloom,
To deeper solitudes she wings her way.

Oft in the hurly of the wintry storm,
Housed in some rocking steeple, she augments
The horror of the night; or when the winds
Exhausted pause, she listens to the sound
Of the slow-swinging pendulum, till loud
Again the blast is up, while lightning-gleams
Shoot 'thwart, and ring a fearful, deadly toll.

On ancient oak, or elm, whose topmast boughs
Begin to fail, the raven's twig-formed house
Is built; and, many a year, the self same tree
The aged solitary pair frequent.
But distant is their range; for oft at morn
They take their flight, and not till twilight grey
Their slow returning cry hoarse meets the ear.

Well does the raven love the sound of war.—
Amid those plains, where Danube darkly rolls,
The theatres, on which the kingly play
Of war is oftenest acted, there the peal
Of cannon-mouths summons the sable flocks
To wait their death-doomed prey; and they do wait:
Yes, when the glittering columns, front to front
Drawn out, approach in deep and awful silence,

The raven's voice is heard hovering between.
Sometimes upon the far-deserted tents
She boding sits, and sings her fateful song.
But in the abandoned field she most delights,
When o'er the dead and dying slants the beam
Of peaceful morn, and wreaths of reeking mist
Rise from the gore-dewed sward: from corpse to corpse
She revels, far and wide; then, sated, flies
To some shot-shivered branch, whereon she cleans
Her purpled beak; and down she lights again,
To end her horrid meal: another, keen,
Plunges her beak deep in yon horse's side,
Till, by the hungry hound displaced, she flits
Once more to human prey.

Ah, who is he
At whose heart-welling wound she drinks,
Glutting her thirst! He was a lovely youth;
Fair Scotia was his home, until his sire
To swollen Monopoly resigned, heart-wrung,
The small demesne which his forefathers plowed:
Wide then dispersed the family of love.
One son betook him to the all-friendly main;
Another, with his aged parents, plied
The sickly trade, in city garret pent;
Their youngest born, the drum and martial show,—
Deluded half, and half despairing,—joined;
And soon he lay the food of bird and beast.

Long is his fate unknown; the horrid sum
Of dead is named, but boding fear is left,
Enlabyrinthed in doubt, to please itself
With dark, misgiving hope. Ah, one there is,
Who fosters long the languid hope, that still
He may return: The live-long summer day
She at the house-end sits; and oft her wheel
Is stopt, while on the road, far-stretched, she bends
A melancholy, eye-o'erflowing look;
Or strives to mould the distant traveller
Into the form of him who's far away.
Hopeless, and broken-hearted, still she loves
To sing, When wild war's deadly blast was blawn.

Alas! War riots with increasing rage.
Behold that field bestrewn with bleaching bones;
And, mark! the raven in the horse's ribs,
Gathering, engaged, the gleanings of a harvest
Almost forgotten now: Rejoice, ye birds of prey!
No longer shall ye glean your scanty meals;
Upon that field again long prostrate wreaths,
Death-mown, shall lie: I see the gory mound
Of dead, and wounded, piled, with here and there
A living hand, clutching in vain for help.

But what the horrors of the field of war,
To those, the sequel of the foiled attempt
Of fettered vengeance struggling to be free!—
Inhuman sons of Europe! not content
With dooms of death, your victim high ye hung
Encaged, to scorch beneath the torrid ray,
And feed, alive, the hungry fowls of heaven.
Around the bars already, see, they cling!
The vulture's head looks through; she strives in vain
To force her way: The lesser birds await
Till worn-out nature sinks; then on they pounce,
And tear the quivering flesh: in agony
The victim wakes, and rolls his wretched eyes,
And feebly drives the ravening flocks away.
Most dreadfully he groans: 'tis thirst, thirst, thirst,
Direst of human torments!—down again
He sinks;—again he feels the torturing beak.

England, such things have been, and still would be,
But that the generous band, the stedfast friends
Of Afric's sons, stand ready to avenge
Their wrongs, and chain the tyrant arm.

One of that band of brothers is no more:
The voice of freedom's firmest friend is mute.
O what a spirit heavenward has forsook
This darkened orb! In him was meekly blent

Intelligence all but intuitive,
With infantine simplicity of soul;—
But vain is language to pourtray that mind,
That system, comprehensive, yet exact,—
As vain as man's poor efforts to describe,
By mimic spheres with gilded satellites,
The march stupendous of the starry host.
His eloquence!
There too all language, but his own, would fail;
For who from glimmering sparks that crackling gleam
From art's electric ordnance, could conceive
The thunder's voice, that awes the world to silence;
The vivid flash that passes like a thought
From heaven to earth, or thwart the welkin's cope,
The hemisphere illuming with its blaze!
But these are not remembrances that glad
Thy gentle soul: No; 'mid celestial joys
Not one to thee bliss more congenial brings,
Than memory of thy stedfastness long tried,
Immoveable, unwearied in the cause
Of Afric's sons by freemens' hands enslaved,
Than does the hope, now almost realized,
That on the blood-stained coast where murder's flag
Streamed more terrific than the lion's mane,
The father shall lay down his head in peace
Among his infants on their leafy couch,
Nor wake from dreams of horror that he hears

The white man's voice dooming him to be torn
From children, wife, from father, brother, friend,
Or, more disastrous still! that all most dear
To his wrung heart his destiny must share.

Yet not to thee, spirit benign! is due
The highest praise, for Africa restored
To human rights: There is a man, endowed
With eloquence, sublime as was the cause,
With fortitude undaunted by defeat,
With confidence derived from trust in heaven,
Who moved, inspired the combination grand
Of virtues, talents, ranged on mercy's side,
Who shuns applause, whose actions are his name.

On distant waves, the raven of the sea,
The cormorant, devours her carrion food.
Along the blood-stained coast of Senegal,
Prowling, she scents the cassia-perfumed breeze
Tainted with death, and, keener, forward flies:
The towering sails, that waft the house of woe,
Afar she views: upon the heavy hulk,
Deep-logged with wretchedness, full fast she gains:
(Revolting sight! the flag of freedom waves
Above the stern-emblazoned words, that tell
The amount of crimes which Britain's boasted laws,
Within the narrow wooden walls, permit!)

And now she nighs the carnage-freighted keel,
Unscared by rattling fetters, or the shriek
Of mothers, o'er their ocean-buried babes.
Lured by the scent, unweariedly she flies,
And at the foamy dimples of the track
Darts sportively, or perches on a corpse.

From scenes like these, O, Scotland, once again
To thee my weary fancy fondly hies,
And, with the eagle, mountain-perched, alights.
Amid Lochaber's wilds, or dark Glencoe,
High up the pillared mountain's steepest side,
The eagle, from her eyry on the crag
Of over-jutting rock, beholds afar.
Viewing the distant flocks, with ranging eye
She meditates the prey; but waits the time
When seas of mist extend along the vale,
And, rising gradual, reach her lofty shore:
Up then to sunny regions of the air
She soars, and looks upon the white-wreathed summits
Of mountains, seeming ocean isles; then down
She plunges, stretching through the hazy deep;
Unseen she flies, and, on her playful quarry,
Pounces unseen: The shepherd knows his loss,
When high o'erhead he hears a passing bleat
Faint, and more faintly, dying far away.

And now aloft she bends her homeward course,
Loaded, yet light; and soon her youngling pair,
Joyful descry her buoyant wing emerge
And float along the cloud; fluttering they stoop
Upon the dizzy brink, as if they aimed
To try the abyss, and meet her coming breast;
But soon her coming breast, and outstretched wings,
Glide shadowing down, and close upon their heads.

It was upon the eagle's plundered store
That Wallace fared, when hunted from his home,
A glorious outlaw! by the lawless power
Of freedom's foiled assassin, England's king.
Along the mountain cliffs, that ne'er were clomb
By other footstep than his own, 'twas there
His eagle-visioned genius, towering, planned
The grand emprise of setting Scotland free.
He longed to mingle in the storm of war;
And as the eagle dauntlessly ascends,
Revelling amid the elemental strife,
His mind sublimed prefigured to itself
Each circumstance of future hard-fought fields,—
The battle's hubbub loud; the forceful press,
That from his victim hurries him afar;
The impetuous close concentrated assault,
That, like a billow broken on the rocks,
Recedes, but forward heaves with doubled fury.

When low'rs the moveless, massive rack, high piled,
And silence deep foretells the thunder near,
The eagle upward penetrates the gloom,
And, far above the fire-impregnate wreaths,
The ethereal-towered volcanos soaring views;
Till, muttering low at first, begins the peal;
Then she descends,—she loves the thunder's voice,
She wheels, and sports amid the rattling clouds,
Undazzled gazes on the sheeted blaze,
Darts at the flash, or, hung in hovering poise,
Delighted hears the music of the roar.
Nor does the wintry blast, the drifting fall,
Shrouded in night, and, with a death-hand grasp,
Benumbing life, drive her to seek the roof
Of cave, or hollow cliff; firm on her perch,
Her ancient and accustomed rock, she sits,
With wing-couched head, and, to the morning light,
Appears a frost-rent fragment, coped with snow.

Yet her, invulnerable as she seems
By every change of elemental power,
The art of man, the general foe of man,
And bird, and beast, subdues; the leaden bolt,
Slung from the mimic lightning's nitrous wing,
Brings low her head; her close and mailed plumage
Avails her nought,—for higher than her perch
The clambering marksman lies, and takes his aim

Instant upon her flight, when every plume
Ruffling expands to catch the lifting gale.
She has the death; upward a little space
She springs, then plumb down drops: The victor stands,
Long listening, ere he hear the fall; at last,
The crashing branches of the unseen wood,
Far down below, send echoing up the sound,
That faintly rises to his leaning ear.
But, woe to him! if, with the mortal wound,
She still retain strength to revenge the wrong:
Her bleeding wing she veers; her maddened eye
Discerns the lurking wretch; on him she springs;
One talon clutched, with life's last struggling throes
Convulsed, is buried at his heart; the other
Deep in his tortured eyeballs is transfixed:
Pleased, she expires upon his writhing breast.

Of bulk more huge, and borne on broader vans,
The eagle of the sea from Atlas soars,
Or Teneriffe's hoar peak, and stretches far
Above the Atlantic wave, contemning distance.
The watchful helmsman from the stern descries,
And hails her course, and many an eye is raised.
Loftier she flies than hundred times mast-height:
Onward she floats, then plunges from her soar
Down to the ship, as if she aimed to perch

Upon the mainmast pinnacle; but up again
She mounts Alp high, and, with her lowered head
Suspended, eyes the bulging sails, disdains
Their tardy course, outflies the hurrying rack,
And, disappearing, mingles with the clouds.

The first line of “The Soldier's Return,” a song by Burns.