Conversations introducing poetry :: :: University of Virginia Library

“A suppliant to your window comes,
“Who trusts your faith and fears no guile,
“He claims admittance for your crumbs,
“And reads his passport in your smile.

“For cold and cheerless is the day,
“And he has sought the hedges round;
“No berry hangs upon the spray,
“Nor worm nor ant-egg can be found.

“Secure his suit will be preferr'd,
“No fears his slender feet deter;
“For sacred is the household bird
“That wears the scarlet stomacher.”

Lucy the prayer assenting heard,
The feather'd suppliant flew to her,
And fondly cherish'd was the bird,
That wears the scarlet stomacher.

Embolden'd then, he'd fearless perch
Her netting or her work among,
For crumbs among her drawings search,
And add his music to her song;

And warbling on her snowy arm,
Or half entangled in her hair,
Seemed conscious of the double charm
Of freedom, and protection there.

169

A graver moralist, who used
From all some lesson to infer,
Thus said, as on the bird she mused,
Pluming his scarlet stomacher—

“Where are his gay companions now,
“Who sung so merrily in Spring?
“Some shivering on the leafless bough,
“With ruffled plume, and drooping wing.

“Some in the hollow of a cave,
“Consign'd to temporary death;
“And some beneath the sluggish wave
“Await reviving nature's breath.

“The migrant tribes are fled away,
“To skies were insect myriads swarm,
“They vanish with the Summer day,
“Nor bide the bitter northern storm.

“But still is this sweet minstrel heard,
“While lours December dark and drear,
“The social, chearful, household bird,
“That wears the scarlet stomacher.

“And thus in life's propitious hour,
“Approving flatterers round us sport,
“But if the faithless prospect lour,
“They the more happy fly to court.

176

THE CAPTIVE FLY.

Seduced by idle change and luxury,
See in vain struggles the expiring fly,
He perishes! for lo, in evil hour,
He rushed to taste of yonder garish flower,

177

Which in young beauty's loveliest colours drest,
Conceals destruction in her treacherous breast,
While round the roseate chalice odours breathe,
And lure the wanderer to voluptuous death.

Ill-fated vagrant! did no instinct cry,
Shun the sweet mischief?—No experienc'd fly
Bid thee of this fair smiling fiend beware,
And say, the false Apocynum is there?
Ah wherefore quit for this Circean draught
The Bean's ambrosial flower, with incense fraught,
Or where with promise rich, Fragaria spreads
Her spangling blossoms on her leafy beds;
Could thy wild flight no softer blooms detain?
And tower'd the Lilac's purple groups in vain?
Or waving showers of golden blossoms, where
Laburnum's pensile tassels float in air,
When thou within those topaz keels might creep
Secure, and rock'd by lulling winds to sleep.

But now no more for thee shall June unclose
Her spicey Clove-pink, and her damask Rose;
Not for thy food shall swell the downy Peach,
Nor Raspberries blush beneath the embowering Beech.
In efforts vain thy fragile wings are torn,
Sharp with distress resounds thy small shrill horn,
While thy gay happy comrades hear thy cry,
Yet heed thee not, and careless frolic by,
Till thou, sad victim, every struggle o'er,
Despairing sink, and feel thy fate no more.

178

An insect lost should thus the muse bewail?
Ah no! but 'tis the moral points the tale
From the mild friend, who seeks with candid truth
To show its errors to presumptuous Youth;
From the fond caution of parental care,
Whose watchful love detects the hidden snare,
How do the Young reject, with proud disdain,
Wisdom's firm voice, and Reason's prudent rein,
And urge, on pleasure bent, the impetuous way,
Heedless of all but of the present day,
Then while false meteor-lights their steps entice,
They taste, they drink, the empoisoned cup of vice;
Till misery follows; and too late they mourn,
Lost in the fatal gulph, from whence there's no return.

179

THE CRICKET.

Little inmate full of mirth,
Chirping on my humble hearth,
Wheresoe'er be thine abode,
Always harbinger of good,
Pay me for thy warm retreat
With a song most soft and sweet,
In return thou shalt receive
Such a song as I can give.

180

Though in voice and shape they be
Form'd as if akin to thee,
Thou surpassest, happier far,
Happiest Grasshoppers that are;
Theirs is but a Summer song,
Thine endures the Winter long,
Unimpair'd, and shrill and clear,
Melody throughout the year.

Neither night nor dawn of day
Puts a period to thy lay.
Then Insect! let thy simple song
Chear the Winter evening long,
While seeure from every storm,
In my cottage snug and warm,
Thou shalt my merry minstrel be,
And I delight to shelter thee.

189

THE CLOSE OF SUMMER.

Farewell ye banks, where late the primrose growing,
Among fresh leaves its pallid stars display'd,
And the ground-ivy's balmy flowers blowing,
Trail'd their festoons along the grassy shade.

Farewell! to richer scenes and Summer pleasures,
Hedge-rows, engarlanded with many a wreath,
Where the wild roses hang their blushing treasures,
And to the evening gale the woodbines breathe.

Farewell! the meadows, where such various showers
Of beauty lurked, among the fragrant hay;

190

Where orchis bloomed with freak'd and spotted flowers,
And lychnis blushing like the new born day.

The burning dog-star, and the insatiate mower,
Have swept or wither'd all this floral pride;
And mullein's now, or bugloss' lingering flower,
Scarce cheer the green lane's parched and dusty side.

His busy sickle now the months-man wielding,
Close are the light and fragile poppies shorn,
And while the golden ears their stores are yielding,
The azure corn-flowers fall among the corn.

The woods are silent too, where loudly flinging
Wild notes of rapture to the western gale,
A thousand birds their hymns of joy were singing,
And bade the enchanting hours of Spring time hail!

The stock-dove now is heard, in plaintive measure,
The cricket shrill, and wether's drowsy bell,
But to the sounds and scents of vernal pleasure,
Music and dewy airs, a long farewell!

Yet tho' no beauteous wreaths adorn the season,
Nor birds sing blythe, nor sweets the winds diffuse,
This riper period, like the age of reason,
Tho' stript of loveliness, is rich in use.