When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks.
The sadness and silence of the woods in autumn when the birds are dumb, are recorded in these musical lines:
In Winter and Storm
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.[36]
Again, in a song from which I have just quoted, a graphic picture of winter shows the changed aspect of the birds at that season:
When all aloud the wind doth blow,