"BY FAVOR OF THE QUEEN"
Around the walls and towers
Of Windsor, old and gray,
The castle where the noble Queen
Of England loved to stay,
The birds flit gayly through the air
In happy freedom everywhere.
Their nests they build as freely,
Without a thought of fear,
In bush or tree, or castle wall,
All innocently near
To palace pomp and royalty;
For birds know naught of high degree.
The sheltered nooks and crannies
Left in the tower wall
Where loosened stones had fallen out,
The birds loved best of all;
And, joyful, in each vacant space
Their little straw-built nests would place.
Once, when the Queen was absent,
The royal gardener saw
The holes that marred the tower wall,
The hanging bits of straw,
And ordered all made right in haste—
The nests destroyed, the stones replaced.
Then stood the lofty tower
In orderly array;
Its crannies snug, its cosey nooks,
Had vanished quite away;
And homeless roved the twittering throng
Once nesting there with happy song.
But when the royal lady
To Windsor came again,
And viewed with fond affection all
This fair and dear domain,
The tower's silent, smooth expanse
Won from her eyes a troubled glance.
No birds about the tower?
Their nesting-places filled?
No more those crannies in the wall
Where birds had loved to build?
Such were the questions quick to start
And stir that tender, queenly heart.