The loneliest wood that man can trace
To thee a pleasant dwelling gives;
In every town and crowded place
The sweet domestic robin lives.
Go where one will, in every spot
Thy little welcome mates appear;
And, like the daisy’s common lot,
Thou’rt met with every where.
The swallow in the chimney tier,
Or twittering martin in the eaves,
With half of love and half of fear
His mortared dwelling shily weaves;
The sparrows in the thatch will shield;
Yet they, as well as e’er they can,
Contrive with doubtful faith to build
Beyond the reach of man.
But thou’rt less timid than the wren,
Domestic and confiding bird!
And spots, the nearest haunts of men,
Are oftenest for thy home preferred.
In garden-walls thou’lt build so low,
Close where the bunch of fennel stands,
That e’en a child just taught to go
May reach with tiny hands.
Sweet favoured bird! thy under-notes
In summer’s music grow unknown,
The concert from a thousand throats
Leaves thee as if to pipe alone;
No listening ear the shepherd lends,
The simple ploughman marks thee not,
And then by all thy autumn friends
Thou’rt missing and forgot.
The far-famed nightingale, that shares
Cold public praise from every tongue,
The popular voice of music heirs,
And injures much thy under-song:
Yet then my walks thy theme salutes;
I find thee autumn’s favoured guest,
Gay piping on the hazel-roots
Above thy mossy nest.
’Tis wrong that thou shouldst be despised,
When these gay fickle birds appear;
They sing when summer flowers are prized—
Thou at the dull and dying year.
Well! let the heedless and the gay
Bepraise the voice of louder lays,
The joy thou steal’st from Sorrow’s day
Is more to thee than praise.
And could my notes win aught from thine,
My words but imitate thy lay,
Time could not then his charge resign,
Nor throw the meanest verse away,
But ever at this mellow time,
He should thy autumn praise prolong,
As they would share the happy prime
Of thy eternal song.
A SPRING MORNING
THE Spring comes in with all her hues and smells,
In freshness breathing over hills and dells;
O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings,
And meads washed fragrant by their laughing springs.
Fresh are new opened flowers, untouched and free
From the bold rifling of the amorous bee.
The happy time of singing birds is come,
And Love’s lone pilgrimage now finds a home;
Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove,
And the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love.
The foxes play around their dens, and bark
In joy’s excess, ’mid woodland shadows dark.
The flowers join lips below; the leaves above;
And every sound that meets the ear is Love.