Had chance not led us by it! Nay, e’en now,
Had not the old bird heard us trampling by,
And fluttered out, we had not seen it lie
Brown as the roadway side. Small bits of hay
Pluck’d from the old prop’d haystack’s pleachy brow,
And withered leaves, make up its outward wall,
Which from the gnarled oak-dotterel yearly fall,
And in the old hedge-bottom rot away.
Built like an oven, through a little hole,
Scarcely admitting e’en two figures in,