Birds of Scotland, The - Part First
PART FIRST .
The woodland song, the various vocal choirs,
That harmonise fair Scotia's streamy vales;
Their habitations, and their little joys;
The winged dwellers on the leas, and moors,
And mountain cliffs; the woods, the streams, themselves,
The sweetly rural, and the savage scene,
Haunts of the plumy tribes, be these my theme!
Come, Fancy, hover high as eagle's wing:
Bend thy keen eye o'er Scotland's hills and dales;
Float o'er her furthest isles; glance o'er the main;
Or, in this briery dale, flit with the wren,
From twig to twig; or, on the grassy ridge,
Low nestle with the lark. Thou, simple bird,
Of all the vocal choir, dwell'st in a home
The humblest; yet thy morning song ascends
Nearest to heaven, sweet emblem of his song
Who sung thee wakening by the daisy's side!
With earliest spring, while yet the wheaten blade
Scarce shoots above the new-fallen shower of snow,
The skylark's note, in short excursion, warbles:
Yes! even amid the day-obscuring fall,
I've marked his wing winnowing the feathery flakes,
In widely-circling horizontal flight.
But, when the season genial smiles, he towers
In loftier poise, with sweeter, fuller pipe,
Cheering the ploughman at his furrow end,
The while he clears the share, or, listening, leans
Upon his paddle-staff, and, with raised hand,
Shadows his half-shut eyes, striving to scan
The songster melting in the flood of light
On tree or bush no lark was ever seen:
The daisied lea he loves, where tufts of grass
Luxuriant crown the ridge; there, with his mate,
He founds their lowly house, of withered bents,
And coarsest speargrass; next, the inner work
With finer and still finer fibres lays,
Rounding it curious with his speckled breast.
How strange this untaught art! it is the gift,
The gift innate of Him, without whose will
Not even a sparrow falleth to the ground.
And now the assiduous dam her red-specked treasure
From day to day increases, till complete
The wonted number, blithe, beneath her breast,
She cherishes from morn to eve, from eve
To morn shields from the dew, that globuled lies
Upon her mottled plumes: then with the dawn
Upsprings her mate, and wakes her with his song.
His song full well she knows, even when the sun,
High in his morning course, is hailed at once
By all the lofty warblers of the sky:
But most his downward-veering song she loves;
Slow the descent at first, then, by degrees,
Quick, and more quick, till suddenly the note
Ceases; and, like an arrow-fledge, he darts,
And, softly lighting, perches by her side.
But now no time for hovering welkin-high,
Or downward-gliding strain; the young have chipp'd,
Have burst the brittle cage, and gaping bills
Claim all the labour of the parent pair.
Ah, labour vain! the herd-boy long has marked
His future prize; the ascent, and glad return,
Too ofThe viewed; at last, with prying eyes,
He found the spot, and joyful thoughThe held
The full-ripe young already in his hand,
Or bore them lightly to his broom-roofed bield:
Even now he sits, amid the rushy mead,
Half-hid, and warps the skep with willow rind,
Or rounds the lid, still adding coil to coil,
Then joins the osier hinge: the work complete
Surveying, ofThe turns, and much admires,
Complacent with himself; then hies away
With plundering intent. Ah, little think
The harmless family of love, how near
The robber treads! he stoops, and parts the grass,
And looks with eager eye upon his prey.
Quick round and round the parents fluttering wheel,
Now high, now low, and utter shrill the plaint
Of deep distress. But soon forgot their woe!
Not so with man; year after year he mourns,
Year after year the mother weeps her son,
Torn from her struggling arms by ruffian grasp,
By robbery legalised.
Low in a glen,
Down which a little stream had furrowed deep,
'Tween meeting birchen boughs, a shelvy channel,
And brawling mingled with the western tide;
Far up that stream, almost beyond the roar
Of storm-bulged breakers, foaming o'er the rocks
With furious dash, a lowly dwelling lurked,
Surrounded by a circlet of the stream.
Before the wattled door, a greensward plat,
With daisies gay, pastured a playful lamb;
A pebbly path, deep-worn, led up the hill
Winding among the trees, by wheel untouched,
Save when the winter fuel was brought home,
One of the poor man's yearly festivals.
On every side it was a sheltered spot,
So high and suddenly the woody steeps
Arose. One only way, downward the stream,
Just o'er the hollow, 'tween the meeting boughs,
The distant wave was seen, with, now and then,
The glimpse of passing sail; but, when the breeze
Crested the distant wave, this little nook
Was all so calm, that on the limberest spray,
The sweet bird chanted motionless, the leaves
At times scarce fluttering. Here dwelt a pair,
Poor, humble, and content: one son alone,
Their William, happy lived at home to bless
Their downward years; he, simple youth,
With boyish fondness, fancied he would love
A seaman's life, and with the fishers sailed,
To try their ways, far 'mong the western isles,
Far as St Kilda's rock-walled shore abrupt,
O'er which he saw ten thousand pinions wheel
Confused, dimming the sky. These dreary shores
Gladly he left; he had a homeward heart:
No more his wishes wander to the waves.
But still he loves to cast a backward look,
And tell of all he saw, of all he learned;
Of pillar'd Staffa, lone Iona's isle,
Where Scotland's kings are laid; of Lewis, Skye,
And of the mainland mountain-circled lochs;
And he would sing the rowers' timing chant,
And chorus wild. Once on a summer's eve,
When low the sun behind the highland hills
Was almost set, he sung that song, to cheer
The aged folks: upon the inverted quern
The father sat; the mother's spindle hung
Forgot, and backward twirled the half-spun thread;
Listening with partial well-pleased look, she gazed
Upon her son, and inly bless'd the Lord
ThaThe was safe return'd. Sudden a noise
Bursts rushing through the trees; a glance of steel
Dazzles the eye, and fierce the savage band
Glare all around, then single out their prey.
In vain the mother clasps her darling boy,
In vain the sire offers their little all:
William is bound; they follow to the shore,
Implore, and weep, and pray; knee-deep they stand,
And view in mute despair the boat recede.
But let me quit this scene, and bend my way
Back to the inland vales, and up the heights,
(Erst by the plough usurp'd), where now the heath,
Thin scatter'd up and down, blooming begins
To reappear: stillness, heart-soothing, reigns,
Save, now and then, the partridge's late call;
Featly athwart the ridge she runs, now seen,
Now in the furrow hid; then, screaming, springs,
Joined by her mate, and to the grass-field flies:
There, 'neath the blade, rudely she forms
Her shallow nest, humble as is the lark's,
But thrice more numerous her freckled store.
Careful she turns them to her breast, and soft,
With lightest pressure sits, scarce to be moved;
Yes, she will sit, regardless of the scythe,
That nearer, and still nearer, sweep by sweep,
Levels the swarth: bold with a mother's fears,
She, faithful to the last, maintains her post,
And, with her blood, sprinkles a deeper red
Upon the falling blossoms of the field;
While others, of her kind, content to haunt
The upland ferny braes, remote from man,
Behold a plenteous brood burst from the shell,
And run; but soon, poor helpless things, return,
And crowd beneath the fond inviting breast,
And wings outstretching, quivering with delight.
They grow apace; but still not far they range,
Till on their pinions plumes begin to shoot;
Then, by the wary parents led, they dare
To skirt the earing crofts; at last, full fledged,
They try their timorous wings, bending their flight
Home to their natal spot, and pant amid the ferns.
Oft by the side of sheep-fold, on the ground
Bared by the frequent hoof, they love to lie
And bask. Oh, I would never tire to look
On such a scene of peacefulness as this!
But nearer as I draw, with cautious step,
Curious to mark their ways, at once alarm'd,
They spring; the startled lambs, with bickering haste,
Flee to their mother's side, and gaze around:
Far o'er yon whins the covey wing their way,
And, wheeling round the broomy knowe, elude
My following eye. Fear not, ye harmless race,
In me no longer shall ye find a foe!
Even when each pulse beat high with bounding health,
Ere yet the stream of life, in sluggish flow,
Began to flag, and prematurely stop
With ever-boding pause, even then my heart
Was never in the sport; even then I felt,
Pleasure from pain was pleasure much alloy'd.
Alas, he comes! yes, yonder comes your foe,
With sure determined eye, and in his hand
The two-fold tube, form'd for a double death.
Full soon his spaniel, ranging far and wide,
Will lead his footsteps to the very spot,
The covert thick, in which, falsely secure,
Ye lurking sit, close huddled, wing to wing:
Yes, near and nearer still the spaniel draws,
Retracing oft, and crossing oft his course,
Till, all at once, scent-struck, with pendent tongue,
And lifted paw, stiffen'd he panting stands.
Forward, encouraged by the sportsman's voice,
He hesitating creeps; when, flush, the game
Upsprings, and from the levell'd turning tubes,
The glance, once and again, bursts through the smoke.
Nor, 'mid the rigours of the wintry day,
Does savage man the enfeebled pinion spare;
Then not for sport, but bread, with hawk-like eye,
That needs no setter's aid, the fowler gaunt
Roams in the snowy fields, and downward looks,
Tracing the triple claw, that leads him on,
Oft looking forward, to some thawing spring,
Where, 'mid the wither'd rushes, he discerns
His destined prey; sidelong he stooping steps,
Wary, and, with a never-erring aim,
Scatters the flock wide fluttering in the snow;
The purpled snow records the cruel deed.
With earliest spring, while yet in mountain cleughs
Lingers the frozen wreath, when yeanling lambs,
Upon the little heath-encircled patch
Of smoothest sward, totter, the gorcock's call
Is heard from out the mist, high on the hill;
But not till when the tiny heather bud
Appears are struck the spring-time leagues of love.
Remote from shepherd's hut, or trampled fold,
The new-joined pair their lowly mansion pitch,
Perhaps beneath the juniper's rough shoots;
Or castled on some plat of tufted heath,
Surrounded by a narrow sable moat
Of swampy moss. Within the fabric rude,
Or e'er the new moon waxes to the full,
The assiduous dam eight spotted spheroids sees,
And feels beneath her heart, fluttering with joy.
Nor long she sits, till, with redoubled joy,
Around her she beholds an active brood
Run to and fro, or through her covering wings
Their downy heads look out; and much she loves
To pluck the heather crops, not for herself,
But for their little bills. Thus by degrees,
She teaches them to find the food which God
Has spread for them amid the desert wild,
And seeming barrenness. Now they essay
Their full-plumed wings, and, whirring, spurn the ground;
But soon alight fast by yon moss-grown cairn,
Round which the berries blae (a beauteous tint
Of purple, deeper dyed with darkest blue)
Lurk 'mid the small round leaves. Enjoy the hour,
While yet ye may, ye unoffending flock!
For not far distant now the bloody morn
When man's protection, selfishly bestow'd,
Shall be withdrawn, and murder roam at will.
Low in the east, the purple tinge of dawn
Steals upward o'er the clouds that overhang
The welkin's verge. Upon the mountain side,
The wakening covey quit their mother's wing,
And spread around: lost in the mist,
They hear her call, and, quick returning, bless
A mother's eye. Meantime, the sportsman keen
Comes forth; and, heedless of the winning smile
Of infant day, pleading on mercy's side,
Anticipates, with eager joy, the sum
Of slaughter, that, ere evening hour, he'll boast
To have achieved; and many a gory wing,
Ere evening hour, exultingly he sees,
Drop, fluttering, 'mid the heath, even 'mid the bush,
Beneath whose blooms the brooding mother sat,
Till round her she beheld her downy young.
At last mild twilight veils the insatiate eye,
And stops the game of death. The frequent shot
Resounds no more: silence again resumes
Her lonely reign; save that the mother's call
Is heard repeated oft, a plaintive note!
Mournful she gathers in her brood, dispersed
By savage sport, and o'er the remnant spreads
Fondly her wings; close nestling 'neath her breast,
They cherish'd cower amid the purple blooms.
While thus the heathfowl covey, day by day,
Is lessen'd, till, perhaps, one drooping bird
Survives, the plover safe her airy scream
Circling repeats, then to a distance flies,
And, querulous, still returns, importunate;
Yet still escapes, unworthy of an aim.
Amid the marsh's rushy skirts, her nest
Is slightly strewn; four eggs, of olive hue,
Spotted with black, she broods upon: her young,
Soon as discumber'd of the fragile shell,
Run lively round their dam. She, if or dog
Or man intrude upon her bleak domain,
Skims, clamouring loud, close at their feet, with wing
Stooping, as if impeded by a wound;
Meantime her young, among the rush-roots, lurk
Secure. Ill-omen'd bird! oft in the times
When monarchs own'd no sceptre but the sword,
Far in the heathy waste, that stretches wide
From Avendale to Loudon's high-coned hill,
Thou, hovering o'er the panting fugitive,
Through dreary moss and moor, hast screaming led
The keen pursuer's eye: oft hast thou hung,
Like a death flag, above the assembled throng,
Whose lips hymn'd praise, their right hands at their hilts;
Who, in defence of conscience, freedom, law,
Look'd stern, with unaverted eyes, on death
In every form of horror. Bird of woe!
Even to the tomb thy victims, by thy wing,
Were haunted; o'er the bier thy direful cry
Was heard, while murderous men rush'd furious on,
Profaned the sacred presence of the dead,
And fill'd the grave with blood. At last, nor friend,
Nor father, brother, comrade, dares to join
The train, that frequent winds adown the heights.
By feeble female hands the bier is borne,
While on some neighbouring cairn the aged sire
Stands bent, his gray locks waving in the blast.
But who is she that lingers by the sod,
When all are gone? 'Tis one who was beloved
By him who lies below. Ill-omen'd bird!
She never will forget, never forget,
Thy dismal soughing wing, and doleful cry.
Amid these woodless wilds, a small round lake
I've sometimes mark'd, girt by a spongy sward
Of lively green, with here and there a flower
Of deep-tinged purple, firmly stalk'd, of form
Pyramidal, the shores bristling with reeds,
That midway over wade, and, as they bend,
Disclose the water lily, dancing light
On waves soft-rippled by the July gale;
Hither the long and soft-bill'd snipe resorts,
By suction nourish'd; here her house she forms;
Here warms her fourfold offspring into life.
Alas, not long her helpless offspring feel
Her fostering warmth; though suddenly she mounts,
Her rapid rise and vacillating flight
In vain defend her from the fowler's aim.
But let me to the vale once more descend,
And mingle with the woodland choir, and join
Their various song, and celebrate with them
The woods, the rocks, the streams, the bosky bourne,
The thorny dingle, and the open glade;
For 'tis not in their song, nor in their plumes,
Nor in their wondrous ways, that all their charm
Consists; no, 'tis the grove, their dwelling-place,
That lends them half their charm, that still is link'd,
By strong association's half-seen chain,
With their sweet song, wherever it is sung.
And while this lovely, this congenial theme,
I slightly touch, oh, may I ne'er forget,
Nature, thy laws! be this my steady aim
To vindicate simplicity; to drive
All affectation from the rural scene.
There are who having seen some lordly pile,
Surrounded by a sea of lawn, attempt,
Within their narrow bounds, to imitate
The noble folly. Down the double row
Of venerable elms is hewn. Down crash,
Upon the grass, the orchard trees, whose sprays,
Enwreath'd with blooms, and waved by gentlest gales,
Would lightly at the shaded window beat,
Breaking the morning's slumbers with delight,
Vernal delight. The ancient moss-coped wall,
Or hedge impenetrable, interspersed
With holly evergreen, the domicile
Of many a little wing, is swept away;
While, at respectful distance, rises up
The red brick-wall, with flues, and chimney tops,
And many a leafy crucifix adorn'd.
Extends the level lawn with dropping trees
New planted, dead at top, each to a post
Fast-collar'd, culprit like. The smooth expanse
Well cropt, and daily, as the owner's chin,
Not one irregularity presents,
Not even one grassy tuft, in which a lark
Might find a home, and cheer the dull domain:
Around the whole, a line vermicular
Of melancholy fir, and leaning larch,
And shivering poplar, skirting the way-side,
Is thinly drawn. But should the tasteful power,
Pragmatic, which presides, with pencilling hand
And striding compasses, o'er all this change,
Get in his thrall some hapless stream, that lurks
Wimpling through hazelly shaw and broomy glen,
Instant the axe resounds through all the dale,
And many a pair, unhoused, hovering lament
The barbarous devastation: all is smoothed,
Save here and there a tree; the hawthorn, brier,
The hazel bush, the bramble, and the broom,
The sloe-thorn, Scotia's myrtle, all are gone;
And on the well-sloped bank arise trim clumps,
Some round and some oblong, of shrubs exotic,
A wilderness of poisons, precious deem'd
In due proportion to their ugliness.
What though fair Scotland's valleys rarely vaunt
The oak majestical, whose aged boughs
Darken a roodbreadth! yet nowhere is seen
More beauteously profuse wild underwood;
Nowhere 'tis seen more beauteously profuse
Than on thy tangling banks, well-wooded Esk,
And, Borthwick, thine, above that fairy nook
Form'd by your blending streams. The hawthorn there,
With moss and lichen gray, dies of old age,
No steel profane permitted to intrude:
Up to the topmost branches climbs the rose,
And mingles with the fading blooms of May;
While round the brier the honeysuckle wreaths
Entwine, and, with their sweet perfume, embalm
The dying rose: a never-failing blow,
From spring to fall, expands; the sloe-thorn white,
As if a flaky shower the leafless sprays
Had hung; the hawthorn, May's fair diadem;
The whin's rich dye; the bonny broom; the rasp
Erect; the rose, red, white, and faintest pink;
And long extending bramble's flowery shoots.
The bank ascend; an open height appears,
Between the double streams that wind below:
Look round; behold a prospect wide and fair;
The Lomond hills, with Fife's town-skirted shore,
The intervening sea, Inchkeith's gray rocks,
With beacon-turret crown'd; Arthur's proud crest,
And Salisbury abrupt; the Pentland range,
Now peak'd, and now, with undulating swell,
Heaved to the clouds. More near, upon each hand,
The sloping woods bulging into the glade,
Receding then with easy artless curve
Behind, a grove, of ancient trees, surrounds
The ruins of a blood-cemented house,
Half prostrate laid, as ever ought to lie
The tyrant's dwelling. There no martin builds
Her airy nest; not even the owl alights
On these unhallow'd walls. The murderer's head
Was shelter'd by these walls; hands blood-embrued
Founded these walls — Mackenzie's purpled hands!
Perfidious minion of a sceptred priest!
The huge enormity of crime on crime,
Accumulated high, but ill conceals
The reptile meanness of thy dastard soul;
Whose favourite art was lying with address,
Whose hollow promise help'd the princely hand
To screw confessions from the tortured lips.
Base hypocrite! thy character, portray'd
By modern history's too lenient touch,
Truth loves to blazon with her real tints,
To limn of new thy half-forgotten name,
Inscribe with infamy thy time-worn tomb,
And make the memory hated as the man.
But better far truth loves to paint yon house
Of humbler wall, half stone, half turf; with roof
Of mended thatch, the sparrow's warm abode;
The wisp-wound chimney, with its rising wreath;
The sloping garden, fill'd with useful herbs,
Yet not without its rose; the patch of corn
Upon the brow; the blooming vetchy ridge.
But most the aged man, now wandering forth,
I love to view; for 'neath yon homely guise
Dwell worth, and simple dignity, and sense,
Politeness natural, that puts to shame
The world's grimace, and kindness crowning all.
Why should the falsely great, the glittering names,
Engross the Muse's praise? My humble voice
They ne'er engross'd, and never shall: I claim
The title of the poor man's bard: I dare
To celebrate an unambitious name;
And thine, Kilgour, may yet some few years live,
When low thy reverend locks mix with the mould.
Even in a bird, the simplest notes have charms
For me: I even love the yellow-hammer's song.
When earliest buds begin to bulge, his note,
Simple, reiterated oft, is heard
On leafless brier, or half-grown hedgerow tree;
Nor does he cease his note till autumn's leaves
Fall fluttering round his golden head so bright
Fair plumaged bird! cursed by the causeless hate
Of every schoolboy, still by me thy lot
Was pitied! never did I tear thy nest:
I loved thee, pretty bird! for 'twas thy nest
Which first, unhelp'd by older eyes, I found.
The very spot I think I now behold!
Forth from my low-roof'd home I wander'd blithe,
Down to thy side, sweet Cart, where, 'cross the stream,
A range of stones, below a shallow ford,
Stood in the place of the now spanning arch;
Up from that ford a little bank there was,
With alder-copse and willow overgrown,
Now worn away by mining winter floods;
There, at a bramble-root, sunk in the grass,
The hidden prize, of wither'd field-straws form'd,
Well lined with many a coil of hair and moss,
And in it laid five red-vein'd spheres, I found.
The Syracusan's voice did not exclaim
The grand " Eureka" with more rapturous joy,
Than at that moment flutter'd round my heart.
How simply unassuming is that strain!
It is the redbreast's song, the friend of man.
High is his perch, but humble is his home,
And well conceal'd. Sometimes within the sound
Of heartsome mill-clack, where the spacious door,
White-dusted, tells him plenty reigns around,
Close at the root of brier-bush, that o'erhangs
The narrow stream, with shealings bedded white,
He fixes his abode, and lives at will
Oft near some single cottage, he prefers
To rear his little home; there, pert and spruce,
He shares the refuse of the goodwife's churn,
Which kindly on the wall for him she leaves:
Below her lintel ofThe lights, then in
He boldly flits, and fluttering loads his bill,
And to his young the yellow treasure bears.
Not seldom does he neighbour the low roof
Where tiny elves are taught: a pleasant spot
It is, well fenced from winter blast, and screen'd,
By high o'erspreading boughs, from summer sun
Before the door a sloping green extends
No further than the neighbouring cottage-hedge,
Beneath whose bourtree shade a little well
Is scoop'd, so limpid that its guardian trout
(The wonder of the lesser stooping wights)
Is at the bottom seen. At noontide hour,
The imprison'd throng, enlarged, blithesome rush forth
To sport the happy interval away;
While those from distance come, upon the sward,
At random seated, loose their little stores:
In midst of them poor redbreast hops unharm'd,
For they have read, or heard, and wept to hear,
The story of the Children in the Wood;
And many a crumb to robin they will throw.
Others there are that love, on shady banks
Retired, to pass the summer days: their song,
Among the birchen boughs, with sweetest fall,
Is warbled, pausing, then resumed more sweet,
More sad; that, to an ear grown fanciful,
The babes, the wood, the man, rise in review,
And robin still repeats the tragic line.
But should the note of flute, or human voice,
Sound through the grove, the madrigal at once
Ceases; the warbler flits from branch to branch,
And, stooping, sidelong turns his listening head
Ye lovers of his song, the greenwood path
Each morn duly bestrew with a few crumbs:
His friendship thus ye'll gain; till, by degrees,
Alert, even from your hand, the offer'd boon
He'll pick, half trustingly. Yes, I have seen
Him, and his mate, attend, from tree to tree,
My passing step; and, from my open hand,
The morsel pick, timorous, and starting back,
Returning still, with confidence increased.
What little birds, with frequent shrillest chirp,
When honeysuckle flowers succeed the rose,
The inmost thicket haunt? — their tawny breasts,
Spotted with black, bespeak the youngling thrush,
Though less in size; it is the redbreast's brood,
New flown, helpless, with still the downy tufts
Upon their heads. But soon their full fledged wings,
Long hesitating, quivering oft, they stretch:
At last, encouraged by the parent voice,
And leading flight, they reach the nearest bush,
Or, falling short, lie panting on the ground;
But, reassured, the destined aim attain.
Nor long this helpless state: each day adds strength,
Adds wisdom, suited to their little sphere,
Adds independence — first of heavenly boons!
Released from all the duties, all the cares,
The keen, yet sweet solicitudes, that haunt
The parent's breast, again the redbreast's song
Trills from the wood, or from the garden bough
Each season in its turn he hails; he hails,
Perch'd on the naked tree, Spring's earliest buds:
At morn, at chilly eve, when the March sun
Sinks with a wintry tinge, and Hesper sheds
A frosty light, he ceases not his strain:
And when staid Autumn walks with rustling tread,
He mourns the falling leaf. Even when each branch
Is leafless, and the harvest morn has clothed
The fields in white, he, on the hoar-plumed spray,
Delights, dear trustful bird! his future host.
But farewell lessening days, in summer smile
Array'd. Dark winter's frown comes like a cloud,
Whose shadow sweeps a mountain side, and scowls
O'er all the land. Now warm stack-yards, and barns,
Busy with bouncing flails, are robin's haunts.
Upon the barn's half-door he doubting lights,
And inward peeps. But truce, sweet social bird!
So well I love the strain, when thou 'rt my theme,
That now I almost tread the winter snows,
While many a vernal song remains unsung.
When snowdrops die, and the green primrose leaves
Announce the coming flower, the merle's note,
Mellifluous, rich, deep-toned, fills all the vale,
And charms the ravish'd ear. The hawthorn bush,
New-budded, is his perch; there the gray dawn
He hails; and there, with parting light, concludes
His melody. There, when the buds begin
To break, he lays the fibrous roots; and, see,
His jetty breast embrowred; the rounded clay
His jetty breast has soil'd: but now complete,
His partner, and his helper in the work,
Happy assumes possession of her home;
While he, upon a neighbouring tree, his lay,
More richly full, melodiously renews.
When twice seven days have run, the moment snatch
That she has flitted off her charge, to cool
Her thirsty bill, dipp'd in the babbling brook,
Then silently, on tiptoe raised, look in,
Admire: five cupless acorns, darkly speck'd,
Delight the eye, warm to the cautious touch.
In seven days more expect the fledgeless young,
Five gaping bills. With busy wing, and eye
Quick-darting, all alert, the parent pair
Gather the sustenance which Heaven bestows
But music ceases, save at dewy fall
Of eve, when, nestling o'er her brood, the dam
Has still'd them all to rest; or at the hour
Of doubtful dawning gray; then from his wing
Her partner turns his yellow bill, and chants
His solitary song of joyous praise.
From day to day, as blow the hawthorn flowers,
That canopy this little home of love,
The plumage of the younglings shoots and spreads,
Filling with joy the fond parental eye.
Alas! not long the parents' partial eye
Shall view the fledging wing; ne'er shall they see
The timorous pinion's first essay at flight.
The truant schoolboy's eager, bleeding hand,
Their house, their all, tears from the bending bush;
A shower of blossoms mourns the ruthless deed!
The piercing anguish'd note, the brushing wing,
The spoiler heeds not; triumphing, his way
Smiling he wends: the ruin'd, hopeless pair,
O'er many a field follow his townward steps,
Then back return; and; perching on the bush,
Find nought of all they loved, but one small tuft
Of moss, and withered roots. Drooping they sit,
Silent: afar at last they fly, o'er hill
And lurid moor, to mourn in other groves,
And soothe, in gentler grief, their hapless lot.
Meantime the younger victims, one by one,
Drop off, by care destroy'd, and food unfit.
Perhaps one, hardier than the rest, survives,
And 'tween the wicker bars, with fading weeds
Entwined, hung at some lofty window, hops
From stick to stick his small unvaried round;
While opposite, but higher still, the lark
Stands fluttering, or runs o'er his narrow field,
A span-breadth turf, tawny and parched, with wings
Quivering, as if to fly; his carol gay
Lightening the pale mechanic's tedious task
Poor birds, most sad the change! of daisied fields,
Of hawthorn blooming sprays, of boundless air,
With melody replete, for clouds of smoke,
Through which the daw flies cawing steeple high;
Or creak of grinding wheels, or skillet tongue,
Shrilly reviling, more discordant still!
But what their wretchedness, parents or young,
Compared to that which wrings the human breast,
Doomed to lament a loss, than death more dire —
The robbery of a child! Ay, there is wretchedness!
Snatch'd playful from the rosy bank, by hands
Inured to crimes, the innocent is borne
Far, far away. Of all the varying forms
Of human woe, this the most dire! To think
He might have been now sporting at your side,
But that, neglected, he was left a prey
To pirate hands! To think how he will shudder,
To see a hideous, haggard face attempt
To smile away his tears, caressing him
With horrible embrace, the while he calls
Aloud, in vain, to you! Nor does even time,
Assuager of all other woes, bring balm
To this: each child, to boyish years grown up,
Reminds you of your boy! He might have been
Like this, fair, blooming, modest, looking down
With most engaging bashfulness: but now,
Instead of this, perhaps, with sable mask
Begrimed, he feebly totters 'neath a load,
More fitted to his cruel master's strength.
Perhaps, to manhood come, allured to sell
His life, his freedom, for some paltry pounds,
He now lies 'mong the number'd, nameless crowd
That groan on gory fields, envying the dead!
Or, still more dreadful fate! dragged, train'd, compell'd,
To vice, to crimes, death-sentenced crimes, perhaps
Among those miserable names, which blot
The calendar of death, his is inscribed!
How much alike in habits, form, and size,
The merle and the mavis! how unlike
In plumage and in song! The thrush's song
Is varied as his plumes; and as his plumes
Blend beauteous, each with each, so run his notes
Smoothly, with many a happy rise and fall.
How prettily, upon his parded breast,
The vividly contrasted tints unite
To please the admiring eye; so, loud and soft,
And high and low, all in his notes combine,
In alternation sweet, to charm the ear.
Full earlier than the blackbird he begins
His vernal strain. Regardless of the frown
Which winter casts upon the vernal day,
Though snowy flakes melt in the primrose cup,
He, warbling on, awaits the sunny beam,
That mild gleams down, and spreads o'er all the grove.
But now his song a partner for him gains;
And in the hazel bush, or sloe, is formed
The habitation of the wedded pair:
Sometimes below the never-fading leaves
Of ivy close, that overtwisting binds,
And richly crowns, with cluster'd fruit of spring,
Some riven rock, or nodding castle wall;
Sometimes beneath the jutting root of elm,
Or oak, among the sprigs, that overhang
A pebble-chiding stream, the loam-lined house
Is fix'd, well hid from ken of hovering hawk,
Or lurking beast, or schoolboy's prowling eye;
Securely there the dam sits all day long,
While from the adverse bank, on topmost shoot
Of odour-breathing birch, her mate's blithe chant
Cheers her pent hours, and makes the wild woods ring.
Grudge not, ye owners of the fruited boughs,
ThaThe should pay himself for that sweet music,
With which, in blossom time, he cheers your hearts!
Scare, if ye will, his timid wing away,
But, oh, let not the leaden viewless shower,
Vollied from flashing tube, arrest his flight,
And fill his tuneful, gasping bill with blood!
These two, all others of the singing choirs
In size surpass. A contrast now behold:
The little woodland dwarf, the tiny wren,
That from the root-sprigs trills her ditty clear.
Of stature most diminutive herself,
Not so her wondrous house; for, strange to tell!
Hers is the largest structure that is formed
By tuneful bill and breast. 'Neath some old root,
From which the sloping soil, by wintry rains,
Has been all worn away, she fixes up
Her curious dwelling, close, and vaulted o'er,
And in the side a little gateway porch,
In which (for I have seen) she 'll sit and pipe
A merry stave of her shrill roundelay.
Nor always does a single gate suffice
For exit and for entrance to her dome;
For when (as sometimes haps) within a bush
She builds the artful fabric, then each side
Has its own portico. But, mark within!
How skilfully the finest plumes and downs
Are softly warp'd; how closely all around
The outer layers of moss! each circumstance
Most artfully contrived to favour warmth!
Here read the reason of the vaulted roof;
Here Providence compensates, ever kind,
The enormous disproportion that subsists
Between the mother and the numerous brood,
Which her small bulk must quicken into life.
Fifteen white spherules, small as moorland hare-bell,
And prettily bespeck'd like foxglove flower
Complete her number. Twice five days she sits,
Fed by her partner, never flitting off,
Save when the morning sun is high, to drink
A dewdrop from the nearest flow'ret cup
But now behold the greatest of this train
Of miracles, stupendously minute;
The numerous progeny, clamant for food,
Supplied by two small bills, and feeble wings
Of narrow range; supplied, ay, duly fed,
Fed in the dark, and yet not one forgot!
When whinny braes are garlanded with gold,
And, blithe, the lamb pursues, in merry chase,
His twin around the bush, the linnet then
Within the prickly fortress builds her bower,
And warmly lines it round, with hair and wool
Inwove. Sweet minstrel, may'st thou long delight
The whinny knowe, and broomy brae, and bank
Of fragrant birch! May never fowler's snare
Tangle thy struggling foot! Or, if thou'rt doom'd
Within the narrow cage thy dreary days
To pine, may ne'er the glowing wire (oh, crime accursed!)
Quench, with fell agony, thy shrivelling eye!
Deprived of air and freedom, shall the light
Of day, thy only pleasure, be denied?
But thy own song will still be left; with it,
Darkling, thou 'lt soothe the lingering hours away;
And thou wilt learn to find thy triple perch,
Thy seed-box, and thy beverage saffron-tinged.
Nor is thy lot more hard than that which they
(Poor linnets!) prove in many a storied pile:
They see the light, 'tis true — they see, and know
That light for them is but an implement
Of toil. In summer with the sun they rise
To toil, and with his setting beam they cease
To toil: nor does the shorten'd winter day
Their toil abridge; for, ere the cock's first crow,
Aroused to toil, they lift their heavy eyes,
And force their childish limbs to rise and toil;
And while the winter night, by cottage fire,
Is spent in homebred industry, relieved
By harmless glee, or tale of witch, or ghost,
So dreadful that the housewife's listening wheel
Suspends its hum, their toil protracted lasts:
Even when the royal birth, by wondrous grace,
Gives one half day to mirth, that shred of time
Must not be lost, but thriftily ekes out
To-morrow's and to-morrow's lengthen'd task.
No joys, no sports have they: what little time,
The fragment of an hour, can be retrench'd
From labour, is devoted to a shew,
A boasted boon, of what the public gives —
Instruction. Viewing all around the bliss
Of liberty, they feel its loss the more;
Freely through boundless air, they wistful see
The wild bird's pinion past their prison flit;
Free in the air the merry lark they see
On high ascend; free on the swinging spray
The woodland bird is perch'd, and leaves at will
Its perch; the open quivering bill they see,
But no sweet note by them is heard, all lost,
Extinguish'd in the noise that ceaseless stuns the ear.
Here vice collected festers, and corrupts.
The female virtues fade; and, in their stead,
Springs up a produce rank of noxious weeds.
And if such be the effects of that sad system,
Which, in the face of nature's law, would wring
Gain from the labouring hands of playful children;
If such the effects, where worth and sense direct
The living, intellectual machines,
What must not follow, when the power is lodged
With senseless, sordid, heartless avarice?
Where, Fancy, hast thou led me? No, stern Truth,
'Tis thou hast led me from the pleasant sight
Of blossom'd furze, and bank of fragrant birch.
And now once more I turn me to the woods,
With willing step, and list, closing my eyes,
The lulling soothing sounds, that pour a balm
Into the rankled soul; the brooklet's murmur,
That louder to the ear, long listening, grows,
And louder still, like noise of many waters,
Yet not so loud but that the wild bee's buzz
Slung past the ear, and grasshopper's shrill chirp,
Are heard; for now the sultry hours unfurl
Each insect wing: the aimless butterflies,
In airy dance, cross and recross the mead;
The dragon-fly, in horizontal course,
Spins over-head, and fast eludes the sight.
At such a still and sultry hour as this,
When not a strain is heard through all the woods,
I've seen the shilfa light from off his perch,
And hop into a shallow of the stream,
Then, half afraid, flit to the shore, then in
Again alight, and dip his rosy breast
And fluttering wings, while dewlike globules coursed
The plumage of his brown empurpled back.
The barefoot boy, who, on some slaty stone,
Almost too hot for touch, has watching stood,
Now thinks the well-drench'd prize his own,
And rushes forward; quick, though wet, the wing
Gains the first branches of some neighbouring tree,
And balks the upward gazing hopeless eye.
The ruffling plumes are shook, the pens are trimm'd,
And full and clear the sprightly ditty rings,
Cheering the brooding dam: she sits conceal'd
Within the nest deep-hollow'd, well disguised
With lichens gray, and mosses gradual blent,
As if it were a knurl in the bough.
With equal art externally disguised,
But of internal structure passing far
The feather'd concaves of the other tribes,
The goldfinch weaves, with willow-down inlaid,
And cannach tufts, his wonderful abode.
Sometimes, suspended at the limber end
Of plane-tree spray, among the broad-leaved shoots,
The tiny hammock swings to every gale;
Sometimes in closest thickets 'tis conceal'd;
Sometimes in hedge luxuriant, where the brier,
The bramble, and the plum-tree branch,
Warp through the thorn, surmounted by the flowers
Of climbing vetch and honeysuckle wild,
All undefaced by art's deforming hand.
But mark the pretty bird himself! how light,
And quick, his every motion, every note!
How beautiful his plumes, his red-ring'd head,
His breast of brown! and see him stretch his wing —
A fairy fan of golden spokes it seems.
Oft on the thistle's tufThe, nibbling, sits,
Light as the down; then, 'mid a flight of downs,
He wings his way, piping his shrillest call.
Proud Thistle! emblem dear to Scotland's sons!
Begirt with threat'ning points, strong in defence,
Unwilling to assault! By thee the arm
Of England was repell'd; the rash attempt
Oft did the wounded arm of England rue.
But fraud prevail'd, where force had tried in vain:
Fraud undermined thy root, and laid thy head,
Thy crested head, low sullied in the dust
Belhaven, Fletcher, venerated shades!
Long shall your glorious names, your words of fire,
Spite of beledger'd Trade's corrupting creed,
That estimates a country by its gold,
And balances surrender'd freedom's self —
The life-blood of a people! — with a show
Of columns crowded full of pounds and pence;
Long shall your names illume the historic page,
Inspire the poet's lay, kindle the glow
Of noble daring in the patriot's breast!
Deep-toned (a contrast to the goldfinch note)
The cushat plains; nor is her changeless plaint
Unmusical, when with the general choir
Of woodland harmony it softly blends.
Her sprig-form'd nest, upon some hawthorn branch,
Is laid so thinly, that the light of day
Is through it seen: so rudely is it form'd,
That oft the simple boy, who counts the hours
By blowing off the dandelion downs,
Mistakes the witch-knots for the cushat's nest.
Sweet constant bird! the lover's favourite theme!
Protected by the love-inspiring lay,
Seldom thou mov'st thy home; year after year,
The self-same tree beholds thy youngling pair
Matured to flight. There is a hawthorn tree
With which the ivy arms have wrestled long;
'Tis old, yet vigorous: beneath its shade
A beauteous herb, so rare that all the woods,
For far and near around, cannot produce
Its like, shoots upright; from the stalk
Four pointed leaves, luxuriant, smooth, diverge,
Crown'd with a berry of deep purple hue.
Upon this aged thorn, a lovely pair
Of cushats wont to build: no schoolboy's hand
Would rob their simple nest; the constant coo,
That floated down the dell, soften'd his heart.
But, ah! the pirate of the rock, the hawk,
Hovering, discern'd the prize: soft blew the gale
Of May, and full the greenwood chorus rose,
All but the sweet dove's note: in vain the ear
Turn'd listening; strewn upon the ground,
The varying plumes, with drooping violets mix'd,
Disclosed the death the beauteous bird had died.
Where are your haunts, ye helpless birds of song,
When winter's cloudy wing begins to shade
The emptied fields, when ripening sloes assume
Their deepest jet, and wild plums purple hang
Tempting, yet harsh till mellow'd by the frost?
Ah, now ye sit crowding upon the thorns,
Beside your former homes, all desolate,
And fill'd with wither'd leaves; while fieldfare flocks
From distant lands alight, and, chirping, fly
From hedge to hedge, fearful of man's approach.
Of all the tuneful tribes, the redbreast sole
Confides himself to man; others sometimes
Are driven within our lintel-posts by storms,
And, fearfully, the sprinkled crumbs partake:
He feels himself at home. When lowers the year,
He perches on the village turfy copse,
And, with his sweet but interrupted trills,
Bespeaks the pity of his future host.
But long he braves the season, ere he change
The heaven's grand canopy for man's low home;
Oft is he seen, when fleecy showers bespread
The house-tops white, on the thaw'd smiddy roof,
Or in its open window he alights,
And, fearless of the clang, and furnace glare,
Looks round, arresting the uplifted arm,
While on the anvil cools the glowing bar.
But when the season roughens, and the drift
Flies upward, mingling with the falling flakes
In whirl confused, then on the cottage floor
He lights, and hops, and flits, from place to place,
Restless at first, till, by degrees, he feels
He is in safety: fearless then he sings
The winter day; and when the long dark night
Has drawn the rustic circle round the fire,
Waked by the dinsome wheel, he trims his plumes,
And, on the distaff perched, chants soothingly
His summer song; or, fearlessly lights down
Upon the basking sheep-dog's glossy fur;
Till, chance, the herd-boy, at his supper mess,
Attract his eye, then on the milky rim
Brisk he alights, and picks his little share.
Besides the redbreast's note, one other strain,
One summer strain, on wintry days is heard.
Amid the leafless thorn the merry wren,
When icicles hang dripping from the rock,
Pipes her perennial lay; even when the flakes,
Broad as her pinions, fall, she lightly flies
Athwart the shower, and sings upon the wing.
While thus the smallest of the plumy tribes
Defies the storm, others there are that fly,
Long ere the winter lowers, to genial skies;
Nor this cold clime revisit, till the blooms
Of parting spring blow 'mid the summer buds.
The woodland song, the various vocal choirs,
That harmonise fair Scotia's streamy vales;
Their habitations, and their little joys;
The winged dwellers on the leas, and moors,
And mountain cliffs; the woods, the streams, themselves,
The sweetly rural, and the savage scene,
Haunts of the plumy tribes, be these my theme!
Come, Fancy, hover high as eagle's wing:
Bend thy keen eye o'er Scotland's hills and dales;
Float o'er her furthest isles; glance o'er the main;
Or, in this briery dale, flit with the wren,
From twig to twig; or, on the grassy ridge,
Low nestle with the lark. Thou, simple bird,
Of all the vocal choir, dwell'st in a home
The humblest; yet thy morning song ascends
Nearest to heaven, sweet emblem of his song
Who sung thee wakening by the daisy's side!
With earliest spring, while yet the wheaten blade
Scarce shoots above the new-fallen shower of snow,
The skylark's note, in short excursion, warbles:
Yes! even amid the day-obscuring fall,
I've marked his wing winnowing the feathery flakes,
In widely-circling horizontal flight.
But, when the season genial smiles, he towers
In loftier poise, with sweeter, fuller pipe,
Cheering the ploughman at his furrow end,
The while he clears the share, or, listening, leans
Upon his paddle-staff, and, with raised hand,
Shadows his half-shut eyes, striving to scan
The songster melting in the flood of light
On tree or bush no lark was ever seen:
The daisied lea he loves, where tufts of grass
Luxuriant crown the ridge; there, with his mate,
He founds their lowly house, of withered bents,
And coarsest speargrass; next, the inner work
With finer and still finer fibres lays,
Rounding it curious with his speckled breast.
How strange this untaught art! it is the gift,
The gift innate of Him, without whose will
Not even a sparrow falleth to the ground.
And now the assiduous dam her red-specked treasure
From day to day increases, till complete
The wonted number, blithe, beneath her breast,
She cherishes from morn to eve, from eve
To morn shields from the dew, that globuled lies
Upon her mottled plumes: then with the dawn
Upsprings her mate, and wakes her with his song.
His song full well she knows, even when the sun,
High in his morning course, is hailed at once
By all the lofty warblers of the sky:
But most his downward-veering song she loves;
Slow the descent at first, then, by degrees,
Quick, and more quick, till suddenly the note
Ceases; and, like an arrow-fledge, he darts,
And, softly lighting, perches by her side.
But now no time for hovering welkin-high,
Or downward-gliding strain; the young have chipp'd,
Have burst the brittle cage, and gaping bills
Claim all the labour of the parent pair.
Ah, labour vain! the herd-boy long has marked
His future prize; the ascent, and glad return,
Too ofThe viewed; at last, with prying eyes,
He found the spot, and joyful thoughThe held
The full-ripe young already in his hand,
Or bore them lightly to his broom-roofed bield:
Even now he sits, amid the rushy mead,
Half-hid, and warps the skep with willow rind,
Or rounds the lid, still adding coil to coil,
Then joins the osier hinge: the work complete
Surveying, ofThe turns, and much admires,
Complacent with himself; then hies away
With plundering intent. Ah, little think
The harmless family of love, how near
The robber treads! he stoops, and parts the grass,
And looks with eager eye upon his prey.
Quick round and round the parents fluttering wheel,
Now high, now low, and utter shrill the plaint
Of deep distress. But soon forgot their woe!
Not so with man; year after year he mourns,
Year after year the mother weeps her son,
Torn from her struggling arms by ruffian grasp,
By robbery legalised.
Low in a glen,
Down which a little stream had furrowed deep,
'Tween meeting birchen boughs, a shelvy channel,
And brawling mingled with the western tide;
Far up that stream, almost beyond the roar
Of storm-bulged breakers, foaming o'er the rocks
With furious dash, a lowly dwelling lurked,
Surrounded by a circlet of the stream.
Before the wattled door, a greensward plat,
With daisies gay, pastured a playful lamb;
A pebbly path, deep-worn, led up the hill
Winding among the trees, by wheel untouched,
Save when the winter fuel was brought home,
One of the poor man's yearly festivals.
On every side it was a sheltered spot,
So high and suddenly the woody steeps
Arose. One only way, downward the stream,
Just o'er the hollow, 'tween the meeting boughs,
The distant wave was seen, with, now and then,
The glimpse of passing sail; but, when the breeze
Crested the distant wave, this little nook
Was all so calm, that on the limberest spray,
The sweet bird chanted motionless, the leaves
At times scarce fluttering. Here dwelt a pair,
Poor, humble, and content: one son alone,
Their William, happy lived at home to bless
Their downward years; he, simple youth,
With boyish fondness, fancied he would love
A seaman's life, and with the fishers sailed,
To try their ways, far 'mong the western isles,
Far as St Kilda's rock-walled shore abrupt,
O'er which he saw ten thousand pinions wheel
Confused, dimming the sky. These dreary shores
Gladly he left; he had a homeward heart:
No more his wishes wander to the waves.
But still he loves to cast a backward look,
And tell of all he saw, of all he learned;
Of pillar'd Staffa, lone Iona's isle,
Where Scotland's kings are laid; of Lewis, Skye,
And of the mainland mountain-circled lochs;
And he would sing the rowers' timing chant,
And chorus wild. Once on a summer's eve,
When low the sun behind the highland hills
Was almost set, he sung that song, to cheer
The aged folks: upon the inverted quern
The father sat; the mother's spindle hung
Forgot, and backward twirled the half-spun thread;
Listening with partial well-pleased look, she gazed
Upon her son, and inly bless'd the Lord
ThaThe was safe return'd. Sudden a noise
Bursts rushing through the trees; a glance of steel
Dazzles the eye, and fierce the savage band
Glare all around, then single out their prey.
In vain the mother clasps her darling boy,
In vain the sire offers their little all:
William is bound; they follow to the shore,
Implore, and weep, and pray; knee-deep they stand,
And view in mute despair the boat recede.
But let me quit this scene, and bend my way
Back to the inland vales, and up the heights,
(Erst by the plough usurp'd), where now the heath,
Thin scatter'd up and down, blooming begins
To reappear: stillness, heart-soothing, reigns,
Save, now and then, the partridge's late call;
Featly athwart the ridge she runs, now seen,
Now in the furrow hid; then, screaming, springs,
Joined by her mate, and to the grass-field flies:
There, 'neath the blade, rudely she forms
Her shallow nest, humble as is the lark's,
But thrice more numerous her freckled store.
Careful she turns them to her breast, and soft,
With lightest pressure sits, scarce to be moved;
Yes, she will sit, regardless of the scythe,
That nearer, and still nearer, sweep by sweep,
Levels the swarth: bold with a mother's fears,
She, faithful to the last, maintains her post,
And, with her blood, sprinkles a deeper red
Upon the falling blossoms of the field;
While others, of her kind, content to haunt
The upland ferny braes, remote from man,
Behold a plenteous brood burst from the shell,
And run; but soon, poor helpless things, return,
And crowd beneath the fond inviting breast,
And wings outstretching, quivering with delight.
They grow apace; but still not far they range,
Till on their pinions plumes begin to shoot;
Then, by the wary parents led, they dare
To skirt the earing crofts; at last, full fledged,
They try their timorous wings, bending their flight
Home to their natal spot, and pant amid the ferns.
Oft by the side of sheep-fold, on the ground
Bared by the frequent hoof, they love to lie
And bask. Oh, I would never tire to look
On such a scene of peacefulness as this!
But nearer as I draw, with cautious step,
Curious to mark their ways, at once alarm'd,
They spring; the startled lambs, with bickering haste,
Flee to their mother's side, and gaze around:
Far o'er yon whins the covey wing their way,
And, wheeling round the broomy knowe, elude
My following eye. Fear not, ye harmless race,
In me no longer shall ye find a foe!
Even when each pulse beat high with bounding health,
Ere yet the stream of life, in sluggish flow,
Began to flag, and prematurely stop
With ever-boding pause, even then my heart
Was never in the sport; even then I felt,
Pleasure from pain was pleasure much alloy'd.
Alas, he comes! yes, yonder comes your foe,
With sure determined eye, and in his hand
The two-fold tube, form'd for a double death.
Full soon his spaniel, ranging far and wide,
Will lead his footsteps to the very spot,
The covert thick, in which, falsely secure,
Ye lurking sit, close huddled, wing to wing:
Yes, near and nearer still the spaniel draws,
Retracing oft, and crossing oft his course,
Till, all at once, scent-struck, with pendent tongue,
And lifted paw, stiffen'd he panting stands.
Forward, encouraged by the sportsman's voice,
He hesitating creeps; when, flush, the game
Upsprings, and from the levell'd turning tubes,
The glance, once and again, bursts through the smoke.
Nor, 'mid the rigours of the wintry day,
Does savage man the enfeebled pinion spare;
Then not for sport, but bread, with hawk-like eye,
That needs no setter's aid, the fowler gaunt
Roams in the snowy fields, and downward looks,
Tracing the triple claw, that leads him on,
Oft looking forward, to some thawing spring,
Where, 'mid the wither'd rushes, he discerns
His destined prey; sidelong he stooping steps,
Wary, and, with a never-erring aim,
Scatters the flock wide fluttering in the snow;
The purpled snow records the cruel deed.
With earliest spring, while yet in mountain cleughs
Lingers the frozen wreath, when yeanling lambs,
Upon the little heath-encircled patch
Of smoothest sward, totter, the gorcock's call
Is heard from out the mist, high on the hill;
But not till when the tiny heather bud
Appears are struck the spring-time leagues of love.
Remote from shepherd's hut, or trampled fold,
The new-joined pair their lowly mansion pitch,
Perhaps beneath the juniper's rough shoots;
Or castled on some plat of tufted heath,
Surrounded by a narrow sable moat
Of swampy moss. Within the fabric rude,
Or e'er the new moon waxes to the full,
The assiduous dam eight spotted spheroids sees,
And feels beneath her heart, fluttering with joy.
Nor long she sits, till, with redoubled joy,
Around her she beholds an active brood
Run to and fro, or through her covering wings
Their downy heads look out; and much she loves
To pluck the heather crops, not for herself,
But for their little bills. Thus by degrees,
She teaches them to find the food which God
Has spread for them amid the desert wild,
And seeming barrenness. Now they essay
Their full-plumed wings, and, whirring, spurn the ground;
But soon alight fast by yon moss-grown cairn,
Round which the berries blae (a beauteous tint
Of purple, deeper dyed with darkest blue)
Lurk 'mid the small round leaves. Enjoy the hour,
While yet ye may, ye unoffending flock!
For not far distant now the bloody morn
When man's protection, selfishly bestow'd,
Shall be withdrawn, and murder roam at will.
Low in the east, the purple tinge of dawn
Steals upward o'er the clouds that overhang
The welkin's verge. Upon the mountain side,
The wakening covey quit their mother's wing,
And spread around: lost in the mist,
They hear her call, and, quick returning, bless
A mother's eye. Meantime, the sportsman keen
Comes forth; and, heedless of the winning smile
Of infant day, pleading on mercy's side,
Anticipates, with eager joy, the sum
Of slaughter, that, ere evening hour, he'll boast
To have achieved; and many a gory wing,
Ere evening hour, exultingly he sees,
Drop, fluttering, 'mid the heath, even 'mid the bush,
Beneath whose blooms the brooding mother sat,
Till round her she beheld her downy young.
At last mild twilight veils the insatiate eye,
And stops the game of death. The frequent shot
Resounds no more: silence again resumes
Her lonely reign; save that the mother's call
Is heard repeated oft, a plaintive note!
Mournful she gathers in her brood, dispersed
By savage sport, and o'er the remnant spreads
Fondly her wings; close nestling 'neath her breast,
They cherish'd cower amid the purple blooms.
While thus the heathfowl covey, day by day,
Is lessen'd, till, perhaps, one drooping bird
Survives, the plover safe her airy scream
Circling repeats, then to a distance flies,
And, querulous, still returns, importunate;
Yet still escapes, unworthy of an aim.
Amid the marsh's rushy skirts, her nest
Is slightly strewn; four eggs, of olive hue,
Spotted with black, she broods upon: her young,
Soon as discumber'd of the fragile shell,
Run lively round their dam. She, if or dog
Or man intrude upon her bleak domain,
Skims, clamouring loud, close at their feet, with wing
Stooping, as if impeded by a wound;
Meantime her young, among the rush-roots, lurk
Secure. Ill-omen'd bird! oft in the times
When monarchs own'd no sceptre but the sword,
Far in the heathy waste, that stretches wide
From Avendale to Loudon's high-coned hill,
Thou, hovering o'er the panting fugitive,
Through dreary moss and moor, hast screaming led
The keen pursuer's eye: oft hast thou hung,
Like a death flag, above the assembled throng,
Whose lips hymn'd praise, their right hands at their hilts;
Who, in defence of conscience, freedom, law,
Look'd stern, with unaverted eyes, on death
In every form of horror. Bird of woe!
Even to the tomb thy victims, by thy wing,
Were haunted; o'er the bier thy direful cry
Was heard, while murderous men rush'd furious on,
Profaned the sacred presence of the dead,
And fill'd the grave with blood. At last, nor friend,
Nor father, brother, comrade, dares to join
The train, that frequent winds adown the heights.
By feeble female hands the bier is borne,
While on some neighbouring cairn the aged sire
Stands bent, his gray locks waving in the blast.
But who is she that lingers by the sod,
When all are gone? 'Tis one who was beloved
By him who lies below. Ill-omen'd bird!
She never will forget, never forget,
Thy dismal soughing wing, and doleful cry.
Amid these woodless wilds, a small round lake
I've sometimes mark'd, girt by a spongy sward
Of lively green, with here and there a flower
Of deep-tinged purple, firmly stalk'd, of form
Pyramidal, the shores bristling with reeds,
That midway over wade, and, as they bend,
Disclose the water lily, dancing light
On waves soft-rippled by the July gale;
Hither the long and soft-bill'd snipe resorts,
By suction nourish'd; here her house she forms;
Here warms her fourfold offspring into life.
Alas, not long her helpless offspring feel
Her fostering warmth; though suddenly she mounts,
Her rapid rise and vacillating flight
In vain defend her from the fowler's aim.
But let me to the vale once more descend,
And mingle with the woodland choir, and join
Their various song, and celebrate with them
The woods, the rocks, the streams, the bosky bourne,
The thorny dingle, and the open glade;
For 'tis not in their song, nor in their plumes,
Nor in their wondrous ways, that all their charm
Consists; no, 'tis the grove, their dwelling-place,
That lends them half their charm, that still is link'd,
By strong association's half-seen chain,
With their sweet song, wherever it is sung.
And while this lovely, this congenial theme,
I slightly touch, oh, may I ne'er forget,
Nature, thy laws! be this my steady aim
To vindicate simplicity; to drive
All affectation from the rural scene.
There are who having seen some lordly pile,
Surrounded by a sea of lawn, attempt,
Within their narrow bounds, to imitate
The noble folly. Down the double row
Of venerable elms is hewn. Down crash,
Upon the grass, the orchard trees, whose sprays,
Enwreath'd with blooms, and waved by gentlest gales,
Would lightly at the shaded window beat,
Breaking the morning's slumbers with delight,
Vernal delight. The ancient moss-coped wall,
Or hedge impenetrable, interspersed
With holly evergreen, the domicile
Of many a little wing, is swept away;
While, at respectful distance, rises up
The red brick-wall, with flues, and chimney tops,
And many a leafy crucifix adorn'd.
Extends the level lawn with dropping trees
New planted, dead at top, each to a post
Fast-collar'd, culprit like. The smooth expanse
Well cropt, and daily, as the owner's chin,
Not one irregularity presents,
Not even one grassy tuft, in which a lark
Might find a home, and cheer the dull domain:
Around the whole, a line vermicular
Of melancholy fir, and leaning larch,
And shivering poplar, skirting the way-side,
Is thinly drawn. But should the tasteful power,
Pragmatic, which presides, with pencilling hand
And striding compasses, o'er all this change,
Get in his thrall some hapless stream, that lurks
Wimpling through hazelly shaw and broomy glen,
Instant the axe resounds through all the dale,
And many a pair, unhoused, hovering lament
The barbarous devastation: all is smoothed,
Save here and there a tree; the hawthorn, brier,
The hazel bush, the bramble, and the broom,
The sloe-thorn, Scotia's myrtle, all are gone;
And on the well-sloped bank arise trim clumps,
Some round and some oblong, of shrubs exotic,
A wilderness of poisons, precious deem'd
In due proportion to their ugliness.
What though fair Scotland's valleys rarely vaunt
The oak majestical, whose aged boughs
Darken a roodbreadth! yet nowhere is seen
More beauteously profuse wild underwood;
Nowhere 'tis seen more beauteously profuse
Than on thy tangling banks, well-wooded Esk,
And, Borthwick, thine, above that fairy nook
Form'd by your blending streams. The hawthorn there,
With moss and lichen gray, dies of old age,
No steel profane permitted to intrude:
Up to the topmost branches climbs the rose,
And mingles with the fading blooms of May;
While round the brier the honeysuckle wreaths
Entwine, and, with their sweet perfume, embalm
The dying rose: a never-failing blow,
From spring to fall, expands; the sloe-thorn white,
As if a flaky shower the leafless sprays
Had hung; the hawthorn, May's fair diadem;
The whin's rich dye; the bonny broom; the rasp
Erect; the rose, red, white, and faintest pink;
And long extending bramble's flowery shoots.
The bank ascend; an open height appears,
Between the double streams that wind below:
Look round; behold a prospect wide and fair;
The Lomond hills, with Fife's town-skirted shore,
The intervening sea, Inchkeith's gray rocks,
With beacon-turret crown'd; Arthur's proud crest,
And Salisbury abrupt; the Pentland range,
Now peak'd, and now, with undulating swell,
Heaved to the clouds. More near, upon each hand,
The sloping woods bulging into the glade,
Receding then with easy artless curve
Behind, a grove, of ancient trees, surrounds
The ruins of a blood-cemented house,
Half prostrate laid, as ever ought to lie
The tyrant's dwelling. There no martin builds
Her airy nest; not even the owl alights
On these unhallow'd walls. The murderer's head
Was shelter'd by these walls; hands blood-embrued
Founded these walls — Mackenzie's purpled hands!
Perfidious minion of a sceptred priest!
The huge enormity of crime on crime,
Accumulated high, but ill conceals
The reptile meanness of thy dastard soul;
Whose favourite art was lying with address,
Whose hollow promise help'd the princely hand
To screw confessions from the tortured lips.
Base hypocrite! thy character, portray'd
By modern history's too lenient touch,
Truth loves to blazon with her real tints,
To limn of new thy half-forgotten name,
Inscribe with infamy thy time-worn tomb,
And make the memory hated as the man.
But better far truth loves to paint yon house
Of humbler wall, half stone, half turf; with roof
Of mended thatch, the sparrow's warm abode;
The wisp-wound chimney, with its rising wreath;
The sloping garden, fill'd with useful herbs,
Yet not without its rose; the patch of corn
Upon the brow; the blooming vetchy ridge.
But most the aged man, now wandering forth,
I love to view; for 'neath yon homely guise
Dwell worth, and simple dignity, and sense,
Politeness natural, that puts to shame
The world's grimace, and kindness crowning all.
Why should the falsely great, the glittering names,
Engross the Muse's praise? My humble voice
They ne'er engross'd, and never shall: I claim
The title of the poor man's bard: I dare
To celebrate an unambitious name;
And thine, Kilgour, may yet some few years live,
When low thy reverend locks mix with the mould.
Even in a bird, the simplest notes have charms
For me: I even love the yellow-hammer's song.
When earliest buds begin to bulge, his note,
Simple, reiterated oft, is heard
On leafless brier, or half-grown hedgerow tree;
Nor does he cease his note till autumn's leaves
Fall fluttering round his golden head so bright
Fair plumaged bird! cursed by the causeless hate
Of every schoolboy, still by me thy lot
Was pitied! never did I tear thy nest:
I loved thee, pretty bird! for 'twas thy nest
Which first, unhelp'd by older eyes, I found.
The very spot I think I now behold!
Forth from my low-roof'd home I wander'd blithe,
Down to thy side, sweet Cart, where, 'cross the stream,
A range of stones, below a shallow ford,
Stood in the place of the now spanning arch;
Up from that ford a little bank there was,
With alder-copse and willow overgrown,
Now worn away by mining winter floods;
There, at a bramble-root, sunk in the grass,
The hidden prize, of wither'd field-straws form'd,
Well lined with many a coil of hair and moss,
And in it laid five red-vein'd spheres, I found.
The Syracusan's voice did not exclaim
The grand " Eureka" with more rapturous joy,
Than at that moment flutter'd round my heart.
How simply unassuming is that strain!
It is the redbreast's song, the friend of man.
High is his perch, but humble is his home,
And well conceal'd. Sometimes within the sound
Of heartsome mill-clack, where the spacious door,
White-dusted, tells him plenty reigns around,
Close at the root of brier-bush, that o'erhangs
The narrow stream, with shealings bedded white,
He fixes his abode, and lives at will
Oft near some single cottage, he prefers
To rear his little home; there, pert and spruce,
He shares the refuse of the goodwife's churn,
Which kindly on the wall for him she leaves:
Below her lintel ofThe lights, then in
He boldly flits, and fluttering loads his bill,
And to his young the yellow treasure bears.
Not seldom does he neighbour the low roof
Where tiny elves are taught: a pleasant spot
It is, well fenced from winter blast, and screen'd,
By high o'erspreading boughs, from summer sun
Before the door a sloping green extends
No further than the neighbouring cottage-hedge,
Beneath whose bourtree shade a little well
Is scoop'd, so limpid that its guardian trout
(The wonder of the lesser stooping wights)
Is at the bottom seen. At noontide hour,
The imprison'd throng, enlarged, blithesome rush forth
To sport the happy interval away;
While those from distance come, upon the sward,
At random seated, loose their little stores:
In midst of them poor redbreast hops unharm'd,
For they have read, or heard, and wept to hear,
The story of the Children in the Wood;
And many a crumb to robin they will throw.
Others there are that love, on shady banks
Retired, to pass the summer days: their song,
Among the birchen boughs, with sweetest fall,
Is warbled, pausing, then resumed more sweet,
More sad; that, to an ear grown fanciful,
The babes, the wood, the man, rise in review,
And robin still repeats the tragic line.
But should the note of flute, or human voice,
Sound through the grove, the madrigal at once
Ceases; the warbler flits from branch to branch,
And, stooping, sidelong turns his listening head
Ye lovers of his song, the greenwood path
Each morn duly bestrew with a few crumbs:
His friendship thus ye'll gain; till, by degrees,
Alert, even from your hand, the offer'd boon
He'll pick, half trustingly. Yes, I have seen
Him, and his mate, attend, from tree to tree,
My passing step; and, from my open hand,
The morsel pick, timorous, and starting back,
Returning still, with confidence increased.
What little birds, with frequent shrillest chirp,
When honeysuckle flowers succeed the rose,
The inmost thicket haunt? — their tawny breasts,
Spotted with black, bespeak the youngling thrush,
Though less in size; it is the redbreast's brood,
New flown, helpless, with still the downy tufts
Upon their heads. But soon their full fledged wings,
Long hesitating, quivering oft, they stretch:
At last, encouraged by the parent voice,
And leading flight, they reach the nearest bush,
Or, falling short, lie panting on the ground;
But, reassured, the destined aim attain.
Nor long this helpless state: each day adds strength,
Adds wisdom, suited to their little sphere,
Adds independence — first of heavenly boons!
Released from all the duties, all the cares,
The keen, yet sweet solicitudes, that haunt
The parent's breast, again the redbreast's song
Trills from the wood, or from the garden bough
Each season in its turn he hails; he hails,
Perch'd on the naked tree, Spring's earliest buds:
At morn, at chilly eve, when the March sun
Sinks with a wintry tinge, and Hesper sheds
A frosty light, he ceases not his strain:
And when staid Autumn walks with rustling tread,
He mourns the falling leaf. Even when each branch
Is leafless, and the harvest morn has clothed
The fields in white, he, on the hoar-plumed spray,
Delights, dear trustful bird! his future host.
But farewell lessening days, in summer smile
Array'd. Dark winter's frown comes like a cloud,
Whose shadow sweeps a mountain side, and scowls
O'er all the land. Now warm stack-yards, and barns,
Busy with bouncing flails, are robin's haunts.
Upon the barn's half-door he doubting lights,
And inward peeps. But truce, sweet social bird!
So well I love the strain, when thou 'rt my theme,
That now I almost tread the winter snows,
While many a vernal song remains unsung.
When snowdrops die, and the green primrose leaves
Announce the coming flower, the merle's note,
Mellifluous, rich, deep-toned, fills all the vale,
And charms the ravish'd ear. The hawthorn bush,
New-budded, is his perch; there the gray dawn
He hails; and there, with parting light, concludes
His melody. There, when the buds begin
To break, he lays the fibrous roots; and, see,
His jetty breast embrowred; the rounded clay
His jetty breast has soil'd: but now complete,
His partner, and his helper in the work,
Happy assumes possession of her home;
While he, upon a neighbouring tree, his lay,
More richly full, melodiously renews.
When twice seven days have run, the moment snatch
That she has flitted off her charge, to cool
Her thirsty bill, dipp'd in the babbling brook,
Then silently, on tiptoe raised, look in,
Admire: five cupless acorns, darkly speck'd,
Delight the eye, warm to the cautious touch.
In seven days more expect the fledgeless young,
Five gaping bills. With busy wing, and eye
Quick-darting, all alert, the parent pair
Gather the sustenance which Heaven bestows
But music ceases, save at dewy fall
Of eve, when, nestling o'er her brood, the dam
Has still'd them all to rest; or at the hour
Of doubtful dawning gray; then from his wing
Her partner turns his yellow bill, and chants
His solitary song of joyous praise.
From day to day, as blow the hawthorn flowers,
That canopy this little home of love,
The plumage of the younglings shoots and spreads,
Filling with joy the fond parental eye.
Alas! not long the parents' partial eye
Shall view the fledging wing; ne'er shall they see
The timorous pinion's first essay at flight.
The truant schoolboy's eager, bleeding hand,
Their house, their all, tears from the bending bush;
A shower of blossoms mourns the ruthless deed!
The piercing anguish'd note, the brushing wing,
The spoiler heeds not; triumphing, his way
Smiling he wends: the ruin'd, hopeless pair,
O'er many a field follow his townward steps,
Then back return; and; perching on the bush,
Find nought of all they loved, but one small tuft
Of moss, and withered roots. Drooping they sit,
Silent: afar at last they fly, o'er hill
And lurid moor, to mourn in other groves,
And soothe, in gentler grief, their hapless lot.
Meantime the younger victims, one by one,
Drop off, by care destroy'd, and food unfit.
Perhaps one, hardier than the rest, survives,
And 'tween the wicker bars, with fading weeds
Entwined, hung at some lofty window, hops
From stick to stick his small unvaried round;
While opposite, but higher still, the lark
Stands fluttering, or runs o'er his narrow field,
A span-breadth turf, tawny and parched, with wings
Quivering, as if to fly; his carol gay
Lightening the pale mechanic's tedious task
Poor birds, most sad the change! of daisied fields,
Of hawthorn blooming sprays, of boundless air,
With melody replete, for clouds of smoke,
Through which the daw flies cawing steeple high;
Or creak of grinding wheels, or skillet tongue,
Shrilly reviling, more discordant still!
But what their wretchedness, parents or young,
Compared to that which wrings the human breast,
Doomed to lament a loss, than death more dire —
The robbery of a child! Ay, there is wretchedness!
Snatch'd playful from the rosy bank, by hands
Inured to crimes, the innocent is borne
Far, far away. Of all the varying forms
Of human woe, this the most dire! To think
He might have been now sporting at your side,
But that, neglected, he was left a prey
To pirate hands! To think how he will shudder,
To see a hideous, haggard face attempt
To smile away his tears, caressing him
With horrible embrace, the while he calls
Aloud, in vain, to you! Nor does even time,
Assuager of all other woes, bring balm
To this: each child, to boyish years grown up,
Reminds you of your boy! He might have been
Like this, fair, blooming, modest, looking down
With most engaging bashfulness: but now,
Instead of this, perhaps, with sable mask
Begrimed, he feebly totters 'neath a load,
More fitted to his cruel master's strength.
Perhaps, to manhood come, allured to sell
His life, his freedom, for some paltry pounds,
He now lies 'mong the number'd, nameless crowd
That groan on gory fields, envying the dead!
Or, still more dreadful fate! dragged, train'd, compell'd,
To vice, to crimes, death-sentenced crimes, perhaps
Among those miserable names, which blot
The calendar of death, his is inscribed!
How much alike in habits, form, and size,
The merle and the mavis! how unlike
In plumage and in song! The thrush's song
Is varied as his plumes; and as his plumes
Blend beauteous, each with each, so run his notes
Smoothly, with many a happy rise and fall.
How prettily, upon his parded breast,
The vividly contrasted tints unite
To please the admiring eye; so, loud and soft,
And high and low, all in his notes combine,
In alternation sweet, to charm the ear.
Full earlier than the blackbird he begins
His vernal strain. Regardless of the frown
Which winter casts upon the vernal day,
Though snowy flakes melt in the primrose cup,
He, warbling on, awaits the sunny beam,
That mild gleams down, and spreads o'er all the grove.
But now his song a partner for him gains;
And in the hazel bush, or sloe, is formed
The habitation of the wedded pair:
Sometimes below the never-fading leaves
Of ivy close, that overtwisting binds,
And richly crowns, with cluster'd fruit of spring,
Some riven rock, or nodding castle wall;
Sometimes beneath the jutting root of elm,
Or oak, among the sprigs, that overhang
A pebble-chiding stream, the loam-lined house
Is fix'd, well hid from ken of hovering hawk,
Or lurking beast, or schoolboy's prowling eye;
Securely there the dam sits all day long,
While from the adverse bank, on topmost shoot
Of odour-breathing birch, her mate's blithe chant
Cheers her pent hours, and makes the wild woods ring.
Grudge not, ye owners of the fruited boughs,
ThaThe should pay himself for that sweet music,
With which, in blossom time, he cheers your hearts!
Scare, if ye will, his timid wing away,
But, oh, let not the leaden viewless shower,
Vollied from flashing tube, arrest his flight,
And fill his tuneful, gasping bill with blood!
These two, all others of the singing choirs
In size surpass. A contrast now behold:
The little woodland dwarf, the tiny wren,
That from the root-sprigs trills her ditty clear.
Of stature most diminutive herself,
Not so her wondrous house; for, strange to tell!
Hers is the largest structure that is formed
By tuneful bill and breast. 'Neath some old root,
From which the sloping soil, by wintry rains,
Has been all worn away, she fixes up
Her curious dwelling, close, and vaulted o'er,
And in the side a little gateway porch,
In which (for I have seen) she 'll sit and pipe
A merry stave of her shrill roundelay.
Nor always does a single gate suffice
For exit and for entrance to her dome;
For when (as sometimes haps) within a bush
She builds the artful fabric, then each side
Has its own portico. But, mark within!
How skilfully the finest plumes and downs
Are softly warp'd; how closely all around
The outer layers of moss! each circumstance
Most artfully contrived to favour warmth!
Here read the reason of the vaulted roof;
Here Providence compensates, ever kind,
The enormous disproportion that subsists
Between the mother and the numerous brood,
Which her small bulk must quicken into life.
Fifteen white spherules, small as moorland hare-bell,
And prettily bespeck'd like foxglove flower
Complete her number. Twice five days she sits,
Fed by her partner, never flitting off,
Save when the morning sun is high, to drink
A dewdrop from the nearest flow'ret cup
But now behold the greatest of this train
Of miracles, stupendously minute;
The numerous progeny, clamant for food,
Supplied by two small bills, and feeble wings
Of narrow range; supplied, ay, duly fed,
Fed in the dark, and yet not one forgot!
When whinny braes are garlanded with gold,
And, blithe, the lamb pursues, in merry chase,
His twin around the bush, the linnet then
Within the prickly fortress builds her bower,
And warmly lines it round, with hair and wool
Inwove. Sweet minstrel, may'st thou long delight
The whinny knowe, and broomy brae, and bank
Of fragrant birch! May never fowler's snare
Tangle thy struggling foot! Or, if thou'rt doom'd
Within the narrow cage thy dreary days
To pine, may ne'er the glowing wire (oh, crime accursed!)
Quench, with fell agony, thy shrivelling eye!
Deprived of air and freedom, shall the light
Of day, thy only pleasure, be denied?
But thy own song will still be left; with it,
Darkling, thou 'lt soothe the lingering hours away;
And thou wilt learn to find thy triple perch,
Thy seed-box, and thy beverage saffron-tinged.
Nor is thy lot more hard than that which they
(Poor linnets!) prove in many a storied pile:
They see the light, 'tis true — they see, and know
That light for them is but an implement
Of toil. In summer with the sun they rise
To toil, and with his setting beam they cease
To toil: nor does the shorten'd winter day
Their toil abridge; for, ere the cock's first crow,
Aroused to toil, they lift their heavy eyes,
And force their childish limbs to rise and toil;
And while the winter night, by cottage fire,
Is spent in homebred industry, relieved
By harmless glee, or tale of witch, or ghost,
So dreadful that the housewife's listening wheel
Suspends its hum, their toil protracted lasts:
Even when the royal birth, by wondrous grace,
Gives one half day to mirth, that shred of time
Must not be lost, but thriftily ekes out
To-morrow's and to-morrow's lengthen'd task.
No joys, no sports have they: what little time,
The fragment of an hour, can be retrench'd
From labour, is devoted to a shew,
A boasted boon, of what the public gives —
Instruction. Viewing all around the bliss
Of liberty, they feel its loss the more;
Freely through boundless air, they wistful see
The wild bird's pinion past their prison flit;
Free in the air the merry lark they see
On high ascend; free on the swinging spray
The woodland bird is perch'd, and leaves at will
Its perch; the open quivering bill they see,
But no sweet note by them is heard, all lost,
Extinguish'd in the noise that ceaseless stuns the ear.
Here vice collected festers, and corrupts.
The female virtues fade; and, in their stead,
Springs up a produce rank of noxious weeds.
And if such be the effects of that sad system,
Which, in the face of nature's law, would wring
Gain from the labouring hands of playful children;
If such the effects, where worth and sense direct
The living, intellectual machines,
What must not follow, when the power is lodged
With senseless, sordid, heartless avarice?
Where, Fancy, hast thou led me? No, stern Truth,
'Tis thou hast led me from the pleasant sight
Of blossom'd furze, and bank of fragrant birch.
And now once more I turn me to the woods,
With willing step, and list, closing my eyes,
The lulling soothing sounds, that pour a balm
Into the rankled soul; the brooklet's murmur,
That louder to the ear, long listening, grows,
And louder still, like noise of many waters,
Yet not so loud but that the wild bee's buzz
Slung past the ear, and grasshopper's shrill chirp,
Are heard; for now the sultry hours unfurl
Each insect wing: the aimless butterflies,
In airy dance, cross and recross the mead;
The dragon-fly, in horizontal course,
Spins over-head, and fast eludes the sight.
At such a still and sultry hour as this,
When not a strain is heard through all the woods,
I've seen the shilfa light from off his perch,
And hop into a shallow of the stream,
Then, half afraid, flit to the shore, then in
Again alight, and dip his rosy breast
And fluttering wings, while dewlike globules coursed
The plumage of his brown empurpled back.
The barefoot boy, who, on some slaty stone,
Almost too hot for touch, has watching stood,
Now thinks the well-drench'd prize his own,
And rushes forward; quick, though wet, the wing
Gains the first branches of some neighbouring tree,
And balks the upward gazing hopeless eye.
The ruffling plumes are shook, the pens are trimm'd,
And full and clear the sprightly ditty rings,
Cheering the brooding dam: she sits conceal'd
Within the nest deep-hollow'd, well disguised
With lichens gray, and mosses gradual blent,
As if it were a knurl in the bough.
With equal art externally disguised,
But of internal structure passing far
The feather'd concaves of the other tribes,
The goldfinch weaves, with willow-down inlaid,
And cannach tufts, his wonderful abode.
Sometimes, suspended at the limber end
Of plane-tree spray, among the broad-leaved shoots,
The tiny hammock swings to every gale;
Sometimes in closest thickets 'tis conceal'd;
Sometimes in hedge luxuriant, where the brier,
The bramble, and the plum-tree branch,
Warp through the thorn, surmounted by the flowers
Of climbing vetch and honeysuckle wild,
All undefaced by art's deforming hand.
But mark the pretty bird himself! how light,
And quick, his every motion, every note!
How beautiful his plumes, his red-ring'd head,
His breast of brown! and see him stretch his wing —
A fairy fan of golden spokes it seems.
Oft on the thistle's tufThe, nibbling, sits,
Light as the down; then, 'mid a flight of downs,
He wings his way, piping his shrillest call.
Proud Thistle! emblem dear to Scotland's sons!
Begirt with threat'ning points, strong in defence,
Unwilling to assault! By thee the arm
Of England was repell'd; the rash attempt
Oft did the wounded arm of England rue.
But fraud prevail'd, where force had tried in vain:
Fraud undermined thy root, and laid thy head,
Thy crested head, low sullied in the dust
Belhaven, Fletcher, venerated shades!
Long shall your glorious names, your words of fire,
Spite of beledger'd Trade's corrupting creed,
That estimates a country by its gold,
And balances surrender'd freedom's self —
The life-blood of a people! — with a show
Of columns crowded full of pounds and pence;
Long shall your names illume the historic page,
Inspire the poet's lay, kindle the glow
Of noble daring in the patriot's breast!
Deep-toned (a contrast to the goldfinch note)
The cushat plains; nor is her changeless plaint
Unmusical, when with the general choir
Of woodland harmony it softly blends.
Her sprig-form'd nest, upon some hawthorn branch,
Is laid so thinly, that the light of day
Is through it seen: so rudely is it form'd,
That oft the simple boy, who counts the hours
By blowing off the dandelion downs,
Mistakes the witch-knots for the cushat's nest.
Sweet constant bird! the lover's favourite theme!
Protected by the love-inspiring lay,
Seldom thou mov'st thy home; year after year,
The self-same tree beholds thy youngling pair
Matured to flight. There is a hawthorn tree
With which the ivy arms have wrestled long;
'Tis old, yet vigorous: beneath its shade
A beauteous herb, so rare that all the woods,
For far and near around, cannot produce
Its like, shoots upright; from the stalk
Four pointed leaves, luxuriant, smooth, diverge,
Crown'd with a berry of deep purple hue.
Upon this aged thorn, a lovely pair
Of cushats wont to build: no schoolboy's hand
Would rob their simple nest; the constant coo,
That floated down the dell, soften'd his heart.
But, ah! the pirate of the rock, the hawk,
Hovering, discern'd the prize: soft blew the gale
Of May, and full the greenwood chorus rose,
All but the sweet dove's note: in vain the ear
Turn'd listening; strewn upon the ground,
The varying plumes, with drooping violets mix'd,
Disclosed the death the beauteous bird had died.
Where are your haunts, ye helpless birds of song,
When winter's cloudy wing begins to shade
The emptied fields, when ripening sloes assume
Their deepest jet, and wild plums purple hang
Tempting, yet harsh till mellow'd by the frost?
Ah, now ye sit crowding upon the thorns,
Beside your former homes, all desolate,
And fill'd with wither'd leaves; while fieldfare flocks
From distant lands alight, and, chirping, fly
From hedge to hedge, fearful of man's approach.
Of all the tuneful tribes, the redbreast sole
Confides himself to man; others sometimes
Are driven within our lintel-posts by storms,
And, fearfully, the sprinkled crumbs partake:
He feels himself at home. When lowers the year,
He perches on the village turfy copse,
And, with his sweet but interrupted trills,
Bespeaks the pity of his future host.
But long he braves the season, ere he change
The heaven's grand canopy for man's low home;
Oft is he seen, when fleecy showers bespread
The house-tops white, on the thaw'd smiddy roof,
Or in its open window he alights,
And, fearless of the clang, and furnace glare,
Looks round, arresting the uplifted arm,
While on the anvil cools the glowing bar.
But when the season roughens, and the drift
Flies upward, mingling with the falling flakes
In whirl confused, then on the cottage floor
He lights, and hops, and flits, from place to place,
Restless at first, till, by degrees, he feels
He is in safety: fearless then he sings
The winter day; and when the long dark night
Has drawn the rustic circle round the fire,
Waked by the dinsome wheel, he trims his plumes,
And, on the distaff perched, chants soothingly
His summer song; or, fearlessly lights down
Upon the basking sheep-dog's glossy fur;
Till, chance, the herd-boy, at his supper mess,
Attract his eye, then on the milky rim
Brisk he alights, and picks his little share.
Besides the redbreast's note, one other strain,
One summer strain, on wintry days is heard.
Amid the leafless thorn the merry wren,
When icicles hang dripping from the rock,
Pipes her perennial lay; even when the flakes,
Broad as her pinions, fall, she lightly flies
Athwart the shower, and sings upon the wing.
While thus the smallest of the plumy tribes
Defies the storm, others there are that fly,
Long ere the winter lowers, to genial skies;
Nor this cold clime revisit, till the blooms
Of parting spring blow 'mid the summer buds.
Translation:
Language:
Reviews
No reviews yet.