Classic Poem

Unhappy and unblest the man,
Whom mercy never charm'd;
Whose heart, insensible and hard,
No pity ever warm'd.

Far from his dangerous abode,
Heav'n! may my dwellings lie;
And from his unrelenting race
Ye little warblers fly.

Tho' thick'ning hawthorns blend their boughs,
And furze wide spread around,
Yet build not there your downy nests,
Nor trust the faithless ground.

Altho' his smiling fields produce
The most, the fittest food;
Beware, beware, nor thither bring
Your young, your tender brood.

Behold! a sister linnet there,
Laid lifeless on the green;
Fled is the smoothness of her plumes,
And fled her sprightly mien.

The grass grows o'er her ruffled head,
And many a tap'ring rush;
Tho' once a fairer sweeter bird,
Did never grace a bush.

It was but yesterday stre fat
Upon a thistle's top,
And ey'd her family pecking round:
— Their support and their hope —

Each look, and ev'ry chirp, betray'd
A mother's fond delight;
To see them all so fully fledg'd,
And capable of flight.

Close in the middle of a bush;
With prickles thick beset,
She brought them forth; no savage boy
The wily nest could get.

Full twenty days, with pious bill,
Their gaping mouths she fed;
Till ripe, they left their hair-lin'd homes,
Slow flitting as she led.

Joyful they flap'd their new-grown wings;
But happy for them all!
Had they but kept their native bush,
Nor seen a mother fall.

Blythesome she sat, and sweetly sang,
Nor dream'd of danger near;
How could she, conscious of no ill?
The guilty only fear.

But, prais'd for villany, alas!
Not innocence can shun,
Nor all a linnet's music ward
The school-boy's lawless stone.

Conceal'd behind an hawthorn hedge,
He took his deadly aim;
Thick thick the feathers floated round,
And flutt'ring down she came.

Full fast her fearful younglings fly,
Into a neighb'ring shade;
Where low they cow'r disconsolate,
And mourn a mother dead.

Pensive they sit, with hunger pin'd,
Nor dare desert the spray;
Nor know they how to gather food,
No mother leads the way.