Poems on Birds.

THE GREEN LINNET.

ENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their fnow-white bloffoms on my head,
With brightest funshine round me spread
Of Spring's unclouded weather,

In this fequeftered nook how sweet
To fit upon my orchard-feat!

And flowers and birds once more to greet,
My laft year's friends together.

One have I marked, the happieft guest

In all this covert of the bleft:

Hail to thee, far above the reft

In joy of voice and pinion! Thou, Linnet, in thy green array, Prefiding spirit here to-day,

Doft lead the revels of the May,

And this is thy dominion.

A A

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art fole in thy employment;

A life, a prefence like the air,

Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too bleft with any one to pair,
Thyself thy own enjoyment.

Upon yen tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle to the gufty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecftacies,
Yet seeming ftill to hover;

There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and funny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.

While thus before my eyes he gleams, A brother of the leaves he seems; When in a moment forth he teems His little fong in gushes :

As if it pleased him to disdain

And mock the form which he did feign While he was dancing with the train

Of leaves among the bushes.

TO A SKY-LARK.

Up with me! up with me into the clouds! For thy fong, Lark, is strong;

Up with me, up with me into the clouds !
Singing, finging,

With all the heavens about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find

That spot which seems so to thy mind!
I have walked through wildernesses dreary,
And to-day my heart is weary;

Had I now the wings of a faery,
Up to thee would I fly.

There is madness about thee, and joy divine
In that fong of thine :

Up with me, up with me, high and high,
To thy banqueting-place in the sky!
Joyous as morning,

Thou art laughing and scorning :

Thou haft a neft for thy love and thy rest : And, though little troubled with floth, Drunken Lark! thou would't be loth

To be fuch a traveller as I.

Happy, happy liver!

With a foul as strong as a mountain river, Pouring out praise to the Almighty giver,

Joy and jollity be with us both!
Hearing thee, or else fome other,
As merry a brother,

I on the earth will go plodding on,

By myself, cheerfully, till the day is done.

TO THE CUCKOO.

O blithe new-comer! I have heard,

I hear thee and rejoice:
O Cuckoo! fhall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?

While I am lying on the grass,
Thy loud note fmites my ear!
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near!

I hear thee babbling to the vale
Of funshine and of flowers;
And unto me thou bring'st a tale
Of vifionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!

Even yet thou art to me

No bird, but an invifible thing,

A voice, a mystery;

The fame whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that cry

Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove

Through woods and on the green; And thou wert ftill a hope, a love; Still longed for, never seen!

And I can liften to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And liften, till I do beget

That golden time again.

O bleffed bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, faery place;

That is fit home for thee!

TO A NIGHTINGALE.

O Nightingale! thou surely art

A creature of a fiery heart :

These notes of thine-they pierce and pierce; Tumultuous harmony and fierce!