A dandelion's ghost might so Breathing the atmosphere divine. Charles G. D. Roberts [1860 THE HERON O MELANCHOLY Bird, a winter's day And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school To Patience, which all evil can allay. God has appointed thee the Fish thy prey; And his unthinking course by thee to weigh. And teach his soul, by brooks and rivers fair: Edward Hovell-Thurlow [1781-1829] THE JACKDAW THERE is a bird, who by his coat, Above the steeple shines a plate, From what point blows the weather; The Green Linnet 1541 Fond of the speculative height, And thence securely sees You think, no doubt, he sits and muses No: not a single thought like that He sees that this great roundabout, Its customs, and its businesses And says what says he?-"Caw." Thrice happy bird! I too have seen From the Latin of Vincent Bourne, THE GREEN LINNET BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed In this sequestered nook how sweet And flowers and birds once more to greet, My last year's friends together. One have I marked, the happiest guest In all this covert of the blest: Hail to Thee, far above the rest And this is thy dominion. While birds, and butterflies, and flowers Thou, ranging up and down the bowers, A Life, a Presence like the air, Too blest with any one to pair, Thyself thy own enjoyment. Amid yon tuft of hazel trees, Yet seeming still to hover; My dazzled sight he oft deceives- As if by that exulting strain He mocked and treated with disdain While fluttering in the bushes. William Wordsworth (1770-1850] TO THE MAN-OF-WAR-BIRD THOU who hast slept all night upon the storm, Waking renewed on thy prodigious pinions, The Maryland Yellow-Throat (Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st, As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee, Far, far at sea, 1543 After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks, With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene, The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun, The limpid spread of air cerulean, Thou also re-appearest. Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,) To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails, Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating, At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America, That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, In them, in thy experiences, hadst thou my soul, What joys! what joys were thine! Wall Whitman [1819-1892] THE MARYLAND YELLOW-THROAT WHEN May bedecks the naked trees With tassels and embroideries, An incantation so serene, So innocent, befits the scene: There's magic in that small bird's note- You prophet with a pleasant name, Tell her to leave her cockle-shells, And all her maids less fair than she. The woods are greening overhead, Along the shady road I look- Henry Van Dyke [1852 LAMENT OF A MOCKING-BIRD SILENCE instead of thy sweet song, my bird, Which through the darkness of my winter days Warbling of summer sunshine still was heard; Mute is thy song, and vacant is thy place. |