THE WHEATEAR.

Did instinct bid you linger here,
That broad and restless ocean near,

And wait till, with the waning year,

These northern gales arise,

Which, from the tall cliff's rugged side,

Shall give your soft light plumes to glide Across the channel's refluent tide,

To seek more favouring skies?

Alas! and has not instinct said,

That luxury's toils for you are laid,

And that, by groundless fears betray'd,

You ne'er perhaps may know

Those regions where th' embowering vine Loves round the luscious fig to twine, And flowers perennial blow?

To take you, shepherd-boys prepare
The hollow turf, the wiry snare,

Of those weak terrors well aware,

That bid you vainly dread

The shadows floating o'er the downs,

Or murmuring gale, that round the stones Of some old beacon, as it moans,

Scarce moves the thistle's head.

And if a cloud obscure the sun,

With faint and fluttering heart you run,

And to the pitfall you should shun,

Resort in trembling haste;

In some thick wood have wander'd heedless on,

Hid from the vulgar eye, and sat us down

Upon the sloping cowslip-cover'd bank,

Where the pure limpid stream has slid along

In grateful errors through the underwood,
Sweet murmuring; methought the shrill-tongued

thrush

THE THRUSH'S NEST.

Mended his song of love, the sooty blackbird
Mellow'd his pipe, and soften'd every note:
The eglantine smell'd sweeter, and the rose
Assumed a dye more deep; whilst every flower
Vied with its fellow plant in luxury

Of dress.-Oh! then, the longest Summer's day
Seem'd too, too much in haste: still the full heart

Had not imparted half: 'twas happiness

Too exquisite to last. Of joys departed,

Not to return, how painful the remembrance!

THE THRUSH'S NEST.

ROBERT BLAIR.

ITHIN a thick and spreading hawthorn bush,
That overhung a mole-hill large and round,

I heard, from morn to morn, a merry Thrush
Sing hymns to sunrise, while I drank the sound
With joy and often, an intruding guest,

:

I watch'd her secret toils, from day to day,— How true she warp'd the moss to form her nest, And modell'd it within with wood and clay.