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 'Jf\A tlvnl^n.-l^!^v
 
 THE 
 
 SONGS OF THE BIRDS.
 
 LONDON : 
 GILBERT & RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, 
 
 ST. John's square.
 
 THE 
 
 SONGS OF THE BIRDS 
 
 OK, 
 
 ANALOGIES OF ANIMAL AND 
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 BV THE 
 
 REV. W. E. EVANS, M.A. 
 
 PREBENDARY OF HEREFORD, 
 AND AUTHOR OF " FAMILY PRAYERS." 
 
 And flowers were preachers, and still (stranger) drew 
 
 From their own life and course 
 
 The lore they would enforce ; 
 And sound their doctrine was, and every precept true." 
 
 Valehead. 
 
 LONDON : 
 FRANCIS & JOHN RIVINGTON, 
 
 ST. PAUr/s CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE. 
 1845. 
 
 /
 
 
 TO 
 
 MY FOUR DEAR CHILDREN, 
 Cl&is little Volume 
 
 IS DEDICATED, 
 
 WITH THE HOPE THAT IT MAY INCREASE THE INTEREST 
 
 THEY ALREADY TAKE IN OUR 
 
 FAVOURITE SONGSTERS ; 
 
 AND, UNDER GOD's BLESSING, 
 
 BE A MEANS OF TURNING THAT INTEREST TO 
 
 GOOD AND LASTING ACCOUNT.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction 1 
 
 TheWoodlark 33 
 
 The Skylark 42 
 
 The Chaffinch 51 
 
 The Goldfinch 58 
 
 The Linnet 69 
 
 The Wren 79 
 
 The Golden-Crested Wreu 90 
 
 The Willow- Wren 101 
 
 The Water-Ouzle 109 
 
 The Blackbird 120 
 
 TheThi-ush 132 
 
 The Missel Thrush 145
 
 Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 The Yellow-Hammer or Ammer (Bunting) . 157 
 
 The Blackcap 166 
 
 The Sedge- Warbler 176 
 
 The Reed Bu'd 18f) 
 
 The Wood- Warbler 198 
 
 The Red-Breast 208 
 
 The White-Throat 217 
 
 The Cuckoo . 226 
 
 The Dove 238 
 
 The Nightingale 249
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It is not intended in the following pages to give 
 any precise and scientific account of our British 
 singing birds, but merely so far to describe their 
 habits and dispositions, as may suit the purpose, 
 which the following little work has in view. 
 
 It is not necessary, that the young readers, for 
 whom it is intended, should all be naturalists, that 
 they should be correct and scientific in their know- 
 ledge of ornithology, so as to be able to detect 
 always the specific difference in form and plumage 
 between the different species. But it is neces- 
 sary that they should all be Christians, sincere ami 
 faithful ones ; and the sole object of this little book 
 is, to connect this interesting portion of animate
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 life with thoughts of higher import ; and to make 
 them, if possible, signals for calling up, in the midst 
 of our daily walk, a crowd of holy and spiritual 
 associations. 
 
 For if the contemplation of the natural world 
 around us is not made to do more than awaken our 
 sense of the Deity's power and beneficence, it will 
 prove but a feeble help in the formation of the 
 Christian character. It must indeed, as St. Paul tells 
 us (Rom. i. 20), lead, if duly followed, to a convic- 
 tion of the Deity's eternal power and godhead : but 
 after that, it hath no more that it can do. It can- 
 not, of itself, lead us onward to the conviction of 
 his redeeming love ; it has no language in which 
 to speak to us of mercy and forgiveness, remission 
 of sins, communion with God, and everlasting life 
 after death. The noblest and highest branch of it, 
 the study of astronomy, can lead us no further. 
 "The sun and the moon praise Him," indeed, 
 "and all the stars of light;" though they have 
 neither speech nor language, their voices are heard 
 among them. The astonishing discoveries made 
 in later times in that vast field of science, the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 almost insupportable ideas of the vastness of that 
 shining creation raised by the advances man's 
 feeble power has made among its bodies, have, as 
 all must deeply feel, exalted our notions of that in- 
 finity of power belonging unto Him, who " telleth 
 the numljer of the stars, and calleth them all by 
 their names." But the mere study of this great lu- 
 minous world has no necessary connexion with re- 
 vealed truth : nay, so far from it, that its nomen- 
 clature, by some strange mischance, is all mixed 
 up with the abominations of heathen mythology. 
 
 But Christ Himself teaches us in his word how 
 to make these works of his hand speak to us 
 not only in the language of natural religion, but 
 also in that of revelation. Thus He is called a 
 " Sun of Righteousness," " arising with healing 
 on his wings," — " the day-star from on high visit- 
 ing us ;" and the coming of the gospel is expressed 
 by the figure of light ; while the stars in their 
 courses are made to proclaim the blessedness of 
 the redeemed, wlio shall shine like them for ever 
 and ever. 
 
 And thus may they become as a shining ladder 
 B 2
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 reaching down to this lower world, whereby our 
 minds may ascend to things above, and expatiate 
 in heavenly places, God, too, in his own holy 
 word, condescends to impress his truth by the 
 analogy of the animate world. He leads us to the 
 ant, and the ox, and the ass ; to the turtle, the 
 crane, and the swallow, which know the time of 
 their coming. He bids us look to the confidincr 
 birds, who have neither storehouse nor barn ; to the 
 ostrich, who layeth her eggs in the sand, and to 
 the swift eagle hastening to his prey. 
 
 In making choice of that part of the animate 
 creation through which to pursue om* analogies, 
 I have been led to the birds ; both from my own 
 great fondness for them, and also as affording the 
 most frequent and interesting subjects of analogy. 
 We may find, it is true, very many among the 
 quadrupeds and beasts of the field ; and Scripture 
 frequently takes its figures and illustrations from 
 them : but they are comparatively of the earth, 
 earthy ; there is no rising and soaring among them ; 
 nothing emblematic of that spiritual flight w'hich 
 the renewed spirit takes, when it is raised from
 
 earth to liold its conversation in heaven. Again, 
 in the insect world we find at first a most strikingr 
 and close analogy. The larva crawling on the 
 ground, with its devouring appetite, is the emblem 
 of man, yet in the flesh, and under the influence of 
 his senses. The chrysalis in its cocoon, lying in 
 still unconsciousness till the period of a second 
 transformation, speaks to us of death and the silent 
 grave ; while the shining insect that bursts forth 
 from those parting walls, and wings its flight into 
 tlie pure bright air above, no longer bound to 
 earth and the gross appetites of its former being, 
 tells us that we shall be changed, — how this cor- 
 ruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal, 
 immortality, — and how, as we have borne the image 
 of the earthly Adam, so we shall bear the image 
 of the heavenly. But after this there is little to 
 interest a common observer in the habits of the 
 insect creation ; they are not familiar unless to 
 those who have given much time and close inspec- 
 tion to the subject ; nor do their habits, unless in 
 some particular instances, as in the ant, the bee, 
 and the spider, engage our attention.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 But every time we go out abroad, the feathered 
 tribe, either by their voices or their flight, attract 
 our notice. The eye likes to follow them in their 
 airy and graceful motions, and to watch the habits 
 of a class that is ever busy in its restless activity 
 around us. 
 
 What poetry is in their existence ! What con- 
 tinued and close analogies to man's spiritual life ! 
 
 To take hold of them, to part those light and 
 beautiful pinions that have been traversing the air, 
 to dissect those beautiful forms, is the province 
 of the naturalist ; and into a wide field of per- 
 fect mechanism such researches will lead him. 
 But to one who loves them as lively emblems 
 among which the imagination delights to wander, 
 this is profanation : it dissolves at once all the 
 visions of that ideal world in which we have been 
 roaming, and brings us down to cold though in- 
 structive reality. 
 
 Except, therefore, as actual studies for natural 
 history, we deprecate the habit of making stuffed 
 specimens of our common British birds. Why 
 put them under a glass, when we can see them
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 with our eyes every day amid the green and 
 waving boughs, or by the streams, or in the 
 meadows, in the happy enjoyment of their natural 
 habits and locations ? The poor bird is deprived 
 of tlie life that God hath given it ; the feathers, 
 indeed, remain the same, but never can the nicest 
 hand restore them to that glossy order in which 
 the bird's living bill had set them : it is a speci- 
 men ; it has eyes, and sees not ; ears, and hears 
 not ; wings, and flies not : the most experienced 
 studier of posture, the most delicate skill, can 
 never give to its form the light and buoyant grace 
 that belonged to the living bird. And who ever 
 saw a bird quiet for a moment ? The plumage 
 may be bright and beautiful, the feathers in tole- 
 rable order, the glass-eye correct, the posture 
 true ; but, as in a beautiful statue, we long, Pro- 
 metheus-like, to wake it into life ; while that is 
 precisely what we have taken from it, and can 
 never restore even in semblance. Take an egg 
 from the nest, if you will, and preserve it as a 
 specimen in your cabinet, but spare the living 
 bird ; do not take what you may long to give
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 back, and long in vain. Wliat a precious gift is 
 life ! and how wanton and irreparable an injury to 
 rob the creature of all it has, to change it as in a 
 moment from a living being in the full joyousness 
 of existence into that senseless foi^m, whicli you try 
 in vain again to mould after the model of that 
 living beauty which God alone covdd give it ! 
 
 We will go then to the birds for our analogies ; 
 for they seem almost formed to supply these in 
 their various habits ; and Scripture itself leads the 
 way, and gives us the authority of its inspired ex- 
 ample ; and we cannot be very extravagant and 
 wild in carrying out the- ideas suggested, within 
 due bounds. 
 
 When the earth brousrht forth the livinor crea- 
 tures after their kind, and the reptiles were crawl- 
 ing in the slime, and the beasts were treading on 
 the new soft earth, the fowls fled above, in the 
 open firmament of heaven, carried above the slime 
 and the vapour of the reeking earth. And when 
 we say that in tlieir flight above the earth, in the 
 way in which they rise above its vapours and de- 
 filements into the pure air above, they are emblems
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of that winged faith which raises the spirit above 
 its earthly resting-place, above the pollutions and 
 defilements of this lower world, into an atmosphere 
 of greater purity, nearer to heaven, for which God 
 in mercy destined it, we are only carrying out an 
 idea suggested by the word of God. We see the 
 eagle soaring up far above the clouds, breathing 
 the thin air of that rarified atmosphere, or we see 
 him looking with unflinching eye upon the glory 
 of tlie sun, which defies our weaker vision ; and if 
 we say that we here behold an emblem of them 
 who wait in faith upon the Lord, and whose eyes 
 the Lord hath opened, we are but paraphrasing the 
 words of Isaiah, who says, that " they that wait 
 upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they 
 shall mount up with wings as eagles." Ps. xl. 31. 
 We find another analogy in that peculiar dislike 
 to being alone exhibited by all the birds. The 
 heron, indeed, seeks the lonely tarn or mountain 
 stream, but he meets his mate at eve ; and the 
 eagle, if he soars alone, joins his mate at the eyrie. 
 And thus the birds that do not congregate, seek 
 company by living in pairs. Neither can the
 
 Christian be alone : he is one of many, bound by 
 unseen links to the whole family of Christ ; he 
 must ever be looking to others as well as to him- 
 self; and when he is alone then is he not with 
 Christ and his people, he is in a state of miserable 
 spiritual separation : and when David would de- 
 scribe that wretched loneliness, he does it by the 
 figure of a poor bird forsaken of its fellows, and 
 sitting alone upon the house-top. For a solitary 
 deserted bird is an emblem of wretchedness. 
 
 In their pairing, too, there is an emblem of that 
 holy communion between us in the sacred rite of 
 marriage, which itself is but a type and emblem 
 of something higher and holier. What devoted 
 affection do these little creatures show towards 
 each other ! Among many of them the pairing 
 seems to go on through the whole winter : and we 
 find two living together, in lone and solitary 
 places, as with the water-ousel, being all in all to 
 each other, needing nothing more than the food 
 which God supplies to them, and their own happy 
 intercourse. I have often thought, when seeing 
 them sitting together on the stones by the river-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 I 
 
 side, surveying each other with looks of calm 
 enjoyment, and uttering their little comfortable 
 twitter, that they were exchanging looks of mu- 
 tual love and affection. How assiduously, too, in 
 some instances, does the male attend to and feed 
 the female as she sits in her patient expectation on 
 the nest ! What alarm and distress is exhibited 
 in his ruffled head and compressed plumage and 
 in his anxious cry, when any thing like danger 
 approaches her ! And as he sits on the bough 
 above her, and utters his song in the pride and 
 fulness of his love, she seems to turn her quiet eye 
 to look upon liim, and to accept his song as a 
 voice of sweet encouragement and consolation. 
 Even so the Christian, in the quiet walk of patient 
 duty, knowing in the end that he shall reap, if he 
 faint not, looks continually unto Him who hath 
 the words of eternal life, whose voice speaketh 
 unto him within in tones of blessed and heavenly 
 comfort. 
 
 To those who have drunk deep of the cup of 
 Christian experience, who have known the bless- 
 edness of walking close with God, in that pure
 
 and deep communion of which wedded love is but 
 the feeble type, how insufferable is the agony of 
 even a partial separation ! Has sin broken that 
 communion ; separated us from Him in whose 
 spiritual intercourse one day is better than a tliou- 
 sand, then what good can our life do us ? what 
 peace to the broken spirit till forgiveness is sought 
 and found ; what possible rest to the troubled soul 
 while this separation lasts ? The birds still supply 
 an emblem of this also ; for what a lesson can we 
 read in that touching fact gathered from the expe- 
 rience of the bird-catchers ! The male birds of 
 tlie nightingales, as of several other species, 
 always arrive before the females, as if to try the 
 way and mark the road for the weaker sex ; the 
 moment they are known to have arrived, all the 
 bird-catchers sally forth without delay ; now is 
 their harvest ; they must catch the birds before 
 they have paired. For the birds now caught will 
 submit to their captivity, and after a time become 
 cheerful and contented. But if they wait till the 
 bird has found a mate, and his affections are en- 
 gaged, then the captive is worthless ; nothing now
 
 can reconcile him to captivity, nothing can induce 
 him to sing ; his life is a weary blank, and he 
 mopes and pines till nature is exhausted, and he 
 dies. It was under the agony of such a separation 
 from all that was dear and precious to him that 
 one cried, " Cast me not away from thy presence, 
 take not thy Holy Spirit from me." The Scrip- 
 ture supplies its warrant for this analogy also ; for 
 when the prophet Isaiah (ch. lix.) would describe 
 the wretchedness of a people separated from God, 
 and under his displeasure looking for light and 
 beholding obscurity, he compares them to doves, 
 mourning in their separation from their mates. 
 
 But one perhaps of the most extraordinary fea- 
 tures in the habits of birds is that of their migra- 
 tion. Wonderful indeed is the instinct which leads 
 them over earth and sea through the unbeaten 
 paths of the air. Even in the case of the geese 
 and other wild fowl of strong and rapid wing, we 
 cannot but admire the instinct that leads them 
 southward when the lakes and morasses of the 
 north deny them food and refuge. But that a 
 little bird with feeble wins and tender habits
 
 should leave a warm and sunny climate to brave 
 the dangers of a flight over the sea, with its winds 
 and storms, to come to us, where it is to hatch and 
 rear its young, and then to depart and brave the 
 same perils on its return, that is indeed a proof of 
 the power of that instinct which God hath given it 
 for its preservation. They seem instinctively to 
 know the times and seasons ; and though the days 
 of September may be warm and bright, though 
 October bring no great change of temperature, be 
 even warmer than the month in which they arrived, 
 they know well what the long nights and deepen- 
 ing shadows mean ; they smell the frost and the 
 snow, though it be afar off; and all at once they 
 disappear, to be replaced by others, who, under the 
 influence of the same instinct, come to seek with 
 us that protection which their own frozen shores 
 deny them. 
 
 We may read in this implicit obedience to the 
 laws of instinct manifested by birds, an additional 
 proof of our own fall from our first estate, and of 
 the consequent perversion of our natures. Of all 
 God's creatures we alone seem to be born under
 
 INTRODUCTION. 16 
 
 the influence of wrong instincts. For while God 
 hath given to all his other creatures to fulfil in 
 their appointed place the purpose of their ex- 
 istence, in man is seen the strange anomaly of 
 a being whose instincts are wrongly directed. 
 Though a bird of passage, lie is naturally disin- 
 clined to prepare for the period of his migration — 
 a creature to whom the present passing life is only 
 valuable as preparatory to another and higher state 
 of existence, he has lost the instincts of a being 
 who is to live for ever, in those which cling to a 
 corrupt and dying body ; he looks upon that as an 
 end, which in reality is nothing more than a be- 
 ginning ; and unless a change take place in his 
 heart and its objects, he goes away at last leaving 
 all his heart and his hopes behind him. Were not 
 his instincts perverted, we should see him naturally 
 the reverse of what he is. We see in the birds of 
 passage how powerful is the instinct of migration ; 
 even the instinct of parental love fades before it. 
 They will leave their young to die in the very 
 nests they made for them, under the superior in- 
 stinct that forces them away for the preservation
 
 16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of life. Thus they are here to-day ; but the 
 period of their migration has arrived, and they 
 are far away over the wide sea to-morrow. Now 
 were man's instincts true, then would a being, 
 who is to live for ever in another state of ex- 
 istence, have all his hopes and interests turned 
 towards that everlasting future. He, too, is here 
 to-day, and to-morrow beyond the heavens — to- 
 day in time, to-morrow in eternity. And yet we 
 see him making no preparation for this necessity, 
 none for the period of his migration ; we see him 
 livino- under the influence of instincts that must 
 have suffered perversion, and been distorted from 
 their proper object. When we would say to man. 
 Take warning from the bird, which in its instinct 
 puts to shame all your boasted wisdom and sci- 
 ence, we do but use the language of inspiration ; 
 which says, " The stork in the heaven knoweth 
 her appointed times, and the turtle, the crane, and 
 the swallow observe the time of their coming; but 
 my people know not the presence of the Lord." 
 
 With Scriptures for our warrant, then we may 
 venture, in all sobriety, to follow the analogies
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 which may present themselves in our observation of 
 this interesting part of the animate creation. And 
 if we can succeed in attaching to these objects of 
 every-day interest associations of a high and spi- 
 ritual character, with what an aid to serious medi- 
 tation shall we be supplying ourselves ! how many 
 solemn calls shall we be awakening, to arouse us 
 in seasons of spiritual decay and slumber ! For 
 who that walks abroad to enjoy the face of nature, 
 and to take pleasure in observing its signs and 
 modes of life, does not make the birds his com- 
 panions and the objects of his pleased attention? 
 Every one must have experienced the joyous feel- 
 ings awakened by their first burst of song when 
 the Spring is come, the time of singing birds, as 
 Scripture so beautifully describes it. Were the 
 eyes to refuse their office, those notes that ring on 
 the ear would call up before the imagination gleams 
 of warm, yet passing sunshine, leafless trees wear- 
 ing a purple hue from the tint of their bursting 
 buds, the fresh green grass, the daffodils and vio- 
 lets, and all the accompaniments of the new-born 
 Spring. But it is not only in the Spring that their 
 
 c
 
 18 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 notes call up so many associations. When their 
 song is silent in the Summer, still the air resounds 
 with the frequent calls of the old birds to their 
 young ; and we could scarcely fancy it Autumn, 
 even if we saw the leaves changing and the rime 
 upon the ground, if we did not hear the cawing of 
 the rook breaking the calm stillness of the morn- 
 ing. And when we return home in the close of 
 the Winter's day, and all the birds are hastening, 
 like ourselves, to the night's shelter, should we not 
 miss the robin's little parting song, and scarcely 
 believe it evening because we did not hear it ? 
 
 The notes of birds thus become associated with 
 the scenes around us ; and when we go further, 
 and take pleasure in observing their habits, we 
 find them affording subjects of continual interest. 
 When the long Winter has passed, and we our- 
 selves, or those around us, have been suffering 
 from its changes — its cold one day, and its damp 
 the next — how welcome are the first tokens of re- 
 turning Spring ! We begin to venture out in the 
 early hours of the morning. At first we catch a 
 glimpse of the beautiful little wheatear on the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 common ; the next morning we hear the chifF- 
 chaff repeating his usual monotonous note in the 
 usual place, as if he had never been away ; then 
 the little willow-wren begins his merry song, like 
 a hearty laugh, telling us the perils of his journey 
 are over, and he is safe ; the black-cap follows 
 him with his clear and beautiful notes, till at 
 length we listen with joyous, and almost breatli- 
 less attention to the first note of the thrice wel- 
 come cuckoo. And what a strange influence have 
 those two notes gained over us ! Spring to us 
 could not be Spring without them. Some years 
 ago, I think it was in the year 1838, the cuckoo 
 was unusually late ; April passed, and yet no one 
 had heard the cuckoo. A kind of vague, uncom- 
 fortable superstition was creeping over the minds 
 of our rural population, and they began to think 
 that some vast change was at hand. A friend in- 
 formed me that he was, in the early part of the 
 month of May of that year, accompanying a friend 
 in a walk to some labourers engaged in draining ; 
 and while they were there, the cuckoo flew over 
 their heads, singing his long-expected song. The 
 
 c 2
 
 20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 men threw down their spades, and exclaimed, as 
 with a feeling of relief, "He is come at last!" 
 When, indeed, we look at the little birds of pas- 
 sage hopping among the branches with their 
 slender bodies and feeble wangs, they seem to 
 awaken all those feelings of interest and respect 
 which it is the privilege of great travellers to 
 excite. The imagination wanders to the sunny 
 climes that they have been visiting ; the strange 
 and distant scenes among which they have been 
 sojourning, the perils they have encountered, and 
 the wonderful instinct that has brought them back. 
 Those little wings have borne them over lands 
 which it may never, in all probability, be our lot to 
 visit; and those puny travellers have penetrated 
 into countries beyond our reach. Their return calls 
 up to our imagination scenes of distant beauty of 
 which we have read. What strange accounts could 
 they give us of what they had seen in the depths 
 of mysterious Africa! its stately palms, its desert 
 fountains, vast plains and herds ! There is a mystery 
 connected with their wanderings which increases 
 the interest with which we witness their return.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 There is, too, a restlessness in their continual 
 motions which arrests attention to them ; and thus 
 to persons only commonly observant they become 
 associated with the times and places where we 
 have seen them. A little grey water-wagtail, re- 
 cognized on a green in India, revived, I have 
 heard, in the mind of the absentee who saw it, 
 sudden recollections of the scenes of his far distant 
 home, his father's garden, the house and inmates : 
 all more vividly brought to mind by the unex- 
 pected apparition of that well-known bird. What 
 if we could succeed then in even slightly associ- 
 ating these lively objects of attention with holy 
 thoughts and recollections, that so each well- 
 known note, each passing wing, might awaken 
 some wholesome train of thought, and bring 
 images of holy import before our minds ? 
 
 This, in the instance of some of the birds, has 
 already been done by Scripture itself. We see the 
 raven, high up in heavens, hastening with his wild 
 croak to his distant food, miles and miles away ; 
 we think of him when he was flying over the face 
 of the moist earth, seeking a resting-place ; or
 
 22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 fancy him as God's messenger, carrying the daily 
 food to the lonely prophet by the brook Cherith. 
 His note reminds us of that bountiful Providence, 
 described as feeding the young ravens that call 
 upon Him. 
 
 And with what a mysterious interest hath God 
 invested the gentlest and most timid of all the 
 tribe ! We lose sight of the messenger from the ark 
 and its olive-branch, in that miraculous appearance 
 which hath made the dove the emblem of the 
 blessed Paraclete Himself. And as the fruits of 
 the Spirit are love and joy and gentleness, we 
 almost dare to trace them in the meek habits of 
 the bird, in which He was once personified. And 
 when we see the dove in the Spring months rising, 
 and then gliding softly down on its floating wings, 
 our minds are carried to that scene by sacred Jor- 
 dan, where John was baptizing ; when He who 
 was to fulfil all righteousness was being baptized, 
 die greater of the less, and the Holy Ghost de- 
 scended upon Him like a dove. When again we 
 see its tinted plumage shining in the sun, with its 
 blended hues of red and gold and silver, our minds
 
 INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 again are led to Him who rose from dishonour to 
 glory, and though he had lien among the pots, be- 
 came as the wings of a dove that is covered with 
 silver wings, and her feathers like gold. 
 
 Birds are of such an active nature, their forms 
 generally so beautiful, and all their energies so 
 strongly developed, that they always become pro- 
 minent features in the scenes where we find them, 
 and thus become strongly associated with their lo- 
 calities. Thus, in visiting the Zoological Gardens, 
 the power of the associations they excite must 
 have been often experienced by those fond of ob- 
 serving them. 
 
 When we see the heron standing half asleep 
 after his morning meal, how quickly does the 
 mind travel to the distant mountain stream, where 
 we have seen him standing, of which he and the 
 water-ousel were the only inhabitants ; or to the 
 wide-spread sands of a bay, where we have seen 
 him with a number of his companions quietly 
 waiting for the return and ebbing of the tide. 
 
 When we see the fierce and beautiful Peregrine 
 falcon idly sitting on its artificial perch, we cannot
 
 24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 help forming a contrast between this, its ignoble 
 lot, and the wild life of which we have seen it in 
 the enjoyment, soaring amid the fearful preci- 
 pices of some steep headland, and hawking after 
 the wild-fowl that were cowering among the rocks 
 in the sea beneath. 
 
 The condor, now enclosed within a narrow space 
 of wood and wire, calls up before our mind's eye 
 the mighty Andes and tlieir eternal snow, their 
 vast plains and valleys, where the majestic bird, 
 soaring with outspread wing, seems to harmonize 
 with the gigantic features of the scenes around 
 him. Why should we not endeavour to connect 
 these objects of interest, so continually inviting 
 our observation, with more useful associations 
 than those of distant scenes and past days ? It 
 were better for us that they should speak to us, 
 if we can make them do so, rather of the future 
 than of the past. And why may we not try to 
 scatter a few words of warning and instruction 
 along this path of daily observation, as we hear of 
 some zealous persons scattering tracts on the turn- 
 pike road, content with the satisfactory conclusion.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 that if one in a thousand take effect they shall be 
 well repaid ? 
 
 In the Spring of the year, the period at which 
 I am now writing, the birds seem to force them- 
 selves upon our attention, and to excite our in- 
 terest. How busy and energetic they all are ! 
 Having chosen their mate, then comes the im- 
 portant question as to the site of the nest, and the 
 supply of materials for forming it. The grass is 
 now beginning to grow, and the temperature to in- 
 crease ; and the cattle and the horses are throwing 
 off their winter coats. It is now that the Almighty 
 Creator of the heavens and the earth, who hath 
 called all things into existence at a word, and can 
 multiply to infinity the works of his hands, teaches 
 us a lesson of carefulness, and warns us that He 
 hath made nothing to be wasted. As the cattle 
 cast their coats, the birds come in for their share ; 
 we see the daw and the starling and others hasten- 
 ing to the spots where the cattle have been lying, 
 to appropriate the cast-off hair for the lining of 
 their nests. 
 We should endeavour to follow in the spiritual
 
 26 INTRODUCTION. 'n 
 
 an example so beautifully displayed in the natural 
 world, and strive to connect earthly with hea- 
 venly objects, that nothing be lost. Thus will the 
 study of nature not only lead us to nature's God, 
 but will lead us to Him, as still further revealed 
 to us in his redeeming love : not only the Maker, 
 but the Saviour of the world ; the God of nature, 
 the God of the gospel too, of the spiritual as of the 
 natural world. If we could but give a voice to the 
 things of this natural world around us, and make 
 them speak to us of things spiritual — make them 
 types and emblems of something beyond the mere 
 world of sense, to be heard with the inward ear, 
 and seen with the inward eye, which faith opens 
 within us ; the material creation would then be- 
 come as a map or chart, on which we might trace 
 the boundaries of that mighty spiritual system, 
 which, though our eyes have not seen, we should 
 still trace in the description of the figure. Such a 
 scheme, indeed, would be purely imaginative, an 
 ideal system formed in our minds ; but should it 
 become the fruitful source of holy thoughts and 
 aspirations, awaken by its associations voices of
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 continual warning and instruction, then, though 
 itself unreal, it will point to things of everlasting 
 reality — things true as God Himself is true. 
 
 Burton Court, April 26, 1845.
 
 28 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 When speaking of the analogies supplied by the 
 changing scenes of nature around us, the author 
 would annex the following lines, suggested to him 
 on viewing a beautiful sunset from a favourite hill 
 in his neighbourhood. They may supply an ex- 
 ample of what he means, and show how serious 
 and wholesome associations may be excited by the 
 view of external objects, when the mind is on the 
 watch to arrest them as they pass, and to convert 
 them to its spiritual use. 
 
 I. 
 
 Bright scenes there are on this fair earth, 
 
 With such a mystic beauty fraught. 
 They reach the spirit, and give birth 
 
 To trains of deep and holy thought. 
 The soul aroused on heavenward wings, 
 
 Soars up from earth's material ground, 
 And reads in earthly scenes of things 
 
 Far, far beyond their narrow bound ; 
 And passing things that soon must fade and die, 
 Can preach of those that grasp eternity.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 II. 
 
 Fair was the scene from Garnstone hill, 
 
 Broken with light and shade the view, 
 While all around the evening still 
 
 Her touching spell of silence threw. 
 We saw the opening clouds unfold 
 
 Their treasures rich of yellow light, 
 And showering tints of liquid gold 
 
 O'er valley deep and mountain height : 
 On scenes afar their mellow radiance cast, 
 Like memory's light that gilds the distant past. 
 
 III. 
 
 The mountain range that seem'd to bound 
 
 The landscape with its chain of blue, 
 Broke in a thousand shapes around, 
 
 Touch'd by the sunset's magic hue. 
 We look'd on peaks and headlands steep, 
 
 And mountain glens before unseen, 
 And saw a dark deep valley creep 
 
 With winding course the rocks between. 
 That seem'd as threading thro' each frowning height, 
 To lead far onward to a world of lijiht.
 
 30 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Oh ! thus, I thought, where faith hath thrown 
 
 The film from off the clouded eye, 
 And through the opening future shown 
 
 Ghmpses of worlds beyond the sky ; 
 Bound to the passing world no more. 
 
 And from its narrow limits free. 
 Our longing spirits upwards soar, 
 
 And faith-lit eyes rejoicing see 
 Beyond earth's outline dark, a land of rest 
 Shining afar with heavenly radiance blest. 
 
 V. 
 
 The dark mysterious future seen 
 
 So dimly once, breaks forth in light. 
 Opening beyond the grave a scene 
 
 With everlasting glories bright. 
 No more earth's awful barriers close 
 
 Their gloomy walls so darkly round, 
 And even death's sad valley shows 
 
 A path to worlds of light beyond ; 
 Begun on earth, yet still seen stretching on, 
 'Till lost at length before the eternal throne.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 31 
 
 VI, 
 
 We look'd again — the sun was gone, 
 
 Each glorious tint had died away, 
 And all around look'd sad and wan, 
 
 Clad in one suit of mournful grey. 
 The vale was lost in shade ; the chain 
 
 Of circling hills resumed their hue, 
 And darkly drew around again 
 
 Their cold dim walls of distant blue ; 
 And all seem'd sad and chilly, as the dead, 
 When from the lifeless clay the spirit's fled. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Oh ! thus, I thought, when faitli is dim, 
 
 And we in wayward blindness stray, 
 Far from the guiding light of Him, 
 
 Who is alone the spirit's day. 
 Thus like the evening's dying hue. 
 
 Lost amid gathering mist and shade. 
 The hopes that o'er the future threw 
 
 Their living radiance, die and fade ; 
 Leaving all dark in gloomy shadow, where 
 They late had made the glowing scene so fair.
 
 32 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The spell is broke — the light is flown, 
 
 And all the gleams of that bright clay, 
 That o'er the golden future shone, 
 
 Float like a passing dream away. 
 For oh ! there is no life, no light. 
 
 No joyovis sunshine for the soul, 
 When worldly things, like coming night, 
 
 Their shadowy vapours round us roll ; 
 And like the light, when day is gone. 
 
 The lamp of faith goes darkening down ; 
 And nought is seen within the gathering gloom, 
 But the brief space between us and the tomb.
 
 In beginning with the larks, we will place the 
 woodlark first, as deserving the foremost and 
 most conspicuous place among them. 
 
 His voice is not so loud or so varied as that 
 of his kinsman ; it does not come forth in such 
 a flood of joy and ecstasy as that of the skylark ; 
 but it is far clearer and sweeter, and seems to tell 
 a tale of deeper and more tender feeling. He is, 
 too, so constant. In the cold, sharp mornings of 
 November, when the song of the skylark has long 
 been silent, we catch the tones of his soft and al- 
 most melancholy song, falling in gentle cadences 
 upon our ear, reminding us of the Spring days that 
 are past, and giving an earnest of those that are to 
 come. There is scarcely a day through the long 
 dreary Winter in which we may not hear him : 
 sometimes on the rimed branches, sometimes on 
 
 D
 
 34 THE WOODLARK. 
 
 the frosty surface of the ground, and at others, up 
 in the air, taking his long elliptical circuits — one 
 moment over our head, and the next a field away. 
 Spring, Autvmm, Winter, are all the same to him ; 
 he is happy, and sings in all. Every day he is 
 pouring his sweet song into our ears ; and if we 
 make these objects of our natural, emblems of our 
 spiritual life, he is a type of that sweet voice of 
 comfort that sounds in the true Christian's ear, 
 both in his Summer and in his Winter, in the 
 sunny days of w'orldly happiness and enjoyment, 
 and in the dark ones of suffering and distress — 
 not joyful, and yet not melancholy, breathing of 
 peace and hope, such as the loudest strains of 
 worldly joy can never give. Often and often have 
 I stood listening to him in the cold days of Win- 
 ter, and thought how well the strain became the 
 season, telling of Spring and sunshine in the midst 
 of cold and Winter ; while in Spring there is the 
 same pensive cadence, as if to warn us that it 
 will not last. 
 
 But we must go into what is really the country 
 to hear him. I do not call that a bird's song that
 
 comes to our ear through bars and wires, and is 
 inspired, perhaps, by a piece of green turf, brought 
 from those very fields over which the now captive 
 bird had once soared and sung in all the joyfulness 
 of its unrestrained liberty. The woodlark is easily 
 caught ; and as his song is much prized, the envi- 
 rons of the towns are soon stripped of the species. 
 It is a painful thing to see one of these little pri- 
 soners acting its treacherous part ; and, though it 
 may be unconsciously, decoying the wild bird, 
 that comes unsuspectingly to its call, into the 
 same captivity ; to exchange for two square feet 
 of cage room, for stale earth and decaying turf, 
 the vast expanse of the pure air above, the fresh 
 clods of the newly ploughed ground, and the 
 springing turf, whose roots are in God's fruitful 
 earth, drinking of its moisture, and partaking of 
 its fatness. 
 
 If we look for emblems, how soon may we find 
 them here ! Is not every evil example, every in- 
 consistent, imholy life, doing precisely what that 
 poor unconscious call-bird has done ; leading the 
 thoughtless and the hesitating into a worse cap- 
 
 d2
 
 36 THE WOODLARK. 
 
 tivity than that of painted cages and gilded wires ; 
 tempting them to exchange the pure air and bright 
 prospects of their rightful inheritance, for stale and 
 decaying pleasures, where their wings will soon 
 lose their power, and their plumage its freshness ? 
 And what captivity like his, who, tied and bound, 
 hath lost a liberty far more precious than that of 
 the bird in its native scenes, that glorious liberty 
 of God's children, whose spirits rise continually, 
 on the wings of faith, from earth to heaven, and 
 catch glimpses, through its opening portals, of 
 future and eternal glory ? 
 
 The woodlark, they say, is readily tamed ; and 
 if song be any token of the disposition, we may 
 well conceive how soon its mild and gentle nature 
 would yield to man's discipline ; while, on the 
 other liand, there is too much of feeling in its 
 strain to admit of our believing that it would soon 
 forget the fresh fields and fallows, and the liberty 
 which was its birthright. It may seem happy ; 
 but there is the blue sky above, in which it used 
 to soar, and it cannot surely forget its joyous and 
 unrestrained flights ; even as many a heart, that
 
 THE WOODLARK. 37 
 
 seems glad and light-hearted in the depth of its 
 spiritual captivity, still knows its own bitterness, 
 and sighs and longs after the calm peace, the holy 
 joys, from which it is now debarred. 
 
 Our little songster has evidently its local attach- 
 ments. It is generally heard about the same spot; 
 and when flying in the air, seems to hover above its 
 accustomed haunts. While the other larks con- 
 gregate in flocks during the Winter, and fly from 
 field to field, this, for the most part, is stationary ; 
 or, if joining the others for a time, soon separates, 
 to return and sing in its accustomed haunts. Type 
 of the Christian with his pure and holy home ! 
 He must sometimes join for a season in the whirl 
 of the busy world around him, but he comes back, 
 at the first opportunity, to the quiet scene of his 
 peace and love. Type, too, of the spirit whose 
 home is with God, and which, tliough it must 
 wander for a season amid earthly and passing 
 things, is ever flying back to its sure resting-place, 
 where all its hopes and all its love are centred !
 
 38 THE WOODLARK. 
 
 ^ons of t\jt OTootflarfe. 
 
 How sweet to me the cold calm morn, 
 
 When Summer's pride is ended, 
 And the hoar-frost hangs upon the thorn, 
 With its fading tresses blended ! 
 Each merry voice from brake and bough 
 That sung so loud, is silent now ; 
 And I sing upon the leafless tree, 
 The last of all their minstrelsy. 
 
 II. 
 
 My Autumn note goes forth alone : 
 
 The thrush's song is over ; 
 The blackbird's clear and mellow tone 
 Is silent in the covert. 
 My kinsman lark on quivering wings 
 To the cold morn no carol sings ; 
 The warblers all, a fickle band, 
 Have flown to seek a warmer land.
 
 THE WOODLARK. 39 
 
 III. 
 
 Time-servers they ! when fading fast 
 
 They saw the year declining ; 
 When Summer's golden prime was past, 
 His sun no longer shining ; 
 Like friends untrue in griefs dark day, 
 On faithless wing they flew away, 
 Far from the gloom of wintry hours, 
 From scenes all stript of leaves and flowers. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Learn thou in this, my child, to see 
 
 The type of days before thee ; 
 When the leaves fall from life's brief tree, 
 And gloomier scenes come o'er thee. 
 When o'er thy head the hand of time 
 Sheds, like the frost, its hoary rime, 
 And darkly on the wintry ground. 
 You see the shadows closing round.
 
 40 THE WOODLARK. 
 
 V. 
 
 For thus will fade the season bright, 
 
 Thy early prime adorning, 
 And youth no more with golden light 
 Send forth her sunny morning. 
 Thus will each voice of thoughtless mirth, 
 From kindred bosoms ringing forth, 
 Die one by one away, and none 
 Will sing beneath that wintry sun. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Many a lip no more will move, 
 
 That now would fondly press thee ; 
 Still will be many a voice of love, 
 Whose welcome tones caress thee. 
 Thrice happy then, if in thine ear 
 One voice shall tell in accents clear, 
 Of brighter Summers yet to come, 
 When all the gloomy Winter's gone.
 
 THE WOODLARK. 41 
 
 VII. 
 
 Tho' earth look dark and cold, that voice 
 
 Will still be sweetly singing, 
 And make the chilly heart rejoice 
 With notes of comfort ringing. 
 Amid the dying scene around, 
 That voice, like mine, will clearer sound ; 
 And sweeter far its heavenly tone. 
 Because it sings in silence and alone.
 
 / 
 
 Though we have placed this after the woodlark, 
 there are few amons all our British songsters to 
 whom he ought to yield precedence. Every one 
 has felt the exhilarating influence of his song in 
 the fresh healthy mornings of Spring. He is heard 
 far up among the clouds, and at last detected by 
 the eye as a little black spot wheeling round and 
 round, and then with prolonged cadences falling 
 as a stone, only finishing his song when he rejoins 
 his mate. The most marked feature of his song 
 is an unrestrained joy fulness, as if the little heart 
 within could not restrain itself in its ecstasy, but 
 broke out from its abundance in that expression of 
 its gladness. There is nothing sad and pensive, 
 but all in unison with the fresh and smilincp face of 
 
 C5 
 
 nature around. The morning sun, the green pas- 
 tures, the fresh soft wind, the opening buds and
 
 THE SKYLARK. 43 
 
 bursting leaves, seem one and all to find expres- 
 sion in that song of joy. He does not, like the 
 woodlark, sing in the still mornings of Autumn, 
 or in the cold days of Winter ; and if he did, we 
 should feel that his song was out of place ; that it 
 did not accord with the calm and sad face of na- 
 ture around ; and that as there is a time for every 
 thing, so that is not the time for the skylark's 
 song. At such seasons, indeed, he seems to have 
 changed his habits, and goes roaming from field 
 to field with a whole host of companions, never 
 knowing what it is to be a day alone — living in a 
 state of dissipation, which we are surprised to see 
 him shake off so readily on the return of Spring. 
 He is a larger and bolder looking bird than the 
 woodlark, with a crest that gives much character 
 to his appearance. When he begins his song, he 
 wheels round and round in a spiral flight, and as- 
 cends to a height which no other of our common 
 birds, save the kite, the raven, and the rook, ever 
 aspire to attain. What leads him there, what idea 
 carries those small wings fluttering up almost be- 
 yond our ken, why he seems to rejoice in that thin
 
 44 THE SKYLARK. 
 
 air, and to wet his plumes in the damp vapour of 
 those passing clouds, is a problem which the bird 
 himself, perhaps, would find difficulty in solving. 
 But it were good for us if we could follow him, 
 and thus spring in the morning above our earthly 
 cares and entanglements, to soar in spirit nearer to 
 God, and look closer into the things of the world 
 to come. As he soars bodily on his wings, so 
 should we soar in spirit, ascending in faith and 
 prayer. And when we really do so, such will be 
 the holy joy of that communion, that we, like him, 
 shall break forth into thanksgiving, singing to our- 
 selves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, 
 and making melody in our hearts. Like many an 
 humble spirit here, though he soar so high, so far 
 above the flight of common birds, his nest is lowly, 
 his home upon the very ground ; a few bents and 
 straws plaited simply together form the artless nest. 
 There he leaves his mate, and soaring up into the 
 very clouds, tells her from thence that he is happy 
 in his love ; and then comes down with a voice of 
 joy, full of the fresh pure air that he has breathed. 
 Emblem meet of the true Christian spirit ; which,
 
 though it soar so high, returns to the enjoyment 
 of its pure home beneath ! Just as the magpie, who 
 builds his nest on the tallest tree, and never wings 
 his flight above it, is an emblem of the children 
 of the world, whose hearts never rise above the 
 few fragile sticks they have put together here on 
 earth. 
 
 Happy, apparently, must be the existence of this 
 little lively bird. Isaac says, when blessing his son, 
 " Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a 
 field which the Lord hath blessed." And this 
 bird's life is spent amid the freshness of the earth, 
 breathing all the sweet perfume of the land which 
 the Lord hath blessed. But every earthly happi- 
 ness has its drawback. Its mode of life exposes 
 it to the attacks of those small hawks which are 
 quick of sight and fast of wing. Oftentimes it is 
 snatched, as in a moment, from beneath the shel- 
 tering clod, borne away in the sharp talons of the 
 sparrow-hawk, or pursued, when on the wing, by 
 the quick and active merlin. It may often be 
 seen turning and struggling, sinking and rising, for 
 its life, with all the desperate energy with which
 
 46 THE SKYLARK. 
 
 the hare tries to elude the grasp of the greyhound 
 close upon her haunches. But such is the course 
 of that inscrutable Providence that directs all 
 things here below. All life has its dangers and 
 its death, every happiness its alloy ; and we, of 
 all God's creatures, as being the most guilty, have 
 least reason to hope for exemption. Danger gives 
 to the bird wariness and circumspection. We, too, 
 are in danger, and it should make us walk circum- 
 spectly ; for there is one hovering like a hawk 
 above us, and prepared to take advantage of any 
 exposure that we may in our thoughtlessness 
 make. A few steps from our shelter, a moment's 
 exposure in the open and broad path of sin, and 
 he will pounce upon us, and we are lost. There- 
 fore says our Lord to his disciples, " What I say 
 unto you, I say unto all, Watch ! " 
 
 I. 
 Merrily, merrily shines the morn 
 
 Through the white clouds floating by,
 
 THE SKYLARK. 
 
 As they pass, on fleecy pinions borne, 
 Across the soft blue sky. 
 From earth I start. 
 With merry heart. 
 The new-born day to greet ; 
 And wheeling roimd on joyous wing, 
 All gladly to the morning sing 
 My carol sweet. 
 
 II. 
 
 When from the spangled earth I sprung, 
 
 Each drop of crystal dew 
 That on my speckled bosom hung, 
 Off to the winds I threw. 
 I started forth. 
 With nought of earth 
 To stay my upward path ; 
 Singing my merry song on high, 
 While mate and nest forsaken lie 
 Far down beneath.
 
 48 THE SKYLARK. 
 
 III. 
 
 'Tis here I draw a purer air ; 
 
 The winds that breathe around, 
 No taint on their pure pinions bear, 
 Of earth's corrupted ground. 
 Awhile I soar, 
 Like spirit pure 
 Ascending to its rest, 
 Breathe the sweet air of Heaven above ; 
 Then downward go in joy and love, 
 Back to my nest. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Oh ! do thou thus, my child ! when first 
 
 The dark dull night gone by, 
 The day-beams through the lattice burst 
 On thy awakening eye, 
 Let thy soul rise 
 Up to the skies 
 On the strong wings of prayer ! 
 Up towards that Sun of glory press. 
 Whose beams of spotless righteousness 
 Are shining there.
 
 THE SKYLARK. 49 
 
 V. 
 
 Off from thy soaring spirit throw 
 Each thought and feehng light ; 
 God's grace woukl hft thee from below 
 Up to the heaven's height. 
 Let thy mind's eye, 
 Turned to the sky, 
 No earthly object see ; 
 Thy errand is with Him alone. 
 Who now before the eternal throne 
 Would plead for thee. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Dear though they be, oh ! think not now, 
 
 When deeper love's before thee. 
 Of that pure mother's saint-like brow 
 So fondly bending o'er thee. 
 Forget awhile 
 Thy sister's smile. 
 Thy brother's simple love ; 
 These are but tiny streams, oh ! go 
 To that deep well from whence they flow. 
 Springing above.
 
 50 THE SKYLARK. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Cast from thy mind each earthly thing, 
 
 Though pure as morning dew ; 
 Thy soul must with unfetter'd wing 
 Its heavenward path pursue ; 
 Draw the pure air 
 That's breathing there, 
 Free from all taint of sin ; 
 Then fresh from that pure presence show, 
 In all thy converse here below, 
 Where thou hast been. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Oh ! let thy soul thus daily make 
 
 Towards heaven its upward way ; 
 'Twill then at last rejoicing break 
 Its prison-house of clay : 
 Towards heaven soar 
 To fall no more ; 
 And with the angel throng, 
 Borne up on its eternal wing, 
 Before the Lamb for ever sing 
 Its deathless song. 
 
 I
 
 This little songster belongs to another tribe, nearly 
 allied to the former, but armed with a stronger 
 bill, for the pvn-pose of shelling seeds, but with a 
 far less powerful voice. Of all these, the chaffinch 
 is the most common and familiar. He is a gay 
 little bird, with his tinted plumage of buff and blue 
 and green, though not graced with much elegance 
 of shape. He carries a crest which, when raised, 
 considerably relieves the flat and compressed form 
 of his head. 
 
 Like the skylark, he is fond of company during 
 the Autumnal and Winter months, but is peculiar 
 in avoiding altogether the society of his mate, 
 which has been the origin of the specific name 
 given to him. A formal separation takes place 
 between them previous to Winter, after which 
 they are generally found in distinct flocks. It is 
 difficult to account for the large proportion of the 
 females to the males at this period, unless the 
 
 E 2
 
 females migrate to us from countries where the 
 males remain. This disproportion vanishes on 
 the return of Spring, and then every female 
 seems to have found a mate. There is a sad 
 contentious spirit among these little birds, and 
 tliey fight most furiously for their ladies' love. 
 With the exception of the robins, whose combats 
 take place at another season of the year, there 
 is no little bird that fights with so much courage 
 and obstinacy. He contends long and boldly for 
 the lady of his choice, though it be only to cast 
 her off when the Summer is ended. This is a 
 hard method of proceeding ; and his song seems 
 to partake of his iron and wiry nature. It is 
 cheerful, and seems to speak of happiness and 
 enjoyment ; but there is little melody, and no 
 softness in it. We must not, however, look 
 with a too censorious eye upon him : he is a 
 familiar visitor, and does what he can to enliven 
 the scene with his oft-repeated song and quick 
 and lively motions. 
 
 His nest is built within reach ; and being made 
 early, is generally that in which we first learn to
 
 THE CHAFFINCH. 5:i 
 
 wonder at the ingenuity of the feathered tribe in 
 the art of building. It is neatly and strongly put 
 together ; the fibres beautifully interwoven, and 
 the lining made warm and soft for the pretty dark- 
 spotted eggs that are to be laid in it. When wit- 
 nessing the anxious attention of the male bird 
 during the period of incubation, we could scarcely 
 suspect him of the cold-hearted inconstancy which 
 he afterwards exhibits. It would seem as if, when 
 seeing his delicate mate sitting so close day after 
 day, ruffling her plumage, and wearing her strength, 
 he then begins to value her constancy and affection, 
 though, alas ! it is but the passing feeling of a mo- 
 ment. The brood is reared, and he forsakes her. 
 We can hardly feel surprised at the affection the 
 bird now shows to his mate. What is more beau- 
 tiful than the quiet, patient expectation of the bird 
 upon her nest ! How perseveringly she goes on day 
 after day in what might appear to us the same wea- 
 risome and monotonous task ! But it is neither to 
 her. She thinks of the callow brood that will burst 
 from the eggs she is warming, of the joy of feeding 
 and cherishing them, of seeing them grow stronger
 
 54 THE CHAFFINCH. 
 
 and larger every day, and at length flying away to 
 enjoy the range of air and earth that is given to 
 them. She looks not at the present, but to the 
 future, and goes through all her weary work in 
 the hope of things unseen ; teaching us lessons of 
 faith and endurance, bidding us not to grow weary 
 in well doing because we do not at once see the 
 fruit of our labour. The poor bird seems to re- 
 peat in our ears that consolatory warning, which 
 says, " In your patience possess ye your souls." 
 The Christian's task, like the bird's, would be weary 
 indeed if not performed in hope. He, like her, is 
 to go on day after day in the patient expectation of 
 things unseen ; and he has a blessed promise, that 
 his labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Thus 
 when you find the chaffinch on her nest, amid the 
 glossy leaves of the ivy, when you catch her quiet 
 eye as she sits so patiently, going through her ap- 
 pointed task in the happiness of hope and antici- 
 pation, take courage to go on with yours in the 
 same enduring spirit, with the same happy feeling 
 of calm expectation, showing the same diligence to 
 the full assurance of hope unto the end.
 
 THE CHAFFINCH. 55 
 
 ^ong: of tfie CijafSnrjb. 
 
 The Spring is come ! the soft sweet air 
 
 I feel is breathing o'er me, 
 And buds of trees and flowers fair 
 
 Are opening fast before me. 
 Now is the time of hope ; each ray, 
 
 Its warmth around us throwing. 
 Gives promise of a brighter day. 
 
 In richer beauty glowing. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Spring is come ! j'^et gales will blow 
 
 More softly through our bowers. 
 And opening buds will soon, we know. 
 
 Give place to blooming flowers. 
 When each fair pledge fulfilled, the Spring, 
 
 Like twilight's early dawning. 
 That melts to-day, at length shall bring 
 
 The glorious Summer morning.
 
 56 THE CHAFFINCH. 
 
 III. 
 
 And thus our nest in hope we've made, 
 
 To naked twigs have bound it, 
 For soon, we know, the leaves will braid 
 
 Their shining tresses round it. 
 In each green bud we see the sign 
 
 Of Summer's glorious weather. 
 When flower and leaf around us twine 
 
 Their clustering wreaths together. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Hath the Spring come to thee, my child, 
 
 Its soft breath o'er thee blowing ? 
 And truth burst forth with radiance mild, 
 
 Its sunshine o'er thee throwing ? 
 Then be thou glad ! the heart's cold earth 
 
 Feels the reviving power ; 
 And every bud that faith puts forth, 
 
 Speaks of a brighter hour.
 
 THE CHAFFINCH. 57 
 
 V. 
 
 Each grace that springs beneath the sun 
 
 Of that warm truth, is given 
 A pledge of better things to come, 
 
 A Summer all in heaven. 
 That soft pure breath of better lands 
 
 A token true is breathing, 
 Where now for thee angelic hands 
 
 A deathless crown are weaving. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The true vine's stem may naked seem, 
 
 No beauty makes thee love it ; 
 But build thou there ! the Summer green 
 
 Of ripened joy shall prove it. 
 Though cold its shelter now appear, 
 
 'Twill shade from him that hates thee. 
 And softly wave its branches fair 
 
 And fadeless foliage round thee, where 
 Eternal Summer waits thee.
 
 Cfje (6olt)fincf)- 
 
 This is a very different bird from the one that 
 precedes it, both in its appearance and habits. Its 
 colours are much gayer, its phimage more deli- 
 cate, and it has a fair claim to be ranked amongst 
 the most beautiful of our British birds. Like 
 other beautiful things, it is not so common as those 
 of ordinary attractions ; still it is with us a nume- 
 rous tribe, readily found all the year round in 
 search of its varied food, which it gathers either 
 from the cones of some tall tree, or from the hum- 
 ble thistle that grows upon the ground. All its 
 motions seem to bespeak a merry heart, and a life 
 of simple enjoyment ; and though adorned in gayer 
 clothing, it seems as happy and contented as those 
 of humbler plumage. This we know is not always 
 the case with us ; fine clothes too often hang over 
 heavy hearts, and many a bitter pang lies hidden 
 under all the panoply of gay attire. And it will 
 be always so, when the outward adorning of the
 
 THE GOLDFINCH. 59 
 
 poor perishing body is sought after, rather than 
 that of the hidden man of the heart. 
 
 The goldfinch seems to take little pride in all 
 its gay and shining colours ; and to care in its 
 food for nothing more than the humble thistle- 
 down and groundsel. We could even fancy, that 
 if it were told of the more gaudy humming-birds 
 winging their flight under the burning sun of the 
 tropics, shining in their gorgeous plumage, and 
 drinking honey with their long delicate bills from 
 the flowers that spring in wild luxuriance round 
 them, the little goldfinch would be quite content to 
 remain as he is. The climate is fresh and bracing 
 to him ; all the year round his food is supplied ; 
 and he is looking forward to the Spring, when he 
 and his mate will resort to the well-known tree, 
 to bring up another little family, which he is again 
 to lead to the accustomed haunts, to spend a 
 social winter with them amid the alders and the 
 thistle-down. For the family does not break up 
 and separate, as in the case of many other birds, 
 when the offspring is released from its dependence. 
 On the contrary, they seem bound together by
 
 60 THE GOLDFINCH. 
 
 stronger ties than those of mere necessity ; old and 
 young go forth together, united by ties of family 
 love and affection, that are only dissolved when 
 another family is in contemplation, and the young 
 themselves are about to exercise upon another 
 generation that watchful care and attention so 
 abundantly bestowed on themselves. 
 
 How many heart-stirring recollections of former 
 years, of family affections, domestic ties, now, 
 perhaps, long since dissolved by death and the 
 grave, do these little birds suggest to us, as we 
 see them flying and feeding together in families ; 
 holding together through the fruitful Autumn and 
 the dreary Winter ; in plenty and in scarceness, 
 in sunshine and in storm ; always happy in their 
 union and intercourse ! Yet there is no bond 
 there to bind them, save that of mutual love and 
 confidence, and the consciousness of safety in 
 their union. How weak an emblem ought they to 
 be of a Christian family, bound together not only 
 by the sweet ties of domestic love, but in the 
 higher and holier relationship of the children of 
 God!
 
 THE GOLDFINCH. 61 
 
 These may be separated in their allotted spheres 
 of duty, by a separation of sight and space, but 
 never ought there to be one of mutual interest and 
 affection — neither life nor death, nor time nor 
 space, should separate them from the love of God 
 and of each other. If the sister forget the brother, 
 or the brother the sister, and they become strangers 
 in heart and confidence, though not in outward re- 
 cognitions, that was no Christian home that reared 
 them, or if it was, they have sadly neglected the 
 privileges of the holy roof that sheltered them. 
 
 When again we see these little families keeping 
 close together, separated from the many birds that 
 range the fields around them, we see a simple yet 
 speaking emblem of God's true Church, the com- 
 pany of faithful and elect children, bound together 
 in the midst of an evil world by the unseen ties of 
 Christian communion ; separate it may be, here on 
 earth, yet all one in Christ ; ranging the same 
 green pastures, feeding on the same heavenly food, 
 and kept together by the one well-known voice. 
 
 But our little favourite songster is clever, as 
 well as affectionate and domestic. He is very
 
 62 THE GOLDFINCH. 
 
 particular in tlie choice of a spot for his nest, and 
 he, or rather she, is neat and artful above most 
 others in the construction of it. The pair seem to 
 have profited by the accumulated experience of 
 former generations, and to know that little boys' 
 hands and eyes are great disturbers of the process 
 of sitting and rearing ; that cats are fond of the 
 helpless and callow young ; and they choose as 
 the site of their projected building the extremity 
 oftentimes of a hanging branch at some distance 
 from the grovmd, where if the boy's inquisitive 
 eye detect it, much labour and peril will be en- 
 countered in reaching it, and where the cat can 
 scarcely come to look for it. It is neatly and 
 beautifully constructed of moss and fibres, made 
 soft and warm within, and showing a roundness 
 and compactness of structure that declare the 
 ability of the architect. The parents then work 
 hard to bring up their young in health and strength 
 and safety, never seeming to forget, though they 
 wear fine clothes, and meet with much admiration 
 wherever they go, that they have domestic duties 
 claiming attention before all enjoyments abroad.
 
 But the goldfinch, like other clever people, is 
 apt to be imposed upon. Like the vvoodlark, he 
 is caught by a traitor voice alluring him to the 
 trap that is to rob him of all his liberty. And as 
 he is a sagacious little bird, and becomes amusing 
 in his confinement, this makes him a favourite for 
 the cage, in addition to his other attractions in 
 song and plumage. The song, though not power- 
 ful, is soft and expressive. We may be sure when 
 we hear it that Spring is come ; and he who 
 knows it well, will never fail to recall, when he 
 hears it even amidst the smoke and the dirt of a 
 crowded city, the bursting leaves and the scented 
 scenes with which it is associated. So far, perhaps, 
 we should learn to treat leniently the selfishness of 
 those who keep him prisoner. He would not sing 
 were he not happy ; and that song recalls to the 
 equally imprisoned artisan, the green lanes, the 
 scented hedges, the cowslip banks, and the wild 
 copses with their varied carpet of blue and white ; 
 scenes of early and happy days, from which he 
 now is banished to rows of blackened brick, and 
 to an atmosphere of smoke.
 
 64 THE GOLDFINCH. 
 
 Bon^ of ti}t (GoVoUndj. 
 
 I. 
 
 I SING to my mate on her mossy nest 
 
 Beneath the chesnut spray ; 
 And I strive to gladden her anxious breast 
 With my merry and simple lay. 
 For she feels no fear 
 When I am near. 
 And oh ! as each soothing note I try, 
 How soft is the glance of her hazel eye. 
 
 II. 
 
 And I sing to Him, in my thankful mirth, 
 
 Who blest me with life and voice. 
 And sent me to fly o'er the teeming earth, 
 And in its fruits rejoice. 
 
 Whose hand is nigh 
 Where'er I fly, 
 Holding me up, as the pinion light 
 Beats the soft air in its feeble flight.
 
 THE GOLDFINCH. 05 
 
 III. 
 
 In the warm nest, as I naked lay, 
 
 He clothed my callow breast. 
 And in a cap of scarlet gay 
 My downy cheeks He drest. 
 On my wings he roll'd 
 A bar of gold, 
 And sent me to show, when all was done. 
 My glittering vest in his Summer sun. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I fled far and wide, rejoicing and free. 
 
 With my food all scattered round, 
 From the seed that grows on the lofty tree 
 To the weed upon the ground. 
 For the tall fir's cone, 
 And the thistledown. 
 And the groundsel mean, with its feathered seed. 
 All wait in their turn to supply my need.
 
 (36 THE GOLDFINCH. 
 
 Thus merry within the chesnut grove 
 
 To Him my voice I raise ; 
 And full in the depth of its thankful love 
 My heart bursts forth in praise. 
 Through the dark night 
 I am in his sight ; 
 And all day long his love's display'd 
 O'er the poor little bird his hand has made. 
 
 VI. 
 
 There is one too that watches for thee, my child, 
 
 As stretch'd in sleep you lie ; 
 And follows by day your motions wild 
 With love's vmwearied eye. 
 Oh ! soothe her care ; 
 For a daily prayer 
 Goes up from that anxious mother's breast, 
 That thou, the child of her love, be blest.
 
 THE GOLDFINCH. 67 
 
 VII. 
 
 And oh ! there is One that dwells above, 
 
 Beyond all sight and thought, 
 Who gave to that mother her ceaseless love. 
 And in her bosom wrought 
 An image true, 
 Where thou mayest view 
 The type of a love no time can strain. 
 Clasping thee round with a viewless chain. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 With love far stronger than mothers know. 
 
 Child of a fallen race. 
 Like a callow bird He would bind thee now 
 In the garments of his grace. 
 Upon thy breast 
 Faith's mailed vest 
 His hand would bind, and around thy waist 
 With the girdle of truth He would have thee braced. 
 
 f2
 
 68 THE GOLDFINCH. 
 
 IX. 
 
 He would on thy head a helmet set, 
 Than brass and steel more strong, 
 The hope of the cross in his life-blood wet, 
 Salvation sure and long. 
 
 On the pinions bright 
 Of his Spirit's might 
 He would bear thee up, that thou mayest fly 
 To the home He hath promised beyond the sky. 
 
 X. 
 
 Thy meat it must be his will to do. 
 
 And lowly though it be, 
 'Tis sweeter far than the fruits that grow 
 On pleasure's tallest tree. 
 For oh ! what meat 
 Is half so sweet 
 As the savour of life in a lowly breast. 
 Filling the heart with its lasting feast ?
 
 etc Einnft. 
 
 The linnet is one of several species very closely 
 allied, which are often confounded together, as being 
 so much alike in their habits and appearance. Its 
 name is derived most probably from that fondness 
 for the seeds of the flax which gives the specific 
 name to another species. The bird-catchers, who 
 know well the habits and the plumage of these 
 different species, and who seldom trouble them- 
 selves about learned names and scientific distinc- 
 tions, call the linnets and the red-poles by the 
 different names of brown, and red, and gorse 
 linnets ; and will tell you at once which are the 
 best songsters, and which the strongest and hardiest 
 birds. But although every one is familiar with 
 the name of linnet, it is not a bird rendered 
 very familiar to us by any very close inspection. 
 During the breeding season, when perchance it
 
 may build in some thick shrub in our gardens, it 
 may often be seen close ; or in our wandering over 
 wild commons, and amid the blooming furze, we 
 may see it with its restless joyous look flying from 
 bush to bush ; while at other times, though we 
 hear and see it, we are not near enough to distin- 
 guish clearly its colours and plumage. It is a bird 
 continually on the move ; or if it stay for a mo- 
 ment to gather its companions, it is on the higher 
 branches of some tall tree, from whence it sends 
 its clear and loud call. 
 
 In the Autumn and Winter it assembles in flocks, 
 and when they settle on a tree, they generally 
 choose its loftiest branches. We may often hear 
 them, in the closing evening of a Winter's day, 
 chirping to each other on the lofty branches of some 
 tall ash or elm. They seem all happy and con- 
 tented though their fare may have been somewhat 
 spare, and the weather cold and rough. They are 
 pluming their wings in readiness for the morrow's 
 flight, and full of hope and thankfulness, break out 
 into one simultaneous burst of song. The tree 
 seems alive with sound, and all its branches vocal.
 
 THE LINNET. 71 
 
 We turn and wonder from whence such unexpected 
 music comes ; and think it strange that it should 
 now be ringing forth from so many happy throats 
 on the edge of a long gloomy night, and at the 
 close of the short and bleak Winter's day. We, 
 indeed, like them, are often happy in our social 
 enjoyments in the Winter's evening ; but then it is 
 by the bright cheerful fire, in the midst of warmth 
 and plenty. But oh ! it requires a close walk 
 with God to feel happy and confident in the dark 
 winter of our earthly trials ; when periods of 
 trouble are long, and the days of joy are short; 
 when we have difficulty and straitness to contend 
 with. 
 
 But these little birds seem to understand (to 
 our shame be it spoken) better than we do, the 
 comfort of a simple dependence upon the hand 
 that feeds them ; giving us a practical comment 
 on the words of Peter, " Cast all your care upon 
 Him, for He careth for you." They, indeed, 
 have not to sow or reap, they have neither store- 
 house nor barn, and well may they feel that 
 " sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." But
 
 72 THE LINNET. 
 
 when we have done what we may, and have 
 taken those precautionary measures ordained by 
 God as the method of our support, then we and 
 the birds are brought to an equality ; from that 
 point absohite dependence begins. Having done 
 all we can, we must leave the rest in humble 
 confidence to God ; and with no useless anticipa- 
 tions of coming evil, resigning ourselves to his 
 wise providence, feel that " sufficient unto the day 
 is the evil thereof." 
 
 But again, how delightful are the Summer haunts 
 of the linnet ! We no longer see it in the tall 
 trees in flocks, but in happy pairs on some wild 
 common, by a lonely stream, amid the blooming 
 furze, rejoicing, as it would seem, in the sight of its 
 golden tresses, and in the orange-like scent of its 
 thousand blossoms. When we see the gypsies 
 encamping in some wild lane, with a clear bright 
 stream beside them, apart from roofs and walls 
 and all the artificial preparations of civilized man, 
 enjoying the wild scenery, the fresh dews, and the 
 fresh air, without any of the intervening obstacles 
 of artificial life, we often feel tempted to wish
 
 THE LINNET. 73 
 
 that we could do the same, and long that we 
 could thus lie close to nature and scenes like 
 these, with no walls or doors standing between us 
 and them. And with the same feeling, when far 
 away from the haunts of men, from the cultivated 
 fields and the trodden paths of human life, we 
 meet with this lively, happy little bird in his 
 Summer haunts, nestling in the furze, and feeding 
 on seeds sought in vain on more cultivated spots, 
 we could almost wish to spend the summer with 
 him. As that season of happy retirement arrives, 
 he changes his plumage : the garb of quiet brown 
 gives place to a rose-coloured doublet, and a 
 head-dress of crimson. So great, indeed, is the 
 change, that those who have seen him only in his 
 sober Winter apparel, have not recognized him in 
 his summer dress, and thus confusion has ensued, 
 making two distinct species of what is one and 
 the same. But he is happy in both : if he sings 
 merrily among the furze in the bright evenings of 
 Summer, so does he also amid the naked branches 
 of some tall tree in the grey cold evening of 
 Winter. Happy type of a contented spirit, that
 
 74 THE LINNET. 
 
 knows how to be abased and how to abound, and 
 in all circumstances and changes is ever making 
 melody in its heart, and looking in simple 
 confidence unto God : the spirit which is at 
 liberty, and no longer tied and bound, flies to 
 its sure refuge and resting-place. There can be 
 none of this where the heart is yet in captivity, 
 and kept back from God and from the confidence 
 of his love. Even as the linnet will not sins in 
 captivity to the closing Winter's evening, nor in 
 Summer put on its new and gay apparel. The 
 Spring blows, with its fresh and genial breezes, 
 through the bars, the Summer shines through them 
 in its warmth ; but the linnet is a prisoner, and 
 his plumage does not change. If the warm 
 light of God's truth and love is shining upon us, 
 and no change is visible within us — no putting off 
 old and putting on new — then we may be assured 
 our hearts are in captivity also. It is the free bird 
 alone that can thus put on its gayer and brighter 
 plumage : it is the freed soul alone that can put 
 on its glorious apparel in a change from sin to 
 holiness. The linnet would seem to tell us this.
 
 THE LINNET. 75 
 
 when he refuses in the midst of the shining Sum- 
 mer to change his plumage, because he is in cap- 
 tivity. 
 
 ^ong of tl)t Einiut. 
 
 Why sits my gentle mate upon her nest, 
 With thoughtful eye 
 And ruffled breast. 
 And outspread wings that still refuse to fly ? 
 The wind blows soft, the sky is fair, 
 Why sits my gentle mate so closely there ? 
 
 II. 
 
 The morning breaking through the eastern cloud. 
 The soft, warm shower. 
 The chorus loud 
 Of happy songsters singing through the bower. 
 Are each in vain ; they cannot make 
 The constant bird her precious eggs forsake.
 
 76 THE LINNET. 
 
 III. 
 
 Or if a moment from the nest she fly 
 Abroad to roam, 
 With restless eye, 
 And fluttering wing, she seems to long for home ; 
 As if her spirit knew no rest, 
 No joy or peace, but in the treasured nest. 
 
 IV. 
 
 She sits in hope : trusting the germs of life 
 Beneath her laid, 
 With being rife. 
 Shall soon come forth in callow garb arrayed, 
 (The frail walls of their prison riven,) 
 To taste the joyous life her care hath given. 
 
 V. 
 
 She sits in faith of things as yet unseen. 
 Yet in full trust 
 The shelly screen 
 Will one day break and crumble into dust : 
 And all along faith's whispers tell 
 Of living things beneath the senseless shell.
 
 THE LINNET. ^^ 
 
 VI. 
 
 Thus in his patience must the Christian keep 
 His watchful soul ; 
 With caution deep 
 Each worldly thought, each wandering wish control ; 
 Nor let the heart contented roam 
 Far from the nest, which is the spirit's home. 
 
 VII. 
 
 He, too, must wait in faith of things beyond 
 Our dying sphere, 
 And never found 
 By mortal eye, or heard with mortal ear ; 
 Yet heard by faith, and oft between 
 The grave's dark gates by heavenlit vision seen. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 He sees with eyes that through the future reach. 
 In faith's bright glass, 
 From opening breach 
 Of rended flesh the winged spirit pass ; 
 And as the crumbling body dies. 
 Forth from its shell the unfettered soul arise.
 
 78 THE LINNET. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Shall he not wait ? this worldly firmament 
 Is but a shell, 
 Which one day rent, 
 Shall pass away, as sacred pages tell : 
 
 And thence shall come new worlds, wherein 
 No death shall reign, because they know no sin.
 
 Every one is well acquainted with the lively little 
 wren ; she never leaves us ; and like the robin, 
 seems to place confidence in our kindness. The 
 form of this little favourite is peculiarly neat and 
 compact ; and its finely grained plumage of rich 
 brown adds to its attractions. Its lively motions, 
 its bright eye, the short round body, the fine head 
 and long slender bill, and the erect tail, all contri- 
 bute to make us like to see it. She sometimes, 
 indeed, pretends to be coy, and rather sparing of 
 exhibiting herself; but as she cannot rest long 
 together any where, if she runs from our sight 
 under the bushes for one moment, she appears 
 again the next ; and we can seldom go into the 
 garden without having an interview. 
 
 She is very fond of warmth, though she appears 
 to endure cheerfully the rigours of our Winter. 
 Like the robin, she is often found imprisoned in 
 our rooms, where she has come to ensure the lux- 
 ury of a warmer atmosphere. In the night, too, 
 she is careful of herself, and does not expose her-
 
 self vmnecessarily. She finds some warm comer, 
 where, with one or two companions, she contrives 
 to evade the cold, though the snow be lying on the 
 ground without, and the water coated with ice. A 
 small apartment made in the walls of a haystack, 
 or under the eaves of a thatched building, or in the 
 building itself, where the warm breath of the ani- 
 mals within has increased the temperature, are all 
 places that serve its purpose of shelter. And thus, 
 though a tender, delicate looking bird, apparently 
 little able to encounter the cold and storms of 
 Winter, she contrives, by good sense and pru- 
 dence, to get through it in comfort, while many 
 a hardier looking bird perishes in the severity of 
 the season. How much danger is escaped by a 
 little forethought and watchfulness ! How many 
 fall under the strength of temptations, to which 
 their own rash thoughtlessness has exposed them ! 
 God has provided a shelter for the bird ; and has 
 He not also for us, even a sure refuge to all that 
 seek Him ? 
 
 We sometimes hear it said of people who 
 are always looking to the worst side of things,
 
 and giving fearful interpretations even to the most 
 indifferent movements, that they are great alarm- 
 ists. Our little favourite is, then, a great alarmist. 
 If the cat walk out for a moment to enjoy the sun- 
 shine, the wren immediately raises a cry of alarm, 
 and in bitter language accuses her of every evil 
 intention. If, again, the unwary owl expose his 
 night-worn visage to the light of day, beneath the 
 cover of some friendly ivy-bush or branching fir, 
 she is ever the first to raise that din of calumny and 
 invective, with which a noisy party of small birds 
 delight to assail the owl. If she does it upon prin- 
 ciple, it is an act, apparently, of great disinterest- 
 edness ; for the owl, sweeping noiselessly by, may 
 sometimes break the slumbers of a poor bird upon 
 its roost by tlie glare of its large eye, and the pres- 
 sure of its sharp talons, and carry the unwary 
 sleeper to sleep his last sleep in the stomach of its 
 hissing young ; but the wren, who either sleeps in 
 its nest, or in some close corner where no foot or 
 beak of owl can reach it, can scarcely ever herself 
 be the victim. But there is some sad secret in the 
 owl's history which we do not know, which no 
 
 G
 
 82 THE WREN. 
 
 bird has yet divulged to us ; and which seems to 
 have made him an outcast from the society of the 
 birds of day. He is branded with perpetual in- 
 famy. Deeds of blood and darkness, of midnight 
 murder and rapine, done when nought else was 
 stirring but the hollow gusts of the night wind, 
 and the gentle rustling of the velvet plumage that 
 sailed so insidiously upon it ; something of this 
 sort has been detected, and proclaimed in the ears 
 of the feathered race ; and they have with one 
 voice proclaimed him outlaw. The hawk may 
 be more dreaded, but he cannot be more hated 
 than the owl. 
 
 But to return to our subject. When we look on 
 the vast piles of architecture man's feeble hands 
 have raised, exhibiting in their beauty of design 
 and stability of structure such a wonderful combi- 
 nation of taste and science, we wonder at the pro- 
 gress of the human mind. In the domes and the 
 pagodas of eastern architecture we still trace the 
 first idea — the simple tent which formed the habi- 
 tations of the nomadic tribes. In the high and 
 pointed roofs, and the branching groin work of
 
 THE WREN. 83 
 
 the western, we trace again the first idea in the 
 wooden houses of a race living on the confines of 
 mighty forests. Yet what a stretch from the shep- 
 herd's tent to the church of St. Sophia ; what from 
 the rude cabin of the Germanic hordes to the 
 cathedral of Cologne ! Here has been a gradual 
 development. While, on the other hand, the nest 
 of our little architect, the wren, betrays its divine 
 designer in the immediate perfection of the struc- 
 ture for the purposes for which it is intended ; 
 needing no successive developments supplied by 
 the experience and increasing science of generation 
 after generation, but attained at once. The first 
 pair that built their nest from the fresh grown 
 moss God's own hands had planted, built it, no 
 doubt, as we see their posterity building theirs 
 now. And how beautifully is it adapted for the 
 purposes of the little architect, untaught, save of 
 God, who builds it for herself! She does not wish 
 that every passing eye should pry into it. She 
 would bring up her little family in retirement and 
 seclusion ; and thus, wherever she places her nest, 
 she forms it of materials similar to the ground- 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE WREN. 
 
 work. This indeed, it may be said, may be occa- 
 sioned by the simple circumstance of these mate- 
 rials being close at hand ; but other materials 
 must, in most cases, be equally within reach ; and 
 yet she chooses those that, being similar to the 
 ground-work, will make her nest less liable to 
 detection. The nest is formed with a dome over 
 it, with a small hole for admission, warmly lined 
 with down and feathers. If on a mossy bank, 
 moss will be the material ; if on a lichen-covered 
 branch, it will have an external coating of lichens; 
 and beautiful and small are the eggs she lays within 
 it. The same heaven-taught instinct that made 
 her architecture so perfect, has breathed into her 
 little heart the love that applies it to the safety 
 of its offspring. And what are all God's gifts of 
 light and grace to us unless applied to the purposes 
 of mutual edification and support? The little bird 
 labours over its nest, weaves the slender materials 
 into form, with love as its instinct and object; the 
 Christian adds gift upon gift, and one Christian 
 grace to another ; but love is the principle and pur- 
 pose of all ; in either it is the fulfilling of the law.
 
 THE WREN. 85 
 
 ^onj of tijt Wivtn. 
 
 I. 
 
 With stones high wrought in sculptured pride, 
 
 From marble quarries hewn ; 
 With beams of massive timber tied, 
 From distant forests drawn ; 
 Through years and ages yet to last, 
 A dying creature builds his nest. 
 
 II. 
 Through many a day the mason sings 
 
 O'er the slow rising walls ; 
 And long the labourer's hammer rings 
 Through the unfinished halls. 
 Months and years roll by, and still 
 The workman plies his costly skill. 
 
 III. 
 While man in patient hope surveys 
 
 The cost and labour long. 
 Nor stays to think, that though he raise 
 This home of stone so strong, 
 His own frail walls of mouldering clay 
 Each hour draw nearer to decay.
 
 86 THE WREN. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Those walls may hear the festive song 
 
 Of races yet to come ; 
 And mirth may laugh those halls among, 
 But he'll be in the tomb. 
 And pent in narrow cell will lie 
 The hand that raised those walls so high. 
 
 V. 
 
 With moss from some wild thicket borne 
 
 To build the tiny wall, 
 
 And tendril slight from ivy torn 
 
 To frame the arching hall ; 
 
 With beams of bent and roof of bine, 
 
 With briefer skill our nest we twine. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Yet the proud hand whose cunning skill 
 
 Those lordly homes would raise, 
 And hew the lasting stone to tell 
 Its pride to other days, 
 Could ne'er with all its science fine 
 A home more meet and fit design.
 
 THE WREN. 87 
 
 VII. 
 
 For this poor house of moss and hay, 
 
 With fragile tendrils strung, 
 Will serve its need, and last its day, 
 To rear our tender young ; 
 We look not to the nest, our care 
 Is for the brood that nestles there. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The fairy work may scattered be 
 
 Before the Autumn wind, 
 But not till they, all strong and free, 
 A surer shelter find ; 
 And all abroad securely range. 
 Though leaves may fall and seasons change. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Thou too must build ! but not a home 
 
 By mortal workmen wrought, 
 With columns proud of sculptured stone, 
 From earth's poor quarries brought ; 
 A home of faith where love can dwell. 
 And hope her tale of comfort tell.
 
 Deep let the strong foundation be, 
 
 On Christ's sure mercies laid ; 
 And chaste its structure's symmetry, 
 With Christian graces made. 
 Let there be nought of earth ! each block 
 Hewn from the everlasting rock. 
 
 XI. 
 
 If man so build a house, that's lost 
 
 With his last parting breath ; 
 Oh ! spare not labour, spare not cost, 
 When thou would'st build in faith ; 
 Through countless ages yet to come, 
 A house to be thy spirit's home. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Oh ! think not of the house of clay 
 
 In which thou now art pent ; 
 Given to serve its transient day, 
 To the young soul 'twas lent. 
 To nestle there, until it fly 
 Into its glad eternity.
 
 THE WREN. 89 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The passing wind may soon blow down 
 
 Those frail and fleshly walls ; 
 But hark ! from the eternal throne 
 
 A voice of mercy calls, 
 And tells, that though life's silken bands 
 
 By death's stern hand be riven. 
 Thou hast a house, not made with hands. 
 
 Eternal in the heaven.
 
 This is the smallest of our British birds, and a 
 great favourite with all who know its soft gentle 
 note, and its elegant motions. We hear a little 
 voice among the branches of some tall fir, per- 
 haps, like the sound of a small silver bell ; and 
 looking up, we see the golden-crested wren hang- 
 ing from a spray, and searching all its crevices for 
 its insect food. But it will not be long there ; we 
 see the flutter of its tiny wings, its gold crest 
 shines in the sun, and the next moment it is seen 
 in full search upon another branch, uttering its 
 mild and gentle cry, to keep its companions near 
 it. Sometimes again we find it among the lower 
 shrubs, and obtain a clear view of its delicate form, 
 its bright soft eye and shining crest. It looks what 
 it is, a harmless and gentle creature. The philo- 
 sopher of old might have thought it the abode of
 
 THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. 91 
 
 some gentle spirit, not yet perfected, but kept in 
 that harmless, quiet existence, till it should enter 
 into its nest. And it has its calm and peaceful 
 enjoyments. When the long Winter is ended, which 
 it bears with a hardihood that surprises us, con- 
 sidering its delicate frame, never attempting to 
 leave us for warmer climes and sunnier days, it 
 begins to prepare for the happy season of its pa- 
 rental duties. It has a loving gentle song, such, 
 as we should suppose, no mate could resist, soft 
 and sibilous, yet clear and expressive, such as the 
 ear of love delights in. We cannot wonder at the 
 grateful love with which his mate receives the 
 addresses, and accepts the plighted troth of a 
 lover that sings and looks so softly, and erects his 
 bright golden crest in token of his love and admi- 
 ration. The tale is told, the mutual love con- 
 fessed, and off they go, true and constant to each 
 other to their domestic duties. You may see 
 them, when at length this happy understanding 
 has been effected between them, talking over 
 plans for their future habitation, and discussing 
 the varied preparations for settling in life. Nor
 
 have they far to look ; that hanging branch of 
 yew, with its changeless foliage, will screen them 
 from the wind and the rain now, and when brighter 
 days have come, from the sun and the heat. Its 
 dark green tresses hang in close clusters down, 
 and these may be readily bound together by some 
 bine. On this, therefore, the frame-work of their 
 intended habitation is suspended ; and they weave 
 in between the slender cords their moss and 
 lichens, making it, like the other wren, similar to 
 the bark of the tree. They do not need any cover- 
 ing arch above, the yew's thick foliage is shelter 
 sufficient ; but they provide for its warmth within 
 with great labour and anxiety, bringing feathers 
 from far and near to line it, making all soft and 
 safe for the precious little brood that is to inhabit 
 it. Just as you see the anxious mother smoothing 
 the little bed and downy pillow before she lays her 
 sleeping child upon them. What marvel that the 
 streams should be alike, when they flow from the 
 same fountain of eternal love ! 
 
 When at length the tiny house sways in the 
 wind with the waving branch on which it hangs,
 
 THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. 93 
 
 it wculd seem as if fairy hands had wove it there, 
 to be their rest awhile till Summer should come, 
 and they could resume their dance round the rings 
 in the meadow, and shelter under the projecting 
 eaves of their favourite mushrooms. The female 
 sits closely upon her eggs, and will bear to be 
 looked at without moving from them ; and when 
 the young are hatched, the parents, especially the 
 female, are unwearied in their exertions to sup- 
 port the little things to whom they have given 
 life. A bird was watched in her journeys to and 
 fro with food to her young, and it was found she 
 came thirty-six times in an hour, and that for 
 sixteen hours in the day. Weak emblem of that 
 untiring love that all day and all night, every 
 second of our existence, is feeding and pro- 
 tecting us ! 
 
 When the young are able to fly and leave the 
 nest, the little family still continue together, as if 
 the feeble creatures felt help and confidence in 
 each other's love arid presence amid the perils that 
 beset them. There is much, surely, in this con- 
 tinued fellowship ; one might be taken by sur-
 
 94 THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. 
 
 prise, might lose its' way, might perish from cold 
 in the long hard nights of Winter, but when toge- 
 ther there are many eyes to watch ; if one be care- 
 less, another is at hand to warn him ; and they 
 will not die of cold when they keep close together, 
 communicating warmth one to another, giving and 
 receiving. Such is true Christian fellowship ; it 
 has many eyes, and all are watching for each 
 other's good, against their own and others' danger ; 
 if one be tempted astray for a moment, there are 
 the voices of others to warn and call him back ; 
 nor will he grow cold in faith when others around 
 him are continually communicating the warmth of 
 their own Christian experience and encouragement. 
 A word spoken in season, how pleasant is it — a 
 word of warning, or of encouragement, or of con- 
 solation, but still from a voice of love, speaking in 
 the blessedness of Christian fellowship ! 
 
 How does that little family of feeble creatures, 
 weak all, yet clinging to each other for mutual aid, 
 remind us of our dependence, under God, one upon 
 another ! Cheerfully and heartily they go to their 
 work, their daily search amid branch and twig for
 
 THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. 95 
 
 their insect food ; they are together, a bond of 
 mutual love and dependence unites them. And 
 oh ! how cheerful will be our spiritual task, how 
 heartily shall we work in search of every thing that 
 is good and true, when we have the voice and the 
 example, and we know also the prayers of those 
 we love going with us ! Weak and feeble as the 
 bird, let us seek strength and aid, as God's word 
 and as the bird's example teach us, in Christian 
 love and fellowship, bearing each other's burdens ! 
 
 I. 
 
 Our nest hangs high on yon tall tree 
 
 With tiny cords suspended. 
 And few its narrow door can see, 
 
 By clustering leaves defended. 
 With roots and moss we wove it round, 
 
 With ivy tendrils twined it. 
 While all around we lichens bound. 
 
 With down and feathers lined it.
 
 96 THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. 
 
 II. 
 
 So sly upon the hanging bough 
 
 With artful care we tied it, 
 No restless jay or thieving crow 
 
 With peering look hath spied it. 
 The cat may look with wistful eye, 
 
 Along the branches running, 
 But though she try, we're far too high. 
 
 And laugh at all her cunning. 
 
 III. 
 
 When the storm blows, the pliant spray 
 
 Bends gently to its power. 
 The hanging leaves all fresh and gay 
 
 Keep off the pelting shower. 
 The brood within, in merry plight, 
 
 Care not for wind or weather ; 
 Through the dark night and cheerful light 
 
 They all are warm together.
 
 THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. 97 
 
 IV. 
 
 And soon all strong abroad they'll go, 
 
 Their waving cradle leaving, 
 Their airy course from bough to bough 
 
 On tiny pinion cleaving. 
 And though they lie so callow here. 
 
 In the soft nest reclining, 
 They'll soon appear in brighter gear, 
 
 With crowns of bright gold shining. 
 
 Oh ! thus each Christian home should be 
 
 Above the earth suspended, 
 And built upon the heavenly tree. 
 
 By its sure shade defended. 
 Truth's faultless belt around it tie. 
 
 With love's strong tendrils bind it, 
 And place it high, where sin's dark eye 
 
 Can ne'er look up and find it. 
 
 H
 
 VI. 
 
 Built high vipon that living tree, 
 
 No hand shall spoil its treasure, 
 Above earth's low desires 'twill be, 
 
 And all its foding pleasure. 
 Oh ! safe will be that Christian home, 
 
 By no fierce quarrels riven, 
 When all within are but as one, 
 
 Their hearts and hopes in heaven. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The world's dark strife may rage around, 
 
 Its storms shall never tear it ; 
 And safe within the sacred bound. 
 
 Its rage shall ne'er come near it. 
 The shade of that blest tree above 
 
 From sin's dark eye shall hide it ; 
 It will not move, for his sure love 
 
 With golden links hath tied it.
 
 VIII. 
 
 As the bold crew in some stout bark 
 
 O'er the wild waves careering, 
 Fiear not the frown of ocean dark, 
 
 His foaming billows rearing ; 
 Thus calm are they, that home within, 
 
 For his sure hand hath bound them ; 
 No earthly thing shall break the ring 
 
 That love hath drawn around them. 
 
 IX. 
 
 In the bird's young how day by day 
 
 Their tender wings wax stronger, 
 Each plume, that is to cut their way 
 
 Through the light air, grows longer! 
 Thus feel the hearts in that pure home, 
 
 New graces flowing o'er them ; 
 And nearer come, each rolling sun. 
 
 To that blest land before them. 
 H 2
 
 Till one by one at length they'll rise, 
 
 Their plumage all completed, 
 On lusty wing to seek the skies, 
 
 By shouting angels greeted. 
 And as before the eternal throne 
 
 To angel harps they listen, 
 On every one a burnish'd crown 
 
 Of living gold shall glisten.
 
 Ci)c 51Sitnob)=2;3arfn. 
 
 We have placed this little bird next to the wrens, 
 because it is called the willow-wren, though in 
 reality it belongs to another tribe ; and certainly, 
 putting its distinctive characters aside, it does not 
 even in general appearance seem to belong to the 
 same family. The wrens are short and round, 
 while this is of a very slender and tapering form. 
 They stay with us through the year ; but this is a 
 traveller, who leaves us on the first approach of 
 the declining Autumn. When it arrives here, its 
 insect food is in great abundance, and it will be 
 seen running along the branches in search of it ; 
 sometimes, like the golden-crested wren, hanging 
 upon the spray ; sometimes, like the fly-catcher, 
 taking its prey on the wing. It has a lively 
 bearing, and a merry, cheerful voice; and when
 
 we hear it once again after the long Winter, we 
 begin to feel that the Summer indeed is coming. 
 
 I do not profess to give the scientific distinc- 
 tions between this and the other little birds so 
 closely resembling it — the wood-warbler and the 
 chiffchaft". The voice is sufficient for my purpose ; 
 for all who know it will never confound its note 
 with that of any other species. It is one of pe- 
 culiar joyousness when first heard, though from 
 wanting variety, and being so continually repeated, 
 it soon loses its expression, and becomes almost 
 wearisome. But at first it sounds like the happy 
 laugh of one who feels at home again after a long 
 separation, among the scenes and the friends he 
 loves. We hear it about the first week in April, 
 when vegetation is just beginning to burst into 
 new life, and the joyous laugh-like note is in good 
 keeping with the happy face of nature around. 
 Amono: all the voices that now besfin to ring forth 
 
 o c CD 
 
 from hedge and copse after the long silence of 
 Winter, this is remarkable for its expression of 
 mirth and gladness. And when we see the bird, 
 it looks as happy as its song would express. And
 
 THE WILLOW-WREN. 103 
 
 happy it has reason to be. It has come many a 
 long and weary mile back to the place of its birth, 
 the scene of its enjoyments. A long bright season 
 is before it; its food will soon be abundant, and its 
 life will be spent in plenty and sunshine, or in the 
 cool shade supplied by the luxuriant foliage of its 
 favourite retreats. 
 
 What a traveller that little bird has been ! To 
 what lands, we may ask, has it been wandering ? 
 what distant scenes of ancient history has it visited, 
 and in what wild tracts of desolate luxuriance has 
 it been seeking refuge ? Has it visited the sunny 
 shores of Asia Minor, and thoughtlessly hopped 
 amid the ruins of her fallen churches ? Has it 
 gone on to Syria, penetrated to the sacred land, 
 rested its weary wings in the garden of Gethse- 
 mane, gathering its food amid the time-worn trees 
 on the Mount of Olives ? How much then could 
 it tell us of what we should delight to hear, of 
 scenes hallowed by associations of all that is holy 
 and awful ! 
 
 Or did it take a more southerly course, to cli- 
 mates that know no winter, and reeking under the
 
 104 THE WILLOW-WREN. 
 
 rays of a tropical sun ? How much then could 
 it tell us of unknown, mysterious Africa — her 
 plains and mighty rivers, her birds of gorgeous 
 plumage, and beasts that seem to cover her vast 
 plains with their innumerable herds ! What if we 
 had those wings to fly over land and sea, and thus 
 visit those distant shores ! Yet we should need more 
 than wings to do this ; we should need the instinct, 
 the wonderful guide that God hath given to the 
 bird, to know the times and seasons, the when atid 
 where to fly, beyond any knowledge that compass 
 or quadrant could supply. 
 
 The little bird looks little able to contend 
 with the elements. When we see its slender 
 form, its short and weak pinions, we shovdd 
 conclude that one rude gale would sweep the 
 whole race into the sea ; yet still they are pre- 
 served, and seem to arrive in no diminished 
 numbers. There is a stronger hand that holds 
 them, and enables them to follow the strong in- 
 stinct that lias been given. We see here a fact 
 emblematical of that consolatoi-y truth, that God's 
 strength is made perfect in our weakness. Oh !
 
 THE WILLOW-WREN. 105 
 
 my children, that we could thus follow the hea- 
 venly guide that is given unto us without turn- 
 ing to the right hand or to the left, going straight, 
 in simple faith following the spiritual instinct that 
 is given in grace, weak ourselves, yet strong in 
 the Lord, and borne on by Him, like the birds 
 upon their wings, to the land of promise ! 
 
 The young birds that leave us, cannot know 
 those svmny lands to which they fly for refuge as 
 Winter approaches ; yet they go, in faith of things 
 unseen, even over the wide waters of the imknown 
 sea, and in the darkness of night. Thus eye hath 
 not seen our land of promise; it lies beyond the 
 dark unknown regions of the shadow of death : but 
 there are we to flv for refuge, even through that 
 dark valley, knowing that He is faithful that pro- 
 mised, trusting in simple confidence to the hand 
 and light that guide us, assured that in the end we 
 shall reach it, if we faint not. 
 
 But sometimes the little birds of passage that 
 left us do not return : some accident befalls them 
 during their long absence. You will remember 
 the little fly-catcher with whom we made acquaint-
 
 106 THE WILLOW-WREN, 
 
 ance, and how she built for several successive years 
 precisely in the same spot, amid the branches of 
 that beautiful creeping rose. It was a luxurious 
 spot, for while she was sitting, the blooming, scented 
 roses hung in clust^ers round her, and we vised to 
 catch her bright black eye shining through the 
 white blossoms. But one year we missed her in 
 the accustomed spot, and she has never returned 
 to her favourite tree, and none of her offspring 
 have had the taste to make the same happy choice. 
 Accidents by flood and field, winds and weary 
 wings, the hawk here, or the insidious writhing 
 snake, or the many little animals of prey abound- 
 ing in the jungles of Africa, put an end to the 
 voyages of our little traveller, and she hath never 
 returned to her English haunts. And oh ! how 
 many a traveller, bound, that is, in profession, for 
 the land of promise, makes shipwreck of his faith, 
 and will never reach its shores ! We need one 
 ever with us in the ship, before whom the winds 
 and the waves cease, and with whom there is ever 
 a great calm.
 
 THE WILLOW-WREN. 107 
 
 ^ong of tije WHnoSa^mvtn. 
 
 I. 
 
 We were far away in a southern sky, 
 
 Where the groves of the orange and citron shine; 
 When the north wind brought, as he whisper'd by, 
 
 The perfume of Spring from our own loved isle. 
 We smelt the fresh dew of her falling showers, 
 We scented the breath of her opening flowers, 
 And gathered together, a joyous band, 
 And away we all flew to that distant land. 
 
 II. 
 
 We saw far beneath us the billows dash 
 
 Their snow-white foam on the ocean's breast ; 
 And we heard by night their ceaseless splash. 
 
 As they rolled between us and our land of rest. 
 But we heard in the morning the sea-bird's scream. 
 As his white wing danced in tlie dawning beam ; 
 And ere we had looked on the rising sun, 
 Our peril was past, and the land was won.
 
 108 THE WILLOW-WREN. 
 
 III. 
 Remember, my child, that a time may come, 
 
 When thou, like a bird on its joyous wing, 
 Shalt fly far away from thy fleshly home. 
 
 To rest in a land of eternal Spring. 
 God's Word is a voice from that glorious land. 
 His grace is a breath from its balmy strand ; 
 And they tell thee of scenes more bright and fair 
 Than the fairest of earth, that await thee there. 
 
 IV. 
 
 God's people are gathering, come, loiterer ! come ! 
 
 Though storm and though tempest around thee 
 lower ; 
 He carried the bird to its distant home. 
 
 And will bear thee safe to that changeless shore. 
 And as you draw near, you will hear the song, 
 And see the bright wings of the angel throng. 
 As they welcome thee home, a long-sought guest, 
 A wandering bird to its land of rest.
 
 €i)t 312Hater'(©u)lc. 
 
 The water-ouzle seems to claim a place next to 
 the wrens, for though nearly allied in his structure 
 to the ouzle tribe, both in his outward form and in 
 the construction of his nest, he closely resembles 
 the wren. He has the same thick round body, 
 and the same short tail, carried erect like that of 
 the wren. 
 
 This is a bird that we delight to see ; for he is 
 never found but on the banks of some clear quiet 
 river, in the gravelly bed of which he finds his 
 insect food. He is fond, apparently, of retire- 
 ment, and is found often in remote places, where 
 he can have no society save that of his own loved 
 mate. The grave and solitary heron may some- 
 times indeed intrude upon his seclusion, but it is 
 only to stand motionless in the clear water waiting 
 for the speckled prey, and then to rise on heavy
 
 110 THE WATER-OUZLE. 
 
 wing and leave him alone again ; or he may hear 
 occasionally the wild cry of the kite soaring amid 
 the clouds above him ; but these can be no com- 
 pany to him. And if we may judge from the 
 habits of this quiet little bird, he can find little 
 pleasure in the society of the sand-piper, who 
 visits his retired haunts in Summer, and wakes 
 the echoes of the rocky banks with its noisy and 
 unceasing cry. 
 
 His lot has fallen in pleasant lines. To some 
 birds it is allotted to spend their days amid the 
 houses and haunts of man, growing black in the 
 incessant smoke, and losing all the lustre of their 
 natural plumage. But the water-ouzle lives far 
 away from scenes like these. He sees no smoke ; 
 the only vapour he knows is that which rises from 
 the breast of the fair river he haunts. Wild and 
 beautiful are the scenes among which his days are 
 spent ; and when we see him there, he wears a look 
 of quiet enjoyment, that makes us think him 
 worthy of the happy lot that has befallen him. 
 Many a quiet and happy hour, dear children, have 
 I spent with him ; and always when we meet I
 
 THE WATER-OUZLE. Ill 
 
 welcome an old acquaintance, and know that I am 
 among scenes where there is some little quiet and 
 seclusion from the weary bustle of the world's 
 activity. A wild and lonely river without the 
 sharp note, the quick arrow-like flight, and white 
 breast of the water-ouzle, would appear artificial, 
 a piece of dead life, that was not ;-eal. 
 
 His habits, too, are well worth our attention : he 
 has work to do to obtain his living. The shining 
 stones that form the river's bed are a shelter for 
 the larvae of numberless insects harbouring beneath 
 them. These he must turn over to obtain his 
 daily food, and though they are oftentimes some 
 inches below the surface, he manages to succeed in 
 his object. The way in which he does this has 
 given rise to much scientific controversy ; but 
 there can be little doubt that, notwithstanding 
 the lightness of his specific gravity, he can keep 
 himself under water in the same way as the 
 grebe and other divers. He is formed like them 
 with his legs far behind, to facilitate a down- 
 ward motion, and there is no reason why he 
 should not like them use his wings to prevent the
 
 112 THE WATER-OUZLE. 
 
 tendency to rise. It is certain that he never goes 
 far or continues long under water, but still he dis- 
 appears, and from what we see of him in the 
 shallower water before he entirely goes out of 
 sight, we know well what he is doing there. It 
 seems a cheerful task to him, and his white breast 
 looks whiter every time he emerges. We cannot 
 say the same for our worldly occupations; men do 
 not generally come from them cleaner or whiter. 
 It is only when we are seeking our food in the 
 pure stream of God's truth, that we feel cleansed 
 and purified by our process of occupation. The 
 little bird's white breast is in happy keeping with 
 the pure calm scenes around him ; and why should 
 it not be ? The poor bird has not sinned, his 
 breast is white all through ; the clear water by 
 which he lives, the wild and fragrant flowers, the 
 fresh shining leaves of the birch that are waving 
 over him, are not more pure than he is. He is 
 there God's creature, fulfilling his appointed des- 
 tiny. And who that has been alone in scenes of 
 peace like these, has not felt that all the sin in 
 such a scene is in himself; that he alone is the
 
 THE WATER-OUZLE. 113 
 
 creature not fulfilling the purpose for which he 
 was created ; that the white breast of the water- 
 ouzle, the clear waters of the river, the freshness 
 of the mountain flower, are all emblems of a 
 purity which does not belong to him ? And thus, 
 should we at any time separate from the busy world 
 around us, fly to these spots of wild and lonely 
 seclusion, and keep company with the water- 
 ouzle ; if we carry not with us a clean breast 
 like his, it is only carrying our burden further. 
 It is not solitude, it is not seclusion, nor even 
 exemption from the more palpable temptations 
 of the world, that can cleanse and purify the 
 heart, or remove the weary weight of sin. It is 
 not the sight of any mere external objects that can 
 give us peace ; it is something seen within, some- 
 thing that we carry in our hearts, a hope that 
 maketh not ashamed, which can alone bring peace 
 to our conscious and troubled spirits. 
 
 Tlie note of the water-ouzle is of a peculiarly 
 harsh and wiry character, not unlike the king- 
 fisher's, which bird he also resembles in his flight. 
 Yet, strange to say, sweet and wild is the melody he 
 
 I
 
 114 THE WATER-OUZLE. 
 
 makes, sitting on the edge of a rock with the clear 
 stream beneath him. You could not mistake that 
 voice for a moment : you detect the wiry note of 
 his usual call all through it, and yet it is so blended 
 with softer modulations, that the song is peculiarly 
 expressive of wild and lonely enjoyment. I heard 
 it once for the first time in the depth of a Summer's 
 night, in a scene of surpassing beauty and wildness, 
 and never were sounds heard more in harmony 
 with the feeling of the time and place. 
 
 Although a bird of such secluded habits, and 
 comparatively unused to the presence of man, it is 
 not a shy bird. It seems to repose confidence in 
 you, and will sit quietly with its dipping motion 
 on the stone opposite to you, as if enjoying this 
 casual interruption of its loneliness. But it never 
 appears easy when long out of sight of its mate ; 
 they are continually exchanging calls, to satisfy each 
 other that they are not far off. For the water- 
 ouzle does not take his mate to leave her, when the 
 Summer is over, to get through the Winter as she 
 may, but he takes her for better or worse, and 
 when the young brood is reared and off their
 
 THE WATER-OUZLE. 115 
 
 hands, the betrothed pair still keep together. 
 They never seem happy apart ; and, alas ! how 
 often are they in their simple constancy of love, a 
 better emblem than man in his, of that mystical 
 union which is betwixt Christ and his Church! 
 
 They form their nest on the same design as that 
 of the wren, leaving a hole for admission ; and 
 like the wren they choose materials least likely to 
 attract attention. When there is a wooden bridge 
 over the stream, which during the Winter months 
 has gathered much refuse of hay and weeds be- 
 tween its planks, they generally fix upon it as the 
 site of their nest, artfully form.ing their habitation 
 out of this refuse, so that if you did not know the 
 habits of the bird, or the vibration caused by 
 passing over the biidge did not drive her suddenly 
 from the nest, you would never detect it. The 
 eggs are of a pure white, like the breast which 
 sits upon them.
 
 ^on(j oi tijt WiaUV'0\i\U. 
 
 Where the young stream is gushing 
 
 From its lone fountain-head ; 
 Where the wild river's rushing 
 
 Down o'er its rocky bed ; 
 Where the wild thyme and the heather 
 Clustering hang together, 
 
 Over the grey rock's side, 
 There is my lonely home, 
 And there I love to roam, 
 
 Fast by that flowing tide.
 
 11. 
 
 I see the morning waking 
 
 Oe'r yon dark mountain's crest, 
 When the wavy mist is breaking 
 
 Off from the river's breast ; 
 When every sound is dead, 
 Save the early fisher's tread, 
 
 And roaring of the stream ; 
 Or splash of salmon throwing 
 His sides with silver glowing 
 
 To the fresh morning beam. 
 
 III. 
 I love these wild recesses. 
 
 The rocks and woods among. 
 And beneath their birchen tresses 
 
 I sing my lonely song. 
 Beneath the stream is roaring, 
 Above the kite is soaring, 
 
 Uttering his mountain cry ; 
 While still as lifeless stone, 
 The heron stands alone, 
 
 Or wings his slow flight by.
 
 IV. 
 
 No chilling Winter leads me 
 
 To look for warmer skies ; 
 My insect food still feeds me, 
 
 Where in the stream it lies. 
 When the strong wind blows over, 
 The wild rock is the cover 
 
 That shields me from its power ; 
 And in the same rock's breast 
 I build my artful nest, 
 
 In Summer's warmer hour. 
 
 In paths apart from pleasure. 
 
 By worldly feet untrod, 
 Seeking a lasting treasure. 
 
 Thus lives the child of God. 
 Far fi'om the world's vain riot. 
 In calm and holy quiet 
 
 His well-spent moments flow ; 
 And in that pure retreat 
 He tastes of heavenly meat, 
 
 The world doth never know.
 
 THE WATER-OUZLE. Hi* 
 
 VI. 
 
 In life's bright Summer hour 
 
 That food is ever foimd ; 
 When wintry sorrows lour 
 
 It still is scattered round. 
 And sweet the silent beauty 
 Of that calm field of duty, 
 
 In which he daily lives. 
 While far from passion's din, 
 The stream of grace within 
 
 Its holy murmur gives. 
 
 VII. 
 
 As when in lonely bower 
 
 Sweetly the wild birds sing, 
 His life tells forth the power 
 
 Of his Redeeming King. 
 Through all life's changinor scenes 
 Christ is the rock that screens, 
 
 A shelter and a shade ; 
 And on that rock's safe breast. 
 In holy trust, the nest 
 
 Of all his hopes is laid.
 
 This species is as widely distributed as the former 
 is confined. The water-ouzle is found only on the 
 banks of quiet and sequestered streams, while this 
 is a well known visitor in every garden throughout 
 the length and breadth of the land. He is a rest- 
 less noisy bird, and more shy than most birds which 
 dwell so near the habitations of man. This must 
 in some degree be accounted for in a consciousness 
 of having incurred some enmity on the part of man 
 by his wholesale and continual depredations during 
 the fruit season. It may appear strange at first 
 sight, and yet it is certainly, to a great measure, 
 true, that birds which commit most mischief seem 
 to have a kind of consciousness that they have 
 exposed themselves to man's hostility. How much 
 more shy and cautious is the carrion ci'ow than the 
 rook, the magpie and jay than the daw ! This, no
 
 THE BLACKBIRD. 121 
 
 doubt, may be accounted for in man's having him- 
 self evinced a greater degree of enmity against the 
 birds that he suspects of doing him most mischief; 
 and we know that the tradition of man's enmity 
 and hostile intentions is handed down from gene- 
 ration to generation. The posterity seem traditi- 
 onally aware of the war that has been carried on 
 against their forefathers, just as a traditional en- 
 mity exists between neighbouring nations that have 
 been engaged for generations in mutual rivalry and 
 conflict. When fowling-pieces were first invented, 
 it would probably have been an easy thing to ap- 
 proach the crow and the magpie with one in hand ; 
 but now, we know, it is a matter of the nicest 
 delicacy, for they seem to understand the whole 
 apparatus perfectly — lock, stock, and barrel. 
 
 Still there seems to be a consciousness of wrong 
 in the blackbird, shown in the very act of depre- 
 dation. He will take a worm off the grass with 
 much apparent confidence ; but if you see him ap- 
 proaching the strawberry-bed, you will then per- 
 ceive a stealthy timidity about him ; he snatches 
 and looks round and devours in haste, retires and
 
 122 THE BLACKBIRD. 
 
 comes again, as if conscious that the act was a 
 theft, and would probably, in no long time, create 
 an outcry. But we must not wrong the poor bird ; 
 he knows how he or his forefathers have been 
 driven and threatened from that bed and its 
 forbidden fruit ; with him it is consciousness of 
 danger and not of wrong. When we do wrong, 
 we are far below the level of the bird, who knows 
 only the danger and not the wrong, while we, know- 
 ing the last, blindly shut our eyes to the first. 
 
 But, let us remember, that if he does us wrong, 
 he does what he can to repay us in the Spring, in 
 the beautiful still evenings, with his pensive and 
 mellow song. In the mornings, too, of the early 
 Summer, when the first faint streak of day has 
 appeared, he, with the robin, is the first to begin 
 his song, even before the active thrush is awake, 
 or the lark left his dewy bed on the meadow. But, 
 though early to rise, he is not, according to the 
 proverb, early to bed. In the calm twilight of the 
 Summer evening his voice will be heard the last, 
 not in song, but in clamorous vociferation against 
 the owl, whom he seems to take delight in way-
 
 THE BLACKBIRD. 123 
 
 laying as the nightly wanderer emerges from his 
 hiding-place. This seems to him a welcome 
 opportunity for the display of his restless and 
 violent temper, — a temper which renders him 
 altogether an unfit inhabitant of an aviary, where 
 he will allow no bird to be at rest, making all 
 round him unhappy, and, as the inevitable conse- 
 quence of indulging temper, himself the unhappiest 
 of all. This is a true consequence, and yet how 
 often do we see it disregarded and lost sight of! 
 Selfish people are so blinded by their selfishness, 
 that they can see nothing beyond the immediate 
 indulgence, and thus love the self of this moment 
 so blindly, that they cannot foresee the wretched- 
 ness of the self of the next. It is this inveterate 
 selfishness which is the source of so much vain 
 and false profession — so much worldly-mindedness. 
 Men love the self of this passing life so blindly 
 and devotedly, that they learn to disregard the 
 eternal interests of the self of the world to come. 
 If you do not, my dear children, learn to overcome 
 self, you will be thus led astray by the present from 
 the future, by that which is passing from that w hich
 
 124 THE BLACKBIRD. 
 
 is eternal. And if self once sway your tempers, 
 you will become, like the poor blackbird in the 
 aviary, a source of disorder and disturbance, where 
 all ought to be peace. The ornament of a meek 
 and quiet spirit is, indeed, of great price, essential 
 to the happiness of those with whom you live and 
 to your own. 
 
 But although the poor bird is of a restless, 
 unquiet spirit, we should miss him sadly were the 
 race extinct. How often have we been pleased to 
 see him on the green with his bright orange bill 
 and irides, and jet black plumage, hopping on the 
 grass, and detecting with his quick eye the re- 
 treating worm. And his song does not seem to 
 partake of the tone of his temper, but is soft and 
 rich, and would appear to flow, if we could trust 
 to mere expression, from the fulness of a subdued 
 but happy spirit. At such a time, indeed, he does 
 seem subdued — subdued by the very power of his 
 affection for his mate, and for the offspring which 
 those spotted eggs will bring, upon which she sits 
 so assiduously. The song is not with him the ex- 
 pression of a vain sentiment, as songs too often are,
 
 but of deep feeling, manifested in all his care and 
 watchfulness over his mate and young. Summer 
 and Winter, Spring and Autumn, the blackbird is 
 with us, and when silent in song not in voice ; but 
 always, as he flies from the bush we are ap- 
 proaching, uttering that restless cry, so peculiar 
 to himself, half fear, half joy. They make a firm 
 substantial nest, which oftentimes survives the 
 wear and tear of the elements, and is found the 
 following Spring still in a state of repair. 
 
 With all their faults they are lively, attractive 
 birds, up early, and late take rest; and in the 
 Spring months regale our ears with the melody 
 of a mellow voice, which very few of our songsters 
 can equal. They may claim an exorbitant return; 
 but let us not be hard with them, but think of the 
 sweet evenings of early Spring, to which their song 
 gave such a charm, and of the many mornings when, 
 in the early twilight, their voice has been the first 
 to wake us.
 
 126 THE BLACKBIRD. 
 
 ^ong of tl)t 33laffel)irtf. 
 
 How sweet the air of early dawn, 
 
 When o'er the freshen'd earth it breathes, 
 And up from off the steaming lawn 
 In silvery folds the vapour wreathes ! 
 Silent and soft it climbs the hill, 
 While all around is calm and still ; 
 And as beneath the morn we hurry forth, 
 The worms all careless lie upon the spangled earth. 
 
 II. 
 
 This is the young day's maiden prime, 
 
 Its virgin freshness has not fled ; 
 Nor yet the sound of early chime 
 Has roused the labourer's lowly bed. 
 No wandering foot disturbs the shade, 
 Untouch'd is yet the gardener's spade, 
 And we can take our early meal unscared. 
 Safe on the dewy grass with busy starling shared.
 
 THE BLACKBIRD. 127 
 
 III. 
 
 While many a bird on waving bough 
 
 Soft cradled, sleeps away the morn, 
 Soon as the dawn came peeping through. 
 We left our nest within the thorn. 
 For though the Summer day be fair. 
 And softly breathe its perfumed air, 
 It still to us hath ne'er so sweet an hour. 
 As when the morning gale blows through the dew- 
 sprent bower. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The chorus of a thousand throats, 
 
 That welcomes in the shining day. 
 Is silent yet ; my lonely notes 
 
 Hold concert with the robin's lay ; 
 No jealous thrush, with effort strong, 
 Rivals as yet my mellow song ; 
 The skylark even hath not flown on high 
 To sing his matin song to the fresh morning sky.
 
 128 THE BLACKBIRD. 
 
 V. 
 
 While all is still we early rise 
 
 To catch the dawn ere yet it pass, 
 While all our food in plenty lies 
 Unscared upon the shining grass. 
 Fresh from our morning meal we sing, 
 And plume and trim our restless wing ; 
 Strong for the coming day, its smile or frown, 
 Whether the sun shine bright or beating storm come 
 down. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And is not childhood's season bright. 
 Fresh as the breath of early day ? 
 Is not the dawn of reason's light 
 
 Like the fair morning's twilight grey ? 
 There is, my child, a freshness too 
 On thy young heart like early dew ; 
 And as the mists rise up before thine eyes 
 Day after day the world in opening beauty lies.
 
 THE BLACKBIRD. 129 
 
 VII. 
 
 Now is the time when thou must learn 
 
 The wisdom that can make thee wise ; 
 Ere yet the heart begins to burn, 
 
 And fallen man's fierce passions rise. 
 Oh ! now, before with ceaseless din 
 The world's dark cares come thronging in. 
 Thou must be up, gathering in with speed 
 The food that through life's day thy flagging soul 
 must feed. 
 
 vni. 
 
 While many waste the precious time 
 That flows so soft and fast away, 
 Oh ! do thou thus in youth's fresh prime 
 Prepare thee for thy coming day ! 
 Sweetly may shine its sunny gleams, 
 And warm may be its noontide beams, 
 But thou wilt ne'er, in all its highest bliss. 
 Taste of an hour so sweet, so innocent as this. 
 
 K
 
 130 THE BLACKBIRD. 
 
 IX. 
 
 No voice of envy now defames, 
 
 No bleeding heart-wounds yet are given ; 
 No sense of sin thy young heart shames, 
 Or shades it from the light of heaven. 
 No friend untrue, or false word spoken, 
 Hath yet thy yovmg affections broken ; 
 And thou canst freely offer on God's shrine 
 Thy heart's unsullied love, and say, " it all is thine." 
 
 A few short years, and this pure hour 
 
 Must pass, and ne'er again be thine ; 
 And thou wilt wish to have the power 
 To spend aright its precious time. 
 Thou'lt long again in life to start 
 With open brow and guileless heart. 
 And hoist abroad thy yet unsullied sail, 
 To catch the wind ere yet the morning breezes fail.
 
 THE BLACKBIRD. 131 
 
 XI. 
 
 Look at the worms in that dim light, 
 
 How still they lie upon the ground ! 
 Another hour, when day shines bright, 
 Scarce one will on the grass be found. 
 Oh ! thus the means of life's brief dawn 
 All one by one will be withdrawn 
 As life shines on ; and leave thee to repine 
 O'er banished gifts that now can ne'er again be thin©. 
 
 XII. 
 
 While yet fresh childhood's dawning beam 
 
 Is on thy heart's unharden'd ground, 
 Oh ! drink thou of the living stream. 
 
 And taste the food that's spread around. 
 'Twill be of hope the ceaseless spring, 
 'Twill plume and trim thy spirit's wing, 
 'Twill bear thee up in sorrow's driving shower. 
 Or when the sun shines bright, thro' all its tempting 
 power. 
 
 K 2
 
 Cf)e Cijrusi), 
 
 We generally in speaking put the blackbird and 
 the thrush together, for they inhabit the same 
 haunts, are seen feeding on the same grass plat, 
 begin their song about the same time — though the 
 thrush is the earlier of the two — and build their 
 nest much in the same situations. And yet they 
 are very unlike, not only in plumage, but in habits 
 and disposition. The black-bird, as we have seen, 
 is somewhat overbearing and quarrelsome ; the 
 thrush is a quiet and gentle bird, with a look of high 
 breedino- in his fine formed head. He seems to be 
 above the petty thefts for which his neighbour has 
 srained so bad a name. When the blackbird is 
 seen creeping along the beds of your garden, you 
 may rest tolerably assured that some mischief is
 
 THE THRUSH. 133 
 
 afoot ; die thrush may be there also, but if you 
 watch him you will find that his object is chiefly 
 to capture the snails of which he is so fond, which 
 lie carries to a stone hard by, where he succeeds 
 in breaking the shell, and getting at the helpless 
 inhabitant. Those snail-shells which you may 
 have often seen in heaps by some favourite stone, 
 have all been left by him. He, like the black- 
 bird, seems to have an instinctive hatred of the 
 owl ; he joins in the outcry and clamour against 
 him, and it is almost on these occasions alone that 
 we hear his notes of anger. 
 
 The moment the year has turned, and the days 
 begin to lengthen, he is on the watch to take 
 advantage of any warm and sunny morning to 
 break forth into song. His notes are not so rich 
 and mellow as those of the blackbird, but they 
 have a wilder and more varied character. Voice 
 is not always a safe criterion : it may be soft and 
 engaging, though it flow from a fierce and restless 
 heart; and the softest is not always the safest. 
 Were we to judge from the songs of these two 
 birds, we should reverse their characters, and give
 
 134 THE THRUSH. 
 
 to one that of the other. The blackbird's would 
 seem to express a pensive and gentle spirit ; that 
 of the thrush, on the contrary, all the wildness 
 that belongs to the character of the other. But it 
 is always cheerful and inspiriting, and as he gene- 
 rally places himself on the highest branches, it is 
 heard far and near. They are with all their 
 quietness a jealous race, and strain their throats 
 to outdo each other in strength and variety of 
 song. 
 
 They have, we are told, a successful rival in their 
 likeness, the red-wing, which visits us only in 
 Winter. This bird bears a strong resemblance 
 to the thrush, and has the same quiet and gentle 
 habits ; its song has obtained for it the title of the 
 Norwegian nightingale. It must often, when here, 
 be listening to the songs of the British species so 
 nearly allied to if, yet it is never tempted to 
 exhibit its powers ; it is far away from its native 
 scenery, and will not sing but at its home. Meet 
 emblem of the true Christian spirit, that knows 
 no sound of joy when away from its home of 
 refuge, and for a moment separated from the com-
 
 munion of its Lord. And thus, too, did the chil- 
 dren of forsaken Israel hang up their harps in the 
 willows and weep by the waters of Babylon, re- 
 fusing to sing the Lord's song in a strange land, 
 aliens from the favour of their God, and from the 
 good land that He had given them. Never should 
 the heart know pleasure, for it cannot know peace, 
 when it is not walking close with God ; even as 
 the bird withholds its voice of joy and pleasure 
 when away from its home. 
 
 But the thrush is always with us, and when the 
 sun shines bright on some morning of the early 
 year, sends forth his merry notes in all the joyous- 
 ness of a merry and innocent heart. As he is the 
 first to sing, so is he among the first to build. 
 The rook hath not finished his house of sticks on 
 the tall branches of the wood, or the raven his in 
 the fork of the accustomed oak, before the thrush 
 has begun his more lowly mansion among the 
 evergreens, where as yet he alone can find foliage 
 to screen it. 
 
 The hen sits closely, and is not easily disturbed 
 from the nest. It is a pretty sight to see her
 
 136 THE THRUSH. 
 
 there, with her graceful head, full dark eye, and 
 mottled breast, while her mate in the tree above 
 is pouring forth his lively and varied song, and as 
 it were telling her of a happy return for all her 
 care, in the young brood that are coming. 
 
 Like other gentle spirits, the thrush often meets 
 with rough usage from his stronger and fiercer 
 neighbours. As we walk the fields in Winter, and 
 trace here and there the hawk's murderous work 
 in the feathers that lie strewn in wild disorder on 
 the ground, those of the red-wing and the thrush 
 are the most frequent. There is something very 
 melancholy in these remains, which so lately carried 
 a bird in the full enjoyment of its existence, once 
 arranged in such compact and beautiful order, kept 
 so smooth and glossy, now soiled and bloody and 
 in confusion, left as the hungry hawk tore them 
 from the panting body. We cannot but think of the 
 suffering of the helpless victim, the stroke of that 
 knife-like bill, the grasp of those piercing talons, 
 of the one sharp cry of distress and despair, so 
 thrilling and expressive ; and then we lament in 
 silent wonder that violence and suffering should
 
 THE THRUSH. 137 
 
 have place in so beautiful a part of God's creation. 
 But how little can we penetrate into the designs of 
 Him whose paths are on the waters, and whose 
 footsteps are not known. Even the scenes we 
 witness in this visible world around us tell of the 
 Almighty but mysterious hand that formed them. 
 Yet in what seems at first sight mere violence and 
 suffering, we may trace, short-sighted as we are, 
 tokens of considerate mercy. Let us reflect on the 
 misery that weakness and old age would bring 
 upon a bird, and we shall perceive that so far, at 
 least, the existence of enemies to which in the first 
 stages of weakness it must quickly fall a prey, is a 
 merciful arrangement. The agony of the moment 
 is surely far better than the protracted suffering of 
 a bird, perishing by inches, dying in want and ex- 
 haustion, forsaken by its fellows. It goes and 
 makes room for the generation that is to succeed 
 it, and thus the happiness of existence is continued 
 to the species, though lost to the individual. 
 That increase, too, beyond the means of support, 
 which would be productive of misery to tlie race, 
 is thus prevented by this continual means of dimi-
 
 138 THE THRUSH. 
 
 nution. Life to all God's creatures becomes more 
 precious from the very feeling that it is not to last, 
 and from the wisely ordained uncertainty of its 
 duration. If we were called upon to furnish a 
 plan by which the greatest amount of enjoyment 
 could be secured to the greatest number of indi- 
 viduals, men and animals, in this world around us, 
 how utterly at a loss should we be to devise the 
 method. We see but a few links of the chain of 
 that mighty Providence that extends into unseen 
 worlds, through all time and space — how, then, 
 can we trace or reason upon it ? 
 
 When we see those scattered remains, that torn 
 and disordered plumage, let them remind us of the 
 fate of those who fall a prey to the violence of one 
 worse than the hawk, as the soul is more precious 
 than the body. When he takes captive, then in- 
 deed is disorder ; every good resolution torn and 
 scattered to the winds, every principle of faith 
 uprooted, the conscience soiled and defaced, and 
 reflecting no more to the callous mind the de- 
 formed image of sin ; all these tell of a ruin 
 worse than death, a destroyer more cruel than
 
 the fiercest bird or beast of prey, to which Scrip- 
 ture has compared him. Even the thrush, being 
 dead, may thus speak to us. 
 
 ^ong: of tlje Kijru^ij. 
 I. 
 
 Awake, awake ; the morn breaks forth, 
 And from her sleep the drowsy earth 
 
 Is waking now. 
 See, through the lattice peeps the day. 
 Pouring its warm and cheering ray 
 
 On thy young brow. 
 
 II. 
 Awake, awake ; what dost thou there ? 
 From the sweet south the morning air 
 
 Breathes fragrantly ; 
 It doth not yet on tainted wing 
 The breath of worldly turmoil bring, 
 
 'Tis fresh, like thee.
 
 140 THE THRUSH. 
 
 III. 
 Like thy young heart, as yet imprest 
 By sin's dark frost, earth's spangled breast 
 
 Shines in the light. 
 Man's footstep has not soiled the ground. 
 The diamond drops still hang around 
 
 Her mantle bright. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Come forth, and in that rising sun. 
 The emblem see of grace begun, 
 
 The soul's new birth. 
 When truth's bright day-star shall arise, 
 And grace lift up the veil that lies 
 
 On thy cold earth. 
 
 V. 
 
 See how yon faint streak of dawn 
 Across the blushing sky hath drawn 
 
 Its liquid hue ! 
 And one by one the things that lay 
 Beneath the twilight's curtain grey. 
 
 Burst into view.
 
 THE THRUSH. 141 
 
 VI. 
 Green woods by that fair sunshine kiss'd, 
 The river in its robe of mist, 
 
 Before unseen ; 
 The mountains, with their peaks of blue, 
 The meadows all besprent with dew. 
 
 And pastures green. 
 
 VII. 
 
 On flows the stream of living light, 
 Burning each hour more broad and bright, 
 
 It finds its way 
 To deep recess by mountain flood 
 With rocks o'erhung, through tangled wood, 
 And valleys wrapt in misty hood, 
 
 Till all is day. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Thus doth the dawn of grace begin, 
 A small faint streak just seen within 
 
 The cold, dark heart ; 
 Then flowing on with broader stream, 
 And reaching with its heavenlit beam 
 
 Each hidden part.
 
 142 THE THRUSH. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The morn is come ! from filmy eyes 
 Slowly the night's dark vapours rise ; 
 
 The veil is riven. 
 Through the rent folds fair prospects break 
 Of things before unseen, that take 
 
 Their hues from heaven. 
 
 X. 
 
 The beauty chaste of holiness, 
 
 The shining hope that soothes distress, 
 
 Truth's spotless zone, 
 The image of a Saviour's love. 
 That long on earth with sinners strove, 
 Then rose to plead their cause above. 
 
 Beside the throne. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Bright scenes to mourning bosoms sweet 
 When friends in deathless union meet, 
 
 In glory bright. 
 Glimpses of that blest fount, whose stream 
 Can wash the sin-stained garment clean, 
 
 And make it white.
 
 THE THRUSH. 143 
 
 XII. 
 
 Far on, the faith-lit eyes behold 
 God's city, with its streets of gold, 
 
 By angels trod ; 
 Which needeth not the light by day, 
 Nor yet by night the moon's soft ray, 
 
 Lighted by God. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 To many a scene of hidden sin, 
 The searching light goes pouring in, 
 
 Through darkest place. 
 The covering veil from sin to tear, 
 And make her show in noonday clear 
 
 Her branded face. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Before its beaming truth, the glare 
 That made each transient thing look fair, 
 
 Passes away. 
 Each false delight and withered flower, 
 The fruit of folly's mispent hour, 
 Look what they are, beneath the power 
 
 Of that bright day.
 
 144 THE THRUSH. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Oh ! may thy dawn of grace thus break 
 Into a glorious morn, and make 
 
 The living word, 
 Through thee, like day, its radiance dart, 
 That thou mayst be in mind and heart. 
 Shining within in every part, 
 
 Light in the Lord.
 
 What a variety of character and disposition has 
 been in infinite wisdom given to birds apparently 
 so much alike, and so closely allied in the chain of 
 natural relationship ! We have just seen how much 
 the thrush differs from the blackbird ; and when 
 we turn to the missel thrush we find him differing 
 as much from both as they do from each other. 
 It is a wise provision that he should not altogether 
 frequent the same haunts or delight in the same 
 food with his kinsmen, for he is a strong and 
 powerful bird, and so tenacious withal, that he 
 will not suffer intrusion into what he considers as 
 his own appropriated domain. 
 
 The different tribes of birds ascend and descend 
 in certain gradations, each one approaching the one 
 above and the one beneath it by a gradually in- 
 creasing similarity of form and habits. Tlic missel
 
 146 THE MISSEL THRUSH. 
 
 seems to be the connecting link between the pies 
 and the thrushes ; it has the song and the form of 
 the latter, but is far superior in size and strength ; 
 while his disposition partakes more of the fierce- 
 ness of the pies, though he is above their low arts 
 and petty cunning. He is of a wild and reckless 
 courage, that will endure all extremities rather 
 than yield his own ; he scarcely seems to fear even 
 the hawk ; and we seldom detect the remains of 
 his plumage in those remains of which we have 
 spoken. In the Spring months the thieving and 
 cowardly jay seems to devote all his energies to 
 the discovery of the small birds' nests, that he may 
 feast upon the eggs or the young. A sad experi- 
 ence, handed down, no doubt, traditionally from 
 generation to generation, has taught the missel 
 this. And when he sees this hereditary enemy 
 approaching his nest, he does not seem to fear the 
 dagger-like beak or the powerful claws with which 
 he has to contend, but attacks at once with a fury 
 and courage worthy of the falcons themselves. 
 The jay is a strong hard-looking bird ; but the 
 attack of two bold missels, contending for the life
 
 THE MISSEL THRUSH. 147 
 
 of their young, appears to intimidate him. His is 
 not the bold courage of the falcon, that flies with- 
 out a moment's hesitation on his quarry, though 
 larger and more powerful than itself; he seems to 
 know his own meanness and cowardice in thus 
 seeking his prey among the weak and the help- 
 less ; and when thus furiously opposed, quails, as 
 mean spirits always do, before the bold front of 
 the adversary that has detected him. 
 
 A curious instance of the bitter enmity existing 
 between these natural enemies once came under 
 my own observation. In an open glade, near my 
 window, the missel thrush had built its nest. Very 
 often, while they were sitting, and after the young 
 were hatched, this glade was the scene of furious 
 and repeated contests between the parent birds and 
 some jays that had discovered the nest. Whether 
 or not the jays succeeded in their object I cannot 
 now remember ; at all events, after a time, this 
 altercation ceased, there was now perfect silence 
 between them, the hoarse cry of the jay and the 
 jarring note of the missel had alike died away. 
 But one morning, the same contending voices 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE MISSEL THRUSH. 
 
 were suddenly lieard with tenfold fury. The jays 
 were seen hopping from bough to bough, and fly- 
 ing round and round, evidently in the greatest 
 alarm, and uttering shrieks of alarm and dismay. 
 After a time all was quiet again ; but on walking 
 the same day through the grove that had been the 
 scene of the morning's conflict, I discovered the 
 bodies of three or four young jays, half fledged, 
 lying upon the ground. The origin of the fierce 
 struggle was now apparent. The missel thrushes 
 had detected the young jays sitting on the edge of 
 the nest, and had probably succeeded in destroy- 
 ing them before the parents could come to their 
 rescue. 
 
 I was much struck, I remember, with this. At 
 first it seemed an act of fierce and deliberate 
 revenge, such as we should have thought would 
 have belonged alone to man's fallen nature, or to 
 savage animals, such as the buflPalo, who will stand 
 patiently for hours, smarting under the agony of 
 his wound, to detect the hiding-place of his enemy, 
 that he may rush upon him and wreak his ven- 
 geance. But then again, I thought, this fierce act
 
 THE MISSEL THRUSH. 149 
 
 is, after all, one of precaution and self-defence. 
 Those helpless unfledged things would soon have 
 acquired the arts and power, and have gone forth 
 from their nest to repeat the attacks and depre- 
 dations, of their parents. It was an instinct, not 
 of revenge, but of self-defence and preservation. 
 But the missel, we must confess, is not one of 
 those gentle spirits to which we might bid you 
 look as types of the meekness that becomes you. 
 In Autumn they congregate in flocks, and begin 
 to feed on the pastures and meadows ; but on 
 the approach of Winter they seem to resign those 
 feeding grounds to the fieldfare, separating again 
 when Winter is set in, and returning each to his 
 holly and misseltoe. The missel seems to appro- 
 priate these, his favourite berries, to himself, and 
 will not, even in the case of a hard Winter, relax 
 in his claims in favour of the poor hungry birds 
 that are flocking there for food they cannot find 
 elsewhere. Even the fieldfare, a strong and large 
 bird, is driven from the tree, and has little chance 
 of getting a meal until the missel has gorged him- 
 self, unless he come in numbers.
 
 150 THE MISSEL THRUSH. 
 
 But with all his violence and tyranny he is an 
 interesting bird ; there is something in his bold 
 and fearless bearing that makes us admire him ; 
 for so it is, we always admire that which is mere 
 animal courage, more than those gentle and for- 
 bearing qualities, in which, after all, true courage 
 consists. When the wind is blowing strongly and 
 making the tall trees bend before it, when the hills 
 in the western horizon look dark and frowning, 
 and there is every appearance of a coming storm, 
 then the wild song of the missel is heard, as if he 
 loved to hear that it was coming. He has thus 
 gained the title of the storm cock. His song, 
 though wanting variety, is of rather a wild and 
 peculiar character, harmonizing well with the cold 
 and blowing days on which we hear it. It has not 
 the expressive and varied notes of the thrush, nor 
 the mellow, and almost melancholy, tones of the 
 blackbird ; it is something between both, less mel- 
 low than the latter, less varied, and yet wilder than 
 the former. There are many people who, either 
 through want of observation or of ear, are not able 
 to distinguish the blackbird from the thrush ; this,
 
 THE MISSEL THRUSH. 151 
 
 we must confess, is strange ; but there are many 
 more people altogether at a loss to distinguish the 
 missel from either, although to any one familiar 
 with his song it cannot for a moment be mistaken 
 for either. 
 
 He forms his nest in rather an exposed place, 
 generally among the branches of the apple or the 
 pear, which has supplied, with its misseltoe, his 
 favourite food. Yet he places his nest so artfully 
 in the fork of a bough, and gives it a coating of 
 lichens, so closely resembling those on the bark of 
 the tree, that oftentimes it escapes our observation, 
 though so apparently exposed. 
 
 With all his boldness he does not appear to be 
 much at rest ; his overbearing temper leads him 
 into numberless quarrels, for he is always on the 
 alert in asserting and defending his claims. When 
 we see him so restless and anxious, hurrying here 
 and there, and threatening all encroachers upon his 
 appropriated domain, we cannot help thinking how 
 much happier he would be, were he more forbear- 
 ing, and less impatient of the claims of others. 
 We see it with him, we fancy, as with men, selfish-
 
 152 THE MISSEL THRUSH. 
 
 ness overreaches itself, and while seeking its ob- 
 jects with a reckless disregard of the happiness of 
 others, makes shipwreck of its own. 
 
 ^oiiS ol tijt fKt^^fl Eijni^lj. 
 
 Loudly the wind blows through the trees. 
 
 The hills in darkening purple frown, 
 And I know by the sound of the whistling breeze, 
 
 That the storm is coming down. 
 
 11. 
 
 But blow, ye rushing winds, I love 
 
 The sound of your wild and rustling wing ; 
 
 And while to your blast the strong trees move, 
 In the joy of my heart I sing.
 
 THE MISSEL THRUSH. 153 
 
 III. 
 
 On pinion stout I fear no harm, 
 
 Though stem and branch around me break ; 
 And I sing in the midst of the wildest storm, 
 
 That makes the forest shake. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Close to the bough I'm holding fast, 
 Though it wave in the passing gale ; 
 
 Firm as the hand that holds the mast, 
 Or furls the flapping sail. 
 
 V. 
 
 Oh ! blow ye winds, your voices high 
 Will Winter's gloomy silence break ; 
 
 Your rustling wings as they pass will dry 
 The tears on earth's sad cheek. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Oh ! blow ye on ! your freshening breath 
 The sweet wild flowers again will bring, 
 
 I fancy I see your wings beneath 
 Smiles of the new-born Spring.
 
 VII. 
 
 Where'er your rushing pinions go, 
 Earth rises from her wintry sleep ; 
 
 Flowers long lost start up to blow, 
 As the breezes o'er them sweep. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Then blow ye rushing winds ! I love 
 
 The sound of your wild and rustling wing ; 
 
 And while to your blast the strong trees move, 
 In the joy of my heart I sing. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Oh thus ! when o'er thy heart's cold ground 
 God's breath, my child, hath freely blown, 
 
 You too will love its freshening sound, 
 And know that your Winter's gone. 
 
 X. 
 
 Though stem and branch it sternly rend. 
 Tear passions dear from thy heart's core, 
 
 And make the pride of thy spirit bend 
 Before its unseen power.
 
 XI. 
 
 Fear not the blast ! it is a breath 
 
 That reaches thy inmost soul within ; 
 
 And comes to wake from the wintry death, 
 And the dark sad night of sin. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Soon as that genial breath sliall blow 
 Over your heart's yet barren ground, 
 
 Flowers of grace will burst forth, and throw 
 Their heavenly fragrance round. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 And when time's no more, its unseen wing 
 Shall sweep around o'er sea and earth, 
 
 Like flowers long lost that burst in Spring, 
 Bidding the dead come forth, 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Then wake thee up, and let thine heart 
 Now bend before the current strong ; 
 
 Tliat thou may'st hereafter bear thy part 
 With that awakening throng.
 
 156 THE MISSEL THRUSH. 
 
 XV. 
 
 When the tree waves and bends, we know 
 
 The breeze is blowing through it ; 
 God's breath, we shall know, doth o'er thee blow 
 
 When thy heart is bending to it.
 
 K^t ^elloto^l^ammcr ot ^mmn (^3unting). 
 
 The yellow-hammer, as his name describes, is 
 peculiarly distinguished by his colour from the 
 other species of the bunting tribe. He would 
 rank at the head of all the birds of yellow plumage, 
 were it not for a little rival that arrives in Spring 
 to eclipse him, just as his own brilliant plumage is 
 in its pride of beauty. We cannot but admire the 
 bright yellow of his Spring attire, though his form 
 is not so elegant as that of many other birds, for 
 all the buntings are of a strong and heavy figure. 
 But when his yellow rival arrives, with its beau- 
 tiful sulphurlike tint, its perfect head, and slender 
 bill, its quick and graceful motions, and elegant 
 form, the poor bunting must needs give place. It 
 cannot compete with so beautiful a creature as the 
 yellow water-wagtail. 
 
 But yet the yellow-hammer must be a great
 
 158 THE YELLOW-HAMMER. 
 
 favourite with all who know and observe him. If 
 we are travelling on a fine fresh morning in Spring, 
 he is sitting on the topmost bough of the hedge, 
 giving us his welcome and good wishes as we pass, 
 and he never seems to leave us. If we are on the 
 beaten frequented road of a populous country, he 
 is there with us. If our way lie over some wild 
 heath habited only by the furze and the broom, he 
 is there, and his note as constant as his presence. 
 In the deep silence of noon, when scarcely a bird's 
 voice is to be heard, and all the songsters seem to 
 be taking their rest, his peculiar note with its long 
 plaintive cadence still rings in our ears. To a 
 person fond of birds, and who likes to make com- 
 panions of them in his journeys, by observing the 
 different species as he passes, a road without a 
 yellow-hammer would be like the Spring without 
 the cuckoo. He is a quiet, harmless bird : in the 
 Autumn and Winter, indeed, he will sometimes be 
 found in bad company, with the sparrow, on the 
 ripe grain, or in the rick-yard ; but let us not be 
 hard with him. If we could follow him through- 
 out the year, and put the good he does at one time
 
 THE YELLOW-HAMMER. 159 
 
 against the mischief perpetrated at another, we 
 should no doubt find the balance in his favour. 
 
 His mate is of a more homely appearance, the 
 brown in her plumage subduing and predomi- 
 nating over the yellow. They build a comfortable 
 nest on the ditch bank ; the male is very attentive 
 to his mate ; and when she requires air and rest, 
 and longs to stretch her cramped wings once again 
 in the soft air, and range her well-known haunts, 
 he takes his turn upon the nest, thus relieving her, 
 and enabling her to take her pleasure and exercise 
 without uneasiness. Many of the birds do this, 
 and it is a striking, beautiful instance of that com- 
 mon purpose, and that attentive devotion to each 
 other, which God hath put into the hearts of these 
 his feeble creatures. They cannot, indeed, tell us 
 how sweet this bond of union, how dear to each 
 the attachment tliat unites them ; but what they 
 cannot tell in words, they are continually express- 
 ing in song, and manifesting by numberless acts 
 of affection and devotion to each other. If they 
 could speak they might tell us that their's is a 
 love which truly makes them one, that they have
 
 all their objects in common, and tliat love is with 
 them in their natural, what it is to man in his 
 spiritual, the fulfilling of the law that a God of 
 love hath given them. 
 
 When their families are reared, and the harvest 
 is now fast ripening in the fields, they begin to 
 flock together, as if their strength and protection 
 consisted in this union and combination. But as 
 they can make no resistance against their enemies, 
 this flocking together must be rather with a view 
 to escape than to resist. Such, too, is the object 
 of Christian intercourse and communion : it is not 
 that the arm of flesh can protect us, or the strength 
 of our fellow man ; but to the body is given vigi- 
 lance and mutual support in all spiritual warning 
 and encouragement, which the individual cannot 
 have. When every man is looking not only to 
 his own things, but also to the things of others, 
 there is a compact of mutual support, a bond of 
 spiritual alliance, and we may say, " Blessed are 
 the people that are in such a case." 
 
 How peculiar is the cry of warning that God 
 liath given to the birds ! so expressive that all
 
 THE YELLOW-HAMMER. 161 
 
 familiar with it, look at once for the hawk when 
 they hear it ; and well would it be for us if we 
 were all thus vigilant in giving warning to others, 
 and thus ready to take it when given to ourselves. 
 
 ^oitg: of t^e ^clloiu-l&ammcr. 
 
 I. 
 Come, sit upon that gentle mound. 
 
 With downy moss o'erspread. 
 Where many a cowslip blooms around, 
 To scent thy grassy bed ; 
 And I, upon the hawthorn spray. 
 Will softly lull thee with my simple lay. 
 
 II. 
 You oft have heard the nightingale 
 
 At midnight's silent hour, 
 When pouring out her plaintive tale 
 Within the hazel bower ; 
 How sweet doth she her love-tale tell, 
 With pensive grace that suits the hour so well ! 
 
 M
 
 162 THE YELLOW-H'AMMER. 
 
 III. 
 
 You have heard the blackbird's song at dawn 
 
 On the morning breezes float, 
 And the skylark, springing from the lawn. 
 Send forth his joyous note ; 
 Well may those notes of pleasure sound, 
 When day comes forth to shed its gladness round. 
 
 IV. 
 
 You've heard at eve the sedge-bird sing, 
 
 The willow boughs among, 
 And the woodlark give on gentle wing 
 Her melancholy song ; 
 For they their lonely vigils keep. 
 And softly sing the silent eve to sleep. 
 
 But no glad tale of praise is told, 
 
 When noon is shining bright, 
 And all the earth's arrayed in gold 
 Beneath the glorious light ; 
 When each glad bird hath, in his mirth. 
 Fed on the fulness of the teeming earth.
 
 THE YELLOW-HAMxMER. 1G3 
 
 VI. 
 
 Each bird, now day is at its height, 
 
 Flies off on careless wing, 
 And in the depth of their delight 
 They all forget to sing. 
 My lowly note is left alone, 
 To break the stillness of the golden noon. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Behold in this an emblem true 
 
 Of man's capricious way ; 
 Who, when affliction clouds his view, 
 Bows the stiff heart to pray ; 
 But when his sun is up and bright. 
 Will in his gifts the heavenly Giver slight. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 When sorrow, like the dark sad night, 
 
 Broods o'er the mourner's heart, 
 And he lives from worldly sound and sight, 
 Like lonely bird, apart, 
 Then prayer is heard, unheard before. 
 Beneath the sunshine of a brighter hour. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE YELLOW-HAMMER. 
 
 IX. 
 
 And when again, like dawning day, 
 
 Light to the gloom is given, 
 And hope sheds forth her rainbow ray, 
 Bright with the hues of Heaven, 
 Like birds that hail the dawn, he bends 
 Low before Him who such sweet comfort sends. 
 
 X. 
 
 And as upon the eve's soft ear 
 
 The woodlark's song is borne, 
 So oft goes up the voice of prayer. 
 Ne'er heard in life's gay morn. 
 When its brief day begins to close 
 And o'er our path its lengthening shadow throws. 
 
 XI. 
 
 But oh ! how few, amid the glare 
 
 Of bright prosperity, 
 Lift up the anxious heart in prayer. 
 Or turn the heavenward eye ! 
 Few birds will sing in noon-day bright, 
 Few hearts will care to pray when all is light.
 
 THE YELLOW-HAMMER. 165 
 
 XII. 
 
 For oh ! our hearts are like the flower, 
 
 That bends her lowly head, 
 And veils her grace beneath the shower 
 Or night-dew o'er her shed ; 
 But when the sun comes forth, in pride 
 Erects her head, and throws her veil aside.
 
 Kf^t Matktap. 
 
 This is one of a very interesting tribe, the war- 
 blers. Most of them are birds of passage, and 
 tender as they are and feeble, they have an instinct 
 that tells them that it is better they should en- 
 counter the perils of a journey over sea and land 
 to a distant country, than remain here, where the 
 leaves will fall, and the Winter will come. 
 
 This species is very regular in the time of its 
 return ; with us in Herefordshire he is generally 
 seen about the 5th or Gth of April. His clear 
 voice and pretty song comes suddenly upon our 
 ear as we walk out ; and in the well-known bush, 
 where we have so often found him in former 
 seasons, there is our welcome visitor, with his 
 slate-grey plumage and peculiar top-knot of black. 
 Almost a single note is sufficient to tell the tale of 
 liis return, for his voice has a fulness and clearness
 
 THE BLACKCAP. 167 
 
 which we cannot for a moment mistake, and alto- 
 gether a different character from that of any birds 
 that winter with us. 
 
 It is a sweet token that Spring is come, heard 
 like the voice of a dear friend after a long period 
 of separation. And when he comes, he seems 
 anxious to do all he can to make up for his 
 long absence. Morning, noon, and evening, he 
 sings away, sometimes hidden in the foliage of 
 a dark evergreen, sometimes on the yet naked 
 sprays, moving about continually, made restless, 
 as it were, by the very fulness of his enjoyment ; 
 as we see children when they return to their homes. 
 He loves the scenes around him where he was 
 reared ; they are his real home, though he may 
 have visited others warmer and brighter. Other- 
 wise in many seasons he would have little cause to 
 rejoice on his return. He has left a warm and 
 pleasant land, teeming with his insect food, covered 
 with a luxuriant vegetation and spreading foliage 
 that supplies plenty of shade and shelter ; while 
 the scenes that he has come to are as yet bare and 
 cold ; all the green he can see is on the grass just
 
 168 THE BLACKCAP. 
 
 recovering from its wintry brown, in the ever- 
 greens, or in the bursting buds of the lilac, and the 
 larch, and honeysuckle. Still he is happy and 
 content, for it is his home. And such home 
 should ever be to us : should we go forth into 
 brighter scenes, it should be only to return to the 
 quiet of home, to enjoy it the more from the con- 
 trast. The world without may have many scenes 
 of attraction to catch the eye and the sense, yet 
 here the heart's true resting-place should be, with 
 all its associations of pure and holy love, the scene 
 of our best and truest enjoyments. 
 
 He comes some days before the female, which 
 is readily distinguished from the male by her 
 less vivid plumage, and by the top-knot, which 
 in her is chestnut coloured, and not black. The 
 nest is of neat workmanship, built in a bush, a few 
 feet from the ground, and not begun till the open- 
 ing leaves have given a prospect of security. The 
 male sits occasionally on the eggs to relieve the 
 female, and when he does so, rejoicing in his task, 
 sings on the very nest, happy in his duties ; even as 
 God's people will ever be in theirs — in the midst
 
 THE BLACKCAP. 169 
 
 of their self-denial and forbearance, ever singing 
 and making melody in their hearts to Him they 
 serve. 
 
 How far these tiny travellers may go, when 
 they leave our shores and launch forth into the 
 wide world of sea and land before them, it is diffi- 
 cult to say; but they are found in distant and 
 different parts of the globe, and in climates very 
 different from ours. They are found in the 
 Azores, in Madeira, in Northern and Southern 
 Africa, even as far south as the Cape ; while even 
 in the far east it shows its quiet homely plumage 
 amid the gorgeous birds of Java. 
 
 Like other birds of passage, it is with difficulty 
 kept in a state of confinement ; for not only is it 
 difficult to procure the food during Winter that 
 would suit it, but there is an instinct that renders 
 it restless and uneasy when the period of migration 
 has arrived ; it knoweth its appointed season, and 
 the captives will then beat their little wings against 
 the cage in their impatience to be gone. 
 
 How wonderful is this instinct ! and yet we do 
 not find it confined to the birds : it is shown
 
 170 THE BLACKCAP. 
 
 strongly in the young salmon, who, when taken 
 and confined in a pond, will throw themselves out 
 upon the land in their impatience and perish, 
 when the period for their migration to the sea has 
 arrived, and the strong instinct to seek that salt 
 water which is to give them size and strength, is 
 upon them. So strong are the instincts that God 
 hath given to his people for their preservation ; 
 and alas ! how plainly do we read the token of 
 our fall in our naturally blind indifference to what 
 ought to be the leading instinct of our nature. 
 The period of man's migration arrives, the long 
 passage through the valley of the shadow of death 
 is before him. Where is his restlessness to be 
 gone ? How seldom does the imprisoned spirit 
 beat against its fleshly walls, that it may take wing 
 and be gone ! Our perverted instinct still cleaves 
 to a land where we are only sojourners, as all our 
 fathers were. And yet how lively a type is the 
 young salmon of which we have spoken, confined 
 to the narrow bank and shallow streams of the 
 inland river, and then breaking away into the 
 waters of the boundless ocean, of man's immortal
 
 THE BLACKCAP. 171 
 
 spirit, bound for a while within the narrow limits 
 of its fleshly tabernacle, and then bursting forth, 
 when those frail walls are dissolved, into an im- 
 measurable eternity ! But long and far must be 
 our spiritual progress, close must have been our 
 walk with God, and complete the victory of the 
 spirit over the flesh) before we can so far break 
 loose from the bonds of our perverted instincts, 
 and the frail longings of the flesh for this its 
 earthly home, as to be able to employ the language 
 of that Christian experience which said, " In this 
 we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon 
 with our house which is from heaven." 
 
 ^ong of tj)c Btacfecap. 
 1. 
 
 For many a mile by day and night, 
 Our little wings with pinions light. 
 
 Their weary task have plied. 
 And now we come, all peril past. 
 Back to the hazel copse at last. 
 
 The well-known stream beside.
 
 II. 
 
 The land we left had dainty food 
 To feed our young, and tangled wood 
 
 To screen our simple nest ; 
 Full softly breathed the spicy air, 
 And all around looked bright and fair ; 
 
 But that was not our rest. 
 
 in. 
 
 O'er the dark bosom of the deep 
 Our journey lay, no rest or sleep 
 
 Our weary pinions knew ; 
 But through the blue unclouded sky 
 With lusty wing we soar'd on high. 
 
 And strong in hope we flew. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Many an angry tempest toss'd us, 
 Oft the opposing currents cross'd us, 
 
 While by our little band 
 Fvdl oft the feeble cry was heard, 
 And fluttering wing of some poor bird. 
 
 That never reached the land.
 
 THE BLACKCAP. 173 
 
 V. 
 
 But on we went ; for land and life 
 Before us lay ; beneath, the strife 
 
 Of ocean's raging tide. 
 And now we come, all peril past, 
 Back to our hazel copse at last. 
 
 The well-known stream beside. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Oh ! child of an immortal race ! 
 Thou hast on earth no resting-place ; 
 
 From these a warning take. 
 Bird of passage, plume thy wings. 
 Oh, clog them not with earthly things, 
 
 Lest sin their vigour break. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Before thee lies life's troubled sea, 
 And far beyond awaiting thee, 
 
 A land in glory bright. 
 Come out from pleasure's soft retreat, 
 For dying creatures all unmeet ; 
 
 Prepare thee for thy flight !
 
 174 THE BLACKCAP. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And as we wing our flight on high, 
 Where in the calm unclouded sky 
 
 We're less by currents driven ; 
 Oh ! so do thou thy pathway true 
 Above earth's low desires pursue, 
 
 Thy converse all in heaven. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Many an angry storm will toss thee, 
 And sin's opposing wind will cross thee ; 
 
 Thy wings must never sleep. 
 Temptation's current strongly blows, 
 Many 's the fainting soul it throws 
 
 Down into the deep. 
 
 But hold thou on with all thy force, 
 And strong in faith pursue thy course, 
 
 For land and life's before thee ! 
 Fear not, trembling bird ; the might 
 Of God's own arm sustains thy flight, 
 
 And Christ is watching o'er thee.
 
 XI. 
 
 Hold on in faith, thou'lt reach the shore 
 Where all is peace, and sin no more 
 
 Stirs up her deadly strife. 
 Then, like the bird, all peril past, 
 Thou'lt furl thy wings in heaven at last, 
 
 Beside the stream of life.
 
 Though well known by voice to all that love to 
 frequent the banks of rivers, where the willow 
 dips its graceful foliage in the stream, the sedge- 
 warbler is little known by sight. This little bird 
 is of a peculiarly shy and retiring character. Its 
 little babbling note goes on almost continuously 
 beside us, and yet we cannot get a glimpse of the 
 author of all this secret music. It creeps and hops 
 from bough to bough as we approach, and buries 
 itself in the recesses of the green foliage to escape 
 our observation. And yet it seems to be proud of 
 its powers of song, and has apparently taken much 
 pains in instructing and improving itself, for the 
 song is imitative, and consists, in a great measure, 
 of notes learned from other birds. The thrush, 
 the skylark and woodlark, and the linnet, have all 
 been models ; and thus the little songster is able 
 to run on in a strain of continued variety, though 
 of little power.
 
 THE SEDGE-WARBLER. 1/7 
 
 These notes, to those who have often Hstened to 
 them, become associated with scenes of cahn Sum- 
 mer enjoyment, from the times and places in which 
 we have generally heard them. In the warm sunny 
 days of June, when we love to stroll by the banks 
 of some clear river, loitering under the pleasant 
 shade of the alders and willows, watching the water 
 as it passes and gives us the idea of coolness by 
 its continuous succession, the note of the sedge- 
 warbler will always form part of our quiet en- 
 joyment. To me that song ever brings vividly 
 back before me the scenes of early days, and 
 the banks of the beautiful river on which so 
 many of my Summer holidays were spent. My 
 boat and dog and fishing-rod, the cattle standing 
 in the stream, the fine green pastures and the beau- 
 tiful hills beyond, and all the accompaniments of 
 those happy days are brought back at once, at the 
 sound of that voice, as by a spell. Whenever I 
 hear it, I cannot help fancying for the moment, 
 that it is the same identical bird, the very indi- 
 vidual that used to sing to me there, and wonder 
 for a moment why it should have left a spot so 
 
 N
 
 178 THE SEDGE-WARBLER. 
 
 beautiful. It is well for us, indeed, that we are 
 sometimes compelled to change our homes, for 
 then we learn how very dear mere external objects 
 may become to us, and how, even in these the best 
 of our earthly affections, there is peril of their exer- 
 cising too strong, because too earthly, an influence 
 over us. 
 
 It must, we might imagine, be a trial to this 
 little bird to prepare for its Autumn voyage ; the 
 boundaries of instinct and intelligence are so faintly 
 marked, that we cannot know whether it has any 
 ideas beyond the mere instinct of migration, whe- 
 ther or not it foresees the change about to take 
 place in the climate and in the face of nature 
 around it ; but, in either case, there can be no 
 room for regret. If it foresee its favourite haunts 
 stripped of their foliage, the clear stream become 
 swollen and turbid, or coaled with ice, its insect 
 food all withdrawn, it must little lament a change 
 from all that will be so dreary to those bright and 
 sunny lands to which it bends its course. And if 
 it have not intelligence to foresee the change, it can 
 have little to feel regret at its migration. With
 
 THE SEDGE-WARBLER. I79 
 
 regard to ourselves, if we would but be taught by 
 the common every day experience of a dying world, 
 keep our eyes open to what, we must know, is 
 really before us, the Winter that will surely one 
 day close upon all our earthly prospects, the fallen 
 leaves and severed ties that it will strew around 
 our path, the actual perishing nature of everything 
 around us, we should then learn to look for some- 
 thing better and more lasting, have our conver- 
 sation more in heaven, and thus be found ready 
 and willing when the time of our departure is at 
 hand. 
 
 The sedge-bird's nest is formed among the 
 underwood on the banks of the river, only a few 
 feet from the ground ; and as she sits upon her 
 eggs, she can see the clear water running and rip- 
 pling by, the sun shining here and there through 
 the waving foliage, and her mate, who, sitting 
 among them, beguiles her task with his varied 
 imitations. There is something so apparently 
 delightful in the life of those birds that frequent 
 die streams and rivers, and nestle on their banks, 
 that we always admire the happy lot assigned them. 
 
 n2
 
 The sedge-warbler does not seem bound by any 
 invincible necessity to such localities, yet it is 
 never found away from its favourite and allotted 
 haunts. And why indeed should it leave them ? 
 It is not called to the smoky atmosphere of the 
 crowded city, no gain or business calls it there ; 
 and here it lives a happy life without temptations, 
 with no inward and bitter conflicts, no sad and 
 painful recollections. And yet what is that hap- 
 piness, the mere enjoyment of sensual existence, 
 soon to come to an end for ever ? Oh ! what are 
 care and trouble, sorrow and bitterness, conflict 
 and trial, when we look to what is beyond ? The 
 sufferings of this present time are surely not to be 
 compared with the glory that is to be revealed. 
 We never can be as happy as that simple bird on 
 the banks of its native river, if we have not the 
 hope of that glory ; and if we have it, the pro- 
 portion of our happiness to that of the senseless 
 bird, is as eternity to time, as the never-ending 
 happiness of the soul to the passing enjoyments of 
 the body.
 
 THE SEDGE-WARBLER. 181 
 
 ^ong oC tije ^etfjc-MarWcr. 
 
 By yon fair willow'd stream, 
 
 When June, arrayed in flowers, 
 Shines with her sunny gleam, 
 I spend my lonely hours. 
 Wary and shy, 
 From man's keen eye 
 I softly hide, and sing my song unseen. 
 Close in the willow bush beneath the tresses green. 
 
 n. 
 
 The stream's soft voice I love 
 Flowing beneath the bough, 
 When the waving branches move 
 To the water rippling through. 
 Sweet to my ear 
 That murmur clear ; 
 And when the sun rides high, the busy hum 
 Of myriad insect wings that love the glowing sun.
 
 III. 
 
 I see the trout beneath 
 
 Through the clear waters rove, 
 When there is not a breath 
 Their placid breast to move, 
 As the bright beam 
 Shines o'er the stream ; 
 And far beyond I see the dark hills frown, 
 From whence the stream I love flows in her beauty 
 down. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I have looked on bluer skies, 
 Felt suns of warmer glow, 
 Seen higher mountains rise. 
 And mightier waters flow. 
 Though bright and fair, 
 I stay'd not there ; 
 Dearer to me than all is this one spot, 
 And through my weary flight my heart forgets it 
 not.
 
 Where the calm stream is seen 
 Beneath the bough to glide, 
 And the brakes of hawthorn green 
 Its gentle ripples hide ; 
 'Twas there I first 
 The egg-shell burst, 
 And from my nest look'd out with wondering eye ; 
 'Twas there my weak wings made their first essay 
 to fly. 
 
 VI. 
 
 How close our parents kind 
 
 Watch'd o'er their little brood, 
 And search'd each leaf to find 
 The tender insect food ; 
 From morn to night 
 On pinion light 
 They fled around, or on a spray that hung 
 Over our secret nest, poured forth their merry song.
 
 184 THE SEDGE-WARBLER. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Flow on, thou lovely stream ! 
 
 Oh ! sad will be the clay- 
 When ends our Summer dream ; 
 And we must seek our way, 
 O'er sea and land. 
 To some fair strand, 
 Where Winter rules not with such iron power. 
 But where, alas ! we ne'er shall find so sweet a 
 bower. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 O'er many a weary mile, 
 
 You too, my child, must roam, 
 Far from the welcome smile 
 Of your own happy home, 
 Through many a scene 
 Of brighter green ; 
 Yet oft you'll wish you had that tiny wing, 
 Back to the one loved spot your longing heart to 
 bring.
 
 THE SEDGE-WARBLER. 185 
 
 IX, 
 
 It is not that you dwell 
 
 In ceil'd and spacious halls, 
 For home is loved as well 
 In mean and narrow walls. 
 Sweet to the poor 
 Their lowly door ; 
 And glad are they to reach the wicket gate, 
 As proudest lord who comes back to his halls of 
 state. 
 
 •X. 
 
 Home will be sweet, for there, 
 With love that lies so deep, 
 Your mother's anxious care 
 Watch'd o'er your infant sleep ; 
 There past the day 
 Of childhood gay, 
 And every well known thing that meets your eye. 
 Will bring the memory sweet of liappier days 
 gone by.
 
 186 THE SEDGE- WARBLER. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Yet home itself is pain, 
 
 And all its charms are gone, 
 If e'er love's silver chain 
 That binds it be undone. 
 Or should dark sin 
 Come rushing in. 
 And, like a hawk, with its dread talons scare 
 Each pure and holy grace, that long had nestled 
 there. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Or should earthly homes be sweet, 
 Their chain of love ne'er break, 
 Yet many an empty seat 
 
 Will death and sorrow make ; 
 As each loved face. 
 That lent its grace 
 To that glad board, shall fade away, 
 Like flowers withering fast in Autumn's shortening 
 day.
 
 XIII. 
 
 There is but one sure home 
 
 Where peace is ever found ; 
 Whose chain, where'er you roam, 
 Can never be unbound. 
 It is the rest 
 Of spirit blest, 
 When from the world it turns in Him to dwell, 
 Whose heavenly peace alone its bitter strife can 
 quell. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 As the sweet stream flows by 
 Of that dear mother's love. 
 Oh ! turn your grateful eye 
 To its pure source above ! 
 From God's own throne 
 That stream came down. 
 An emblem meek of that which lives in Him, 
 So pure and bright, it makes a mother's love look 
 dim.
 
 188 THE SEDGE-WARBLER. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Seek then that home of peace ! 
 
 Its charms how pure tliey shine ! 
 Its love shall never cease, 
 No death its links untwine. 
 Oh ! make your nest 
 On his sure breast, 
 Whose love will light this dark and dreary way, 
 And still shine more and more unto the perfect day.
 
 This differs from the last in song and appearance, 
 but very little in the former. It frequents the 
 same localities, except that this is more frequently 
 found among the reeds and rushes on the sides of 
 lakes and ponds, while the other prefers inhabit- 
 ing the willowed banks of the rivers. Both build 
 near the water's edge ; both are imitators of other 
 birds' notes, and both sing by night as well as by 
 day — the reed-bird more generally by night, or in 
 the dusk of the evening. The situations chosen 
 by the reed-birds are not those to which our taste 
 would lead us, as in the former instance. They 
 do not seek the waving branch that swings to and 
 fro over the clear stream rippling beneath, but 
 rather the shelter of some tall reeds, which, we 
 know, will only grow where the water is in a great 
 measure stagnant. There is something melancholy
 
 190 THE REED-BIRD. 
 
 in its song on this very account, that we often hear 
 it on the margin of some dreary and lonely marsh, 
 where the tall rush is rustling in the wind, and the 
 earth around is reeking with damp exhalations. 
 
 But God hath given it the happiness of animal 
 existence, be it where it may ; and we must needs 
 doubt, after all that we say and feel with re- 
 spect to the delight of certain localities, as our 
 own taste would decide, whether the birds in the 
 most lovely of nature's scenes enjoy more of life 
 than those whose lot is cast amid her more dreary 
 situations. Man, in his caprice and wilfulness, 
 would often attach his prospects of happiness to 
 the position of his earthly lot, when all the time 
 his only true happiness is altogether independent 
 of these transient contingencies. These are but 
 for a moment ; health and wealth, poverty and 
 sickness, ease and toil, hardship and indulgence, 
 the dark crowded alley, the fresh joyous country, 
 are all but the appendages of a little span of life, 
 that is soon to be merged in eternity ; mere tem- 
 porary accidents, not worth the care and solicitude 
 of a creature destined for immortality. The reed-
 
 THE REED-BIRD. 191 
 
 bird is as happy by the stagnant marsh as the 
 sedge-bird by the clear and shining river ; yet this 
 life is all to them. Into what comparative insig- 
 nificance, then, should the distinctions of mere 
 earthly positions sink in the eyes of beings to 
 whom this life should seem but as a speck ! 
 
 The reed-bird, too, has a reason for the partiality 
 that her name implies : it is on the reeds that she 
 constructs her nest, attaching it with curious art to 
 the stems. She makes it deep with wise fore- 
 thought, so that the eggs may not roll out when 
 the reeds bend their tall heads before the wind, 
 and sometimes almost dip them in the water 
 beneath. While sitting, she waves to and fro, as 
 in a CBadle, with the motion of the bending reeds ; 
 but she has built her nest firmly upon the suspen- 
 sion principle ; she knows that the braces are 
 good, and feels secure. It is, indeed, a reed 
 shaken with the wind, but it is the position which 
 instinct has taught her. Our instinct should, on 
 the contrary, be to build upon a rock, even upon 
 that hope which is as the anchor of the soul, and 
 cannot be moved. Many who have failed in this
 
 192 THE REED-BIRD. 
 
 have lived to see the hopes so long fed and che- 
 rished overwhelmed as in a moment, when the 
 flood has come, and tlie bending reeds, on which 
 they have built, yield before it, and the waters 
 pass over, carrying all away. 
 
 I. 
 
 In tlie calm night when all is still, 
 
 And not a voice is heard around, 
 Save the wild stream that from the hill 
 Falls down with dashing sound ; 
 When o'er the heath, 
 The cold damp breath 
 Bends the tall rush with passing wing, 
 Upon its waving head alone I sing.
 
 THE REED-BIRD. 193 
 
 II. 
 
 How sweet to me this quiet hour, 
 
 When day hath hush'd his voices loud ; 
 And all earth owns night's silent power, 
 Wrapt in her stilly shroud. 
 My lowly song, 
 That mid the throng 
 Of day's gay songsters was not heard, 
 Hath now at length the lonely echoes stirr'd. 
 
 III. 
 
 When day shone bright, loud, joyous notes 
 
 From thousand voices hail'd liis smile. 
 As when the pealing organ floats 
 Along the shafted aisle. 
 But I sing best, 
 When all's at rest. 
 As when escaped from crowd and glare. 
 Some faithful heart sends forth its lonely prayer. 
 

 
 IV. 
 
 In this still season, when the hum 
 
 Of stirring life is heard no more ; 
 And when my daily flight is done 
 Along the reedy shore ; 
 'Tis now I raise 
 My song of praise 
 To Him, beneath whose watchful eye 
 Lives every little wing that beats the sky. 
 
 Do thou, my child, in this still hour, 
 
 When all day's busy sounds are gone, 
 Thy voice of praise and prayer pour 
 Before the eternal throne ! 
 Oh ! could you rest 
 With tranquil breast. 
 And lay thee down with prayer unsaid, 
 To Him who watches o'er thy helpless bed ?
 
 THE REED-BIRD. 195 
 
 VI. 
 
 Earth's playthings have been laid aside ; 
 
 A day of noisy life's gone by ; 
 The world, with all its care and pride, 
 Hath vanish'd from thine eye. 
 Thou art alone 
 Before his throne : 
 Would'st thou forget the Saviour's name ? 
 Shall a poor bird thy thankless spirit shame ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 How few, amid the press of life. 
 
 The thoughts that wing their flight to Heav'n I 
 For, lost amid its noise and strife, 
 They all are downward driven. 
 Oh, dost thou ne'er 
 In faith repair 
 To some lone spot, where none can see, 
 And pray for love to Him who loveth thee ? 
 
 o 2
 
 19G THE REED-BIRD. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Within the barr'd and guarded gate, 
 Which the Philippian gaoler kept, 
 In the still hour of midnight late. 
 When other captives slept, 
 Faith, firm and strong, 
 Sent forth her song ; 
 Each bar and bolt asunder flew : 
 Away his chains each startled captive threw. 
 
 IX. 
 
 In the close prison of thy clay, 
 
 W^ith many a worldly fetter bound. 
 Oh, let thy prayer by night and day 
 From lips unwearied sound, 
 That thou may'st strain. 
 And break the chain, 
 That binds thee tight, and open wide 
 Each bolt that bars thee from thy Saviour's side.
 
 THE REED-BIRD. 197 
 
 He loves the sound, when deep and loud 
 
 The voice of prayer hath reach'd his throne ; 
 Or when in hymns the gather'd crowd 
 His saving presence own. 
 Yet sweet to Him, 
 By twilight dim, 
 The sight of some lone chamber, where 
 The kneeling child pours forth his simple prayer. 
 
 XI. 
 
 You deem it strange a bird should be 
 
 So happy on that barren moor. 
 Oh, many a gloomier scene you'll see 
 Ere life's sad course be o'er. 
 But do not fear, 
 For one is near, 
 Whose love, vvith singing heart and cheerful brow, 
 'Mid gloomier scenes than these, will bear thee 
 joyous through.
 
 Cf)c 21Siooti'21Siari)lcr. 
 
 This very much resembles the willow- wren, before 
 described, and the distinctions of plumage between 
 them are so trivial, that they would be easily over- 
 looked by any casual observer. This is smaller 
 than the other, and has more of the white tint and 
 less of the yellow on the breast and back. But 
 though alike in appearance, they are very dissimilar 
 •in habits and character. The willow-wren, as we 
 have seen, is a joyous, merry-looking bird, with a 
 voice corresponding with his looks, and frequents 
 hedges and thickets, where he is heard throughout 
 the day in the Spring and early Summer. But 
 this little bird has more of pensiveness about it, 
 and frequents the tall timber trees of the grove, 
 and builds its nest in the brakes beneath, generally 
 on the ground. 
 
 Its song is brief and gentle, often uttered on the
 
 wing, as it flies from bough to bough, or takes its 
 insect prey in the air, under the shade of the beech, 
 to which tree it seems particularly attached. There 
 is something interesting in the quiet habits of this 
 little bird to those who know him well. He is 
 always to be seen haunting the same localities ; and 
 when any foot approaches his nest, or even enters 
 the shade of his favourite trees during the breeding 
 season, he utters a plaintive note, soft and melan- 
 choly beyond description. There is no scolding in 
 it, no temper or violence as with the little wren, 
 but quiet, pathetic remonstrance, a note that seems 
 to say, that all its hopes and treasures are at your 
 mercy, and if you spoil it of its young, it will be 
 miserable indeed. 
 
 I remember, when a boy, I had just learned the 
 art of throwing stones at birds, of which thought- 
 less boyhood is so fond ; and whenever I passed 
 through the grove where the little quiet bird had 
 nestled, it would come close to me with its melan- 
 choly note, an inviting mark for the exercise of my 
 new accomplishment. When the stone passed close 
 beside it, it would scarcely move, and if it did,
 
 200 THE WOOD-WARBLER, 
 
 would fly to another branch equally close at hand ; 
 and though pursued and tormented by this thought- 
 less practice, would never leave the place, always 
 persisting in remaining within a few yards, and 
 uttering its notes of patient and quiet remon- 
 strance. At length I saw it one day emerging from 
 a brake of grass and briars beneath its favourite 
 beech, and after much exploring, for it was not 
 easy to find, discovered its nest and young. The 
 nest was beautifully plaited with hay and bents, 
 and the approach hidden by many turns and wind- 
 ings. I recollect, even as a boy, being struck with 
 the bird's persevering affection and watchfulness, 
 and from tliis time no more stones were thrown, 
 but the wood-warbler was put down in the cata- 
 logue of my feathered favourites. Year after year 
 this bird, or some of its descendants, frequented 
 the same spot. Years have passed since I left it, 
 but the bird may be there yet, sitting on the same 
 boughs, uttering the well-remembered note. Em- 
 blem in its patient affection of the meek and 
 blessed spirit that beareth all things, and of the 
 love that never faileth.
 
 THE WOOD-WARBLER. 201 
 
 How strong and numerous are the associations 
 which even these Httle creatures can awaken ! 
 Whenever I now pass through a grove, and hear 
 and see this favourite of my early years, many and 
 melancholy are the recollections that crowd upon 
 me — the pleasant grove through which I used to 
 pass, the family group that used to stroll beneath 
 it, now no longer there — some in the grave, others 
 far away. Its note harmonizes well with the feel- 
 ings it awakens ; it tells of my first and saddest 
 sorrows, of ties long since severed, and of some 
 that still remain, dear and precious, and more 
 fondly pressed now that the others are broken. It 
 warns me, too, that as it has been, so it will be 
 again. The new family group, of which I now 
 am one, will be parted in like manner ; for such 
 is earth, thus passing and transient its purest en- 
 joyments. Well it is for us that they are so, that 
 we may learn to look for something beyond the 
 reach of death and time, seek admission into a 
 family of which the links shall never be broken, 
 the members never disunited, whose chain of ever- 
 lasting love no time can sever, and whose com-
 
 202 THE WOOD-WARBLER, 
 
 munion shall not be for a few passing, uncertain 
 years, but for ever and ever. 
 
 When I retrace the train of thought that the 
 wood-warbler has thus suggested, what a crowd 
 of associations has one little bird, with its song 
 and habits, called up ! It has led me back to 
 days of thoughtless boyhood, to scenes of early 
 love and happiness, to the brothers and the sisters 
 now separated from me by death or distance, to 
 the passing nature of all the objects of earthly 
 affection ; and tlien to that which passeth not 
 away, to the communion of God's people, the holy 
 and everlasting intercourse of the family of the 
 redeemed, the ties that never sever, the union that 
 never is dissolved ! Thus may the eye and the ear, 
 as we walk the fields and survey the objects of the 
 natural world around us, be brought to minister to 
 the spiritual man within, supplying food continually 
 for holy and serious meditation, leading us far back 
 to the past, and then at once turning from the me- 
 lancholy retrospect, opening unto us the prospects 
 of the everlasting future.
 
 THE WOOD-WARBLER. 203 
 
 ^ong of tijt OTooU-Marijlcr. 
 I. 
 
 Why does the Summer sunshine fade, 
 
 And the flowers die away ? 
 Why were the leaves so fragile made, 
 To wither and decay ? 
 So fresh and green, why must they fall ; 
 And in their dying beauty call 
 Each tender bird to fly, ere on the ground 
 Torn from the wither'd bough they're rudely 
 strewn around ? 
 
 IT. 
 
 'Tis hard to leave the quiet glade 
 
 In Summer's shining hour. 
 When all around the beechen shade 
 Hath formed our arching bower ; 
 To see the sun with mellow'd hue 
 Shining the waving branches through, 
 And hear above the trembling foliage sigh, 
 Waked by the passing breeze on soft wing float- 
 ing by.
 
 204 THE WOOD-WARBLER. 
 
 III. 
 
 'Tis hard our little nest to make, 
 
 And rear our tender brood, 
 And then a weary flight to take 
 Far from the beechen wood ; 
 Far from the Summer-haunted dell, 
 From each dear spot we loved so well, 
 To some far distant land, all new and strange, 
 Where still the flowers will fade, and still the 
 seasons change. 
 
 IV. 
 
 For oh ; as soon as yon green corn 
 
 Shall wave its yellow hair. 
 And the branches of that scented thorn 
 Its crimson berries bear ; 
 When on the hill the fern grows brown, 
 And swollen streams are rushing down. 
 We must away, and leave them all behind. 
 Borne ofTlike falling leaves strewn by the Autumn 
 wind.
 
 THE WOOD-WARBLER. 205 
 
 V. 
 
 And why, you'll ask, should youth decay ? 
 
 Why fade the new-blown flowers, 
 That strew the path of life's brief way 
 In childhood's happy hours ? 
 And why should friends cut off so soon, 
 Like falling leaves around us strewn, 
 So sadly warn us, that though life be dear. 
 And sweet the ties it weaves, we cannot linger 
 here ? . 
 
 VI. 
 
 'Tis hard, you say, to leave our home, 
 
 And all its pleasant rest, 
 And think of years of joy to come. 
 With those that we love best ; 
 Then see them fade and die away, 
 Like leaves that wither on the spray ; 
 While sorrow's lengthening nights their sliadovvs 
 
 cast, 
 And tell us all too soon that life's brief Summer's 
 past.
 
 206 THE WOOD-WARBLER. 
 
 VII, 
 
 But oh ! my child, you must not say 
 
 'Tis hard the flowers die ; 
 That joys which strew'd your happy way, 
 Make to themselves wings and fly ; 
 It is not hard that ties should break, 
 Which, were they given to last, would make 
 Your sojourn here too soft, and bind you down 
 To scenes that dying man can never call his own. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Soft is the smile on pleasure's brow. 
 
 And soft her pleasant voice ; 
 And her bright moments as they flow. 
 Make the young heart rejoice. 
 But like the treacherous Syrian maid, 
 Who in her beauty's power betray'd 
 The warrior she caress'd, when pleasure smiles 
 And casts her fondest looks, 'tis there she most 
 beguiles.
 
 THE WOOD-WARBLER. 207 
 
 IX. 
 
 Then mourn not dying pleasure's fate, 
 
 For this is not your home, 
 But like the Patriarchs you wait 
 A country yet to come ; 
 A land of glory now unseen, 
 With everlasting verdure green. 
 Where thou shalt form new ties no death can 
 
 sever, 
 Bound by the heavenly love that loves and lives 
 for ever.
 
 What can we say of the robin that is not familiar 
 to every one of you ? You all know well the red 
 breast that gives him his name, the slender beak, 
 the large and full eye, and every other feature that 
 distinguishes him. You have seen him a thousand 
 and a thousand times. But still he is a bird by him- 
 self; there is no other at all like him, none that 
 resembles him in figure, much less in habits and 
 disposition. Like the dog, he makes himself man's 
 companion, and by the confidence he places in us, 
 has won our forbearance, and become a household 
 bird. The boy looses him carefully from the 
 trap, and forbears to throw a stone at him. The 
 cat is called a heartless and cruel creature when 
 she kills him. No one thinks of injuring the 
 robin ; it would be a breach of confidence, an act 
 of palpable dishonour. 
 
 Our first intimacy with the feathered tribes
 
 THE RED-BREAST. 209 
 
 commences with the robin. He has been the un- 
 conscious subject of many a nursery tale : in some 
 he has buried others, in others he has been buried 
 himself; the sparrow has in one pierced him with 
 an arrow of steel, in another he has been pierced 
 by the wren with an arrow of love. His funeral 
 is described as a splendid pageant, in which birds 
 and beasts vied with each other in paying respect 
 to the lamented dead. 
 
 He owes, no doubt, all this nursery notoriety to 
 his love for the society of man ; this is the source 
 of all his imaginary adventures in love and war. 
 And when we think of it, it is indeed a strange 
 feature in his character. The moment the gar- 
 dener commences his morning work, the robin is 
 found sitting beside and watching him ; he comes 
 partly for the worms and caterpillars the spade 
 exposes as ready victims for him. But we may 
 ask, how is it tliat he is so fond of being near us 
 wlien these interested motives can have no place ? 
 When we walk the fields, and meet him in the 
 distant hedge-rows, he continually tries to accom- 
 pany us till beyond the range of his haunts ; if we 
 
 p
 
 210 THE RED-BREAST. 
 
 pass him on the hedge he flies forwards, so that 
 we shall pass him again, thus passing and re- 
 passing us as often as he can. When an accidental 
 prisoner in our rooms, he does not dash himself 
 against the windows or the ceiling, like other birds, 
 but makes himself at home at once, as if pleased 
 with the new acquaintance he has made. But with 
 all this familiarity he is a difficult bird to tame 
 effectually ; his spirit, so full of confidence in man, 
 rebels against any restraint and confinement, and 
 he is, we know, of a courageous, determined cha- 
 racter. On the close of the Autumn, just as 
 Winter is setting in, he gives symptoms of his 
 fierce and pugnacious nature : the stronger birds 
 are not content with driving the weaker off the 
 ground, but pursue them with unrelenting fury 
 even to the death. Only last Autumn two robins 
 engaged in a deadly conflict, when at length one 
 killed the other ; throughout the day the little 
 cruel victor returned time after time to wreak his 
 yet unslaked enmity on the body of his adversary, 
 pecking at it, and apparently glorying in his act of 
 blood.
 
 THE RED-BREAST. 211 
 
 These are blots in the character of our house- 
 hold bird over which we would fain drop a veil. 
 Some gardeners (the whole race, I believe, are 
 hereditary enemies of all small birds,) would de- 
 nounce him also as the most mischievous bird in 
 the garden ; but this is all a fovd calumny. 
 The little bird that watches the gardener's spade 
 so narrowly, and eats the caterpillars and larvte in 
 the fresh-turned soil, does more good than he 
 could do mischief, if he would. But we all owe, 
 as we have seen, a debt of gratitude to the red- 
 breast : he first wins our regard as children by his 
 confidence and familiarity, and is thus the means 
 of extending a kinder feeling towards the kindred 
 species. He is the centre from which our kindly 
 affections towards the feathered race beg-in to ex- 
 pand ; and we should surely feel grateful for 
 any thing that leads us towards a more kind and 
 considerate feeling for the creatures God hath 
 given to be with us, over whom He hath given us 
 power, holding us responsible for the use we make 
 of it. The crumbs scattered in the window for 
 the robin are, we would trust, but the first of 
 
 p2
 
 212 THE RED-BREAST. 
 
 many acts of kind consideration for those beautiful 
 companions given to us in our walks and gardens, 
 to enliven the scene with their voice and spright- 
 liness. 
 
 The robin keeps rather more apart from us 
 during the Summer, when he has domestic duties 
 to fulfil, and when there are so many warblers to 
 take his place as a songster, but in the long dreary 
 Winter he wakes his cheerful little note, and like 
 the woodlark, sings throughout it. 
 
 We see the confidence this little bird puts in us, 
 coming to our windows, entering our rooms, as 
 knowing that we can feed and befriend it. Let 
 this, my dear children, remind us of the con- 
 fidence God invites us to repose in Him, of Him 
 who calls us to Him that He may feed us with 
 the bread of life. We need not be cautious, 
 like the robin, of drawing too close and near ; no 
 confinement or restraint awaits us, but on the con- 
 trary, the closer we draw to Him, the more expe- 
 rience shall we have of the glorious liberty of his 
 childien.
 
 THE RED-BREAST. 213 
 
 I. 
 
 How wearily and drearily 
 
 The long night hath past ! 
 But merrily and cheerily 
 
 The morn smiles at last. 
 And though the frost be keen, 
 
 And though the night be long, 
 I know that Spring will come again, 
 
 And sing my morning song. 
 
 11. 
 
 No more 'mid clustering leaves. 
 
 Or flowers opening bright. 
 But underneath the eaves, 
 
 We spend the wintry night. 
 Instead of branches green 
 
 Waving o'er our head, 
 The icicles are seen 
 
 Hanging* round our bed.
 
 214 THE RED-BREAST. 
 
 III. 
 
 When leaves began to fade, 
 
 And o'er the crisp ground fell, 
 We left the wooded glade, 
 
 And haunts within the dell ; 
 And as dark Winter spread 
 
 Around his chilly hue, 
 To sheltering roof and shed 
 
 In haste we closer drew. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I'm waiting till the Spring 
 
 With sun and falling showers, 
 The bursting leaves shall bring, 
 
 And all the opening flowers. 
 And though the frost be keen. 
 
 And though the night be long, 
 I know that Spring will come again, 
 
 And sing my morning song.
 
 THE RED-BREAST. 215 
 
 V. 
 
 Think not, my child, life's stream 
 
 Will always flow so bright, 
 Or pleasure's sunny beam 
 
 Will never lose its light. 
 Think not you ne'er will see 
 
 Life's scene with Winter bound. 
 Or from its brown and faded tree 
 
 The leaves all dropping round. 
 
 VI. 
 
 God changes weal to woe. 
 
 And sunny things makes dim ; 
 Lest, loving earth below, 
 
 Your heart be turn'd from Him. 
 He bids affliction lower, 
 
 To break thy thoughtless pride ; 
 2\nd makes you by each wintry hour 
 
 Draw closer to his side.
 
 216 THE REDBREAST. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Through pathways dark and strange, 
 
 Through sorrow and through gloom, 
 He leads you to a change 
 
 Of light beyond the tomb. 
 And by each gloomy night 
 
 He sends you kindly warning, 
 To wait the everlasting light. 
 
 That Cometh in the morning. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Oh ! wait until the Spring 
 
 In those unfading bowers. 
 Its changeless bloom shall bring, 
 
 And never-dying flowers. 
 And though thy pathway wenJ 
 
 Through ways now dark and dim, 
 You know your Lord is at the end, 
 
 And all is light with Him.
 
 Cl)e WifiiUMf\xoat 
 
 This is another of our little Summer visitors ; a 
 busy, bustling bird, and, like several of the other 
 warblers, very shy on its first arrival. But it is soon 
 seen creeping through the bushes in almost every 
 hedge-row, for the species is numerous and widely 
 diffused. Its song partakes of the peculiar cha- 
 racter belonging to the whole tribe, but very in- 
 ferior to that of the blackcap. It sings often and 
 merrily, and very frequently while on the wing. 
 
 The white-throat seems to live entirely upon 
 insects in their various states ; and when, in the 
 Autumn, their food begins to diminish, when the 
 shadows are lengthening, and the leaves begin to 
 change, they prepare for their journey, summon
 
 218 THE WHITE-THROAT. 
 
 their young together, and go off, we know not 
 how or when. 
 
 Mr. Yarrell tells lis, in his work on British 
 birds, that it sings cheerfully in confinement, 
 where it is easily kept alive, and when kept in 
 the same aviary with the nightingale, endeavours 
 to outdo that beautiful songster, interrupting its 
 song with vain attempts to equal and surpass it. 
 This, indeed, is a vain striving for the pre-emi- 
 nence ; and yet it is no caricature of much of the 
 silly vanity that we see in the world, no less ridi- 
 culous in its vain attempts than the attempts of the 
 poor little white-throat. Birds are in many things 
 types and emblems : in their patient affection and 
 watchfulness, in their love for their mates, in their 
 simple obedience to the instincts that God hath 
 given them, they may remind us of many qualities 
 that become the Christian character ; but not in 
 the jealousy of each other's vocal powers, which 
 prevails among so many of them. This is a spirit, 
 innocent, indeed, and harmless in them, though we 
 see it leading to much uneasiness of mind and 
 straining of throats, but in us subversive of those
 
 THE WHITE-THROAT. 219 
 
 true Christian feelings of meekness and humility, 
 where nothing is done through vain strife or glory, 
 but in lowliness of mind each learns to esteem other 
 better than themselves. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Autumn leaf was brown and sear, 
 And dreary look'd the clouded sky ; 
 The stream that used to run so clear, 
 With troubled waters hurried by. 
 The warblers gone, 
 We heard alone 
 The robin's wintry song ; 
 Save when the plaintive woodlark's note 
 Did softly on the still air float, 
 With cadence long.
 
 220 THE WHITE-THROAT, 
 
 II. 
 
 We little loved a scene so cold, 
 
 Its falling leaves and piercing wind ; 
 Away we flew on pinions bold, 
 
 Far o'er the foaming waves to find 
 Some gentle clime, 
 Where rolling time 
 No chilling change would bring ; 
 Where we might rest beneath the shade, 
 By never-fading foliage made. 
 Our weary wing. 
 
 III. 
 
 And many a gentle clime we found, 
 
 With verdure bright and sky of blue, 
 Where no sad Winter ever frown'd, 
 Where never withering breezes blew. 
 Fair sea-girt isles, 
 Where Summer smiles 
 With changeless constancy ; 
 And fair as those which poets dream 
 Lie on the western wave unseen 
 By mortal eye.
 
 THE WHITE-THROAT. 221 
 
 IV. 
 
 But 'tis not in the softest air, 
 
 Nor yet in climes their hues that take 
 From gleams of brightest sunshine, where 
 The wanderer his rest can make. 
 A viewless chain 
 Draws back again 
 The fond heart to its home : 
 Borne on the rapid wings of thought, 
 To that sweet spot the mind is brought 
 In musings lone. 
 
 V. 
 
 And thus with restless wing we flew 
 
 Through many a clime and region fair ; 
 Till from our isle the breezes blew 
 And told us Spring was smiling there. 
 The wild bii'd's strain 
 Was heard again 
 Beneath the opening bough ; 
 The hawthorn in the well-known v.ile 
 Its scented tresses to the gale 
 Was waving now.
 
 222 THE WHITE-THROAT. 
 
 VI. 
 
 All redolent of home, that breath 
 
 Came sweeter, as it whisper'd by, 
 Than spiciest flower that blooms beneath 
 The brightness of a southern sky. 
 Away, away, 
 With spirits gay. 
 O'er land and sea we come. 
 Once more our wearied wing to rest 
 In that one spot that we love best, 
 Our long-sought home. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Thus oft the thoughtless spirit goes 
 From paths it trod in purer days, 
 To stray where pleasure brighter glows 
 Amid the world's alluring ways. 
 Sin breaks in twain 
 The hallowed chain 
 That bound it to its home : 
 It cannot bear the chaste controul, 
 And rushes with unfetter'd soul, 
 Abroad to roam.
 
 THE WHITE-THROAT. 223 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Chaste truth that threw her gentle light, 
 
 Over the heart, too cold is found : 
 The youth would bask in beams more bright, 
 And wend his way o'er sunnier ground. 
 Her voice is heard, 
 Like some lone bird, 
 Whose still and wintry measure 
 Has little charms for ears that long 
 To catch the soft and Summer song 
 Of worldly pleasure. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Away he flies, where all looks fair, 
 
 'Mid pleasure's gay and perfumed bowers ; 
 But oh ! there's poison in the air ; 
 And like a serpent in the flowers, 
 Sin lurks beneath 
 With venom'd teeth, 
 Whose bitter wound is death ; 
 While as the vapours round him roll, 
 He breathes into his inmost soul 
 Corruption's breath.
 
 X. 
 
 What boots it that the scene is drest 
 
 With fairest tints that sin can give ? 
 To the worn soul this is no rest. 
 The longing spirit cannot live, 
 When far away, 
 Like bird astray, 
 'Mid scenes of brightest hue ; 
 But longs with joyous wings to fly 
 Back to the home of purity 
 That once he knew. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The struggling heart, beneath the glow 
 
 Of sinful passion yet unsear'd. 
 Longs like the wandering bird to go 
 Back to the nest where it was rear'd. 
 At length, he cries, 
 I will arise. 
 To thee, my Saviour, flee ! 
 There is no peace to those who stray 
 From thy pure gospel's hallowed way. 
 None but in thee.
 
 THE WHITE-THROAT. 225 
 
 XII. 
 
 But foaming waves between him roll 
 
 And tliat blest spot where he would rest 
 And hostile winds blow back his soul, 
 With sin's unceasing burden prest, 
 Until at length 
 All spent his strength, 
 He lies upon the strand, 
 With gasping breath and ruffled wing, 
 Helpless, unless the Saviour bring 
 His lifting hand. 
 
 a
 
 Cf)p OTurfeoo. 
 
 The cuckoo seems made, as it were, to form a 
 contrast to the rest of the feathered tribes that 
 visit us or remain with us ; and to show that nature 
 is not bound by any inevitable law in the con- 
 tinuation of its creatures. Other birds, if they do 
 not separate into pairs, as all our songsters do, at 
 least lay their eggs and sit upon them, hatch their 
 young, feed, and rear them. But the cuckoo does 
 none of these things. She does not pair with her 
 mate, she makes no nest, and if she lays her eggs, 
 she does not sit upon them, does not hatch her 
 young, or feed, or rear them. She knows nothing 
 of the sweet union of object and affection, which 
 the pairing birds enjoy ; nothing of maternal love 
 and anxiety, when the young are weak and cal- 
 low ; nothing of maternal joy and pride, when
 
 THE CUCKOO. 227 
 
 they are all reared and strong, and flying in 
 joyous pinions round her. 
 
 Like Hagar, she leaves her young in the bush ; 
 but it is not in the agony of a mother's heart, that 
 she may not see it die. She lays her egg in 
 another bird's nest, as if to rid herself of all future ^ 
 care and anxiety, trusting the rearing of her young 
 to the foster care of another. Even the fierce 
 birds of prey love and cherish their young, devote 
 all their savage energies to their support, flying 
 far and near on untiring wing to supply them with 
 food : but the cuckoo, with a reckless disregard 
 for the feelings common to all tlie rest of the tribe, 
 preys upon the eggs of other birds, while she is 
 trusting to them to hatch her own. The bird is a 
 personification of selfishness. First, the egg is 
 laid in the nest of a small bird, such as the hedge- 
 sparrow, wliose little wings will be wearied with 
 their exercise froin morning to night, as they pass 
 to and fro to feed the overgrown creature that is 
 thus put out to them to nurse. Then, the mo- 
 ment it has gained strength to move itself in the 
 nest, it succeeds in rolling out the rightful in- 
 
 a 2
 
 228 THE CUCKOO. 
 
 heritors over the edge of it, that they may not 
 intei'fere with its craving appetite. And then 
 again, when at length the unconscious foster- 
 parents have, with the utmost strain upon their 
 resources, succeeded in rearing their bulky charge, 
 t wondering at its growing proportions and un- 
 ceasing appetite, it suddenly flies away to see 
 them no more, unless it may be when it returns 
 the following Spring to pillage their nest. What 
 can be apparently more heartless and ungrateful 
 than this ? Yet, alas ! these birds, following the 
 instincts that for wise purposes have been given 
 them, are, after all, the faint resemblances of the 
 selfishness too often seen in the world around us. 
 They are the types of the voluptuary, living 
 simply for his own passing gratifications, reckless 
 of the happiness of others : types of the wise and 
 the keen man of the world, who is making gain 
 for himself, though at another's loss : types of 
 heartless parents, who, when seeking their own 
 pleasures, trust the precious creatures that God 
 hath given them to the care of hirelings ; and 
 types of heartless children, who in their reckless
 
 THE CUCKOO. 229 I 
 
 selfishness bring distress and sorrow upon the doat- 
 ing parents, in return for all their watchful love 
 and care. 
 
 We see other birds of passage particularly care- 
 ful of their young before the period of their migra- 
 tion ; training their weak and tender wings for 
 the long exertion that is before them. But the 
 cuckoo leaves her young (if she can be said to 
 leave those she has never been with) to find that 
 long passage alone and without a guide ; though 
 still they have a guide more sure and true than 
 the longest experience could supply, the instinct 
 that God hath given them for their preservation. 
 The cuckoo begins to sing in this part of the 
 country about the 17th of April, and is heard till 
 the latter end of June, when his voice has become 
 hoarse and cracked. He is heard longer amons 
 the mountains, to which he seems to retire for 
 seclusion when his voice is gone. The old birds 
 leave about the end of July, the young follow 
 according to their age and strength. The de- 
 parture of Nature from her usual course in the 
 case of the cuckoo has been accounted for by the
 
 short stay of the bird, and the time which, owing 
 to some peculiar organization, she takes in de- 
 positing her eggs. The continuation of the spe- 
 cies is thus partly entrusted to others, that the 
 bird might come and go unimpeded by parental 
 duties. In calling the cuckoo selfish, therefore, 
 we must be understood only as speaking of that 
 which seems, and not that which reallv is. She is 
 but acting under the law that an all-wise Providence 
 has ordained ; and thus too even the young bird 
 just hatched, that throws the young and the eggs 
 it finds in the nest over the side, to break and 
 perish, is but fulfilling its instinct. This is proved 
 by the striking fact that a cavity is formed in its 
 back, expressly given it apparently to aid it in thus 
 dislodging the eggs and the young, by carrying 
 them on its back, and then rolling them over^ 
 
 But the little birds for whose nests the cuckoo 
 hunts, and of whose eggs she no doubt often 
 makes a meal, do not welcome their strange visitor. 
 They seem instinctively to know that mischief is 
 intended, for the cuckoo's approach we often see 
 attended with cries and confusion among them.
 
 THE CUCKOO. 231 
 
 Its flight indeed resembles that of the sparrow- 
 hawk or hobby, and might thus partly occasion 
 alarm ; but the notes with which it is assailed are 
 not those of such peculiar fear and distress as 
 announce the approach of the hawk. 
 
 Yet, with all his offences, how gladly do we 
 welcome the cuckoo, when we first hear this 
 cheerful pledge of leaves and flowers and sunny 
 days ! How quickly the news seems to run 
 through the family ; and how proud is the one 
 that first heard the welcome note, as if some great 
 skill and wisdom had been shown in thus fore- 
 stalling the rest ! 
 
 When, dear children, you hear that note, and 
 think of the joyous season it proclaims, remember 
 also the warnings I have endeavoured to associate 
 with it, and so be careful lest you think too much 
 of yourselves and your own indulgences, regard- 
 less of the feelings and happiness of others. Strive 
 and pray so to live that you may not bring sorrow 
 and distress on those who now love and watch 
 over you, whose earthly happiness is dependant 
 on your spiritual well-doing.
 
 232 THE CUCKOO. 
 
 And may we all reflect how tlie cuckoo is thus 
 purposely disencumbered of cares and duties that 
 belong to other birds, as being a bird of passage, 
 wliose stay is so short and transient, and beware 
 lest we encumber ourselves too much with the 
 cares and occupations of a world where we are 
 only strangers and pilgrims ! 
 
 €l)t Cutfeoo. 
 
 We've heard, we've heard the cuckoo sing, 
 
 'Twas in the early morn ; 
 And we saw him pass on floating wing, 
 
 On balmy breezes borne. 
 His welcome note came on our ear. 
 
 When we were all at play ; 
 Now tell us, tell us, father dear, 
 
 What does the cuckoo say.
 
 THE CUCKOO. 233 
 
 II. 
 
 He says that Spring is come again, 
 
 The year's new joyous birth, 
 With warming suns and falHng rain 
 
 To rouse the drooping earth. 
 He tells of many a sunny gleam 
 . Beneath the glorious May, 
 When days will pass like that clear stream, 
 
 That glides so bright away. 
 
 III. 
 
 He tells of music in the trees, 
 
 Of many a wild bird's note, 
 As softly on the passing breeze 
 
 Their mellow voices float. 
 He tells of many a verdant wreath, 
 
 Of many an opening flower. 
 Of young glad hearts that love the breath 
 
 Of Summer's scented bower.
 
 234 THE CUCKOO. 
 
 IV. 
 
 He tells of many a lively scene, 
 
 When all around is growing, 
 And the silver river shines, between 
 
 The banks of wild flowers flowing. 
 Of many a morning fair and bright. 
 
 Of many a smiling noon. 
 And evenings calm with crimson light. 
 
 That leaves us all too soon. 
 
 V. 
 
 But though his voice sound soft and clear. 
 
 He's come to rob the nest, 
 And spoil the treasure that's so dear 
 
 To many a little breast. 
 For other birds his eggs to lay, 
 
 Their foster care to prove ; 
 Which, hatch'd and rear'd will fly away, 
 
 And scorn their parent love.
 
 THE CUCKOO. 235 
 
 VI. 
 
 Without a home, without a nest, 
 
 No mate to call his own, 
 With no parental love possess'd, 
 
 A creature all alone ; 
 He tells of selfish pleasure, 
 
 That loves abroad to roam ; 
 Where the heart can have no treasure. 
 
 Because it knows no home. 
 
 VII. 
 
 In vain his song would joy express, 
 
 We hear the small birds' cry ; 
 And mourn the cruel selfishness 
 
 That sings when others sigh. 
 And when the early Spring is gone, 
 
 When days are bright and long, 
 We disregard his mellow tone. 
 
 And loathe the foolish song.
 
 236 THE CUCKOO. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 This world, my child, hath many a voice 
 
 That calls to idle pleasure, 
 And bids the thoughtless heart rejoice 
 
 In hours of selfish leisure ; 
 That calls to passing pleasure, seen 
 
 In outward things alone ; 
 And not in that which dwells within, 
 
 Where peace is sought and won. 
 
 IX. 
 
 (The holy peace of spirit blest, 
 
 Whose sin and guilt forgiven, 
 Hath learn'd in patient hope to rest 
 
 Fast by the gate of heaven ; 
 And there is watching day and night, 
 
 In longing love, for Him 
 Who'll open wide those portals bright 
 
 And call his chosen in.)
 
 THE CUCKOO. 237 
 
 X. 
 
 But oh ! they cannot meet the need 
 
 Of souls that long foi' bliss ; 
 Nor can their shallow fountains feed 
 
 A course of love like this. 
 And though they speak of flowers strewn 
 
 Across your path, ere long, 
 Like the hoarse cuckoo heard in June, 
 
 They'll be a weary song,
 
 There are several kinds of doves or pigeons in 
 this country. First, the ring-dove, our common 
 wood-pigeon, the cushat of the Scotch poets, whose 
 cooing is so familiar to every one, a fine, beautiful 
 bird, easily distinguishable by the white marks, 
 which are almost annular, on his neck. Then the 
 wild pigeon, which is a much more scarce bird, and 
 only inhabits localities where there are abundance 
 of old pollards and decayed hollow trees, or of 
 rabbit holes, where the bird can make its nest. 
 How strange it is that birds, whose habits are in 
 all other respects so similar, should thus insist 
 on building their nests in situations so unlike ! 
 The daw and the rook feed together almost 
 throughout the year ; yet nothing could induce 
 the rook to build his nest among the holes of the 
 rock, or in the crevices of old buildings ; and the
 
 THE DOVE. 230 
 
 daw, on the other hand, dreads the exposure of an 
 open nest, (and perhaps, too, the vicinity of the 
 stronger rook, who loves to pillage materials from 
 other nests,) and will not build it depending upon 
 a waving bough for support. Thus with the wood 
 pigeon and wild pigeon ; the first builds a careless 
 nest in a tree, so loosely put together, that you may 
 see through it; the other carefully seeks a hiding- 
 place either in the decayed tree or the rabbit-hole, 
 where it may be defended from wind and weather. 
 The last has a very peculiar note, heard frequently 
 in the Spring and Summer months, welcome to 
 those who know the quiet and retiring habits of 
 the bird, and the pleasant spots where, in wood- 
 land countries, he delights to dwell. 
 
 Thirdly, there is the turtle ; this, unlike tlie 
 others, is a bird of passage, coming to us in May, 
 to spend the Summer and harvest months with us. 
 This is much smaller than either of the former, 
 and appears little larger than the missel-thrush, 
 from which its powerful and pigeon-like flight at 
 once distinguishes it. This species, again, builds in 
 the middle of the thick coppice-wood, from whence
 
 240 THE DOVE. 
 
 its peculiar croaking note is heard during the 
 breeding season. 
 
 The several species are each of gentle, inoffensive 
 habits, and have no power of resistance against their 
 enemies the hawks, no chance of escape, save in 
 their strength and rapidity of wing. But they are 
 loving and attached to each other, mourn bitterly 
 over each other's loss, and have thus become 
 emblematic of sincere and true affection. There 
 is a softness in their eyes expressive of the gentle 
 spirit within ; and thus, when Scripture would 
 describe the gentle loving spirit of the heavenly 
 Bridegroom, or of his pure Bride, the Church, it 
 is said, that they have eyes like doves. 
 
 It is impossible, surely, to look upon the 
 dove without feeling some scriptural associations 
 awakened. It was, you know, the m.essenger of 
 safety and release to the imprisoned family in the 
 ark, bearing to them the pledge of the abating 
 waters. Again, by the waters of Jordan, where 
 John was baptizing, it was under the form of this 
 gentle bird that the Holy Spirit came down and 
 lighted upon the Saviour as He came up out of
 
 THE DOVE. 241 
 
 the water. From that clay to this the dove has 
 been the emblem of Baptismal Grace, of that 
 blessed Spirit which comes down into the hearts 
 of those who are brought in faith ; to exercise its 
 softening, sanctifying influence upon the hard sub- 
 stance of our natural corruption, to renew and 
 change it, unless grieved and quenched by the 
 stubborn will that does despite unto its spirit of 
 grace. On another occasion, we know, the same 
 blessed Spirit came down under a difl"erent form, 
 in the likeness of fiery tongues, with a mighty 
 rushing wind ; emblematic of those voices of burn- 
 ing truth and energy, and of that irresistible im- 
 pulse that carried abroad the message of gospel 
 mercy. The first is the emblem of the Spirit 
 exercising its soft and gentle influence, interceding 
 within us, with groanings that cannot be uttered ; 
 the other, of tlie Spirit in its power, breaking down, 
 as with a whirlwind, all the strongholds of sin. 
 The dove was in the chariot with the Ethiopian 
 doing its gentle work, wliich Philip was sent to 
 perfect. The mighty rushing wind came over the 
 heart of the persecuting Saul, and sent hijn to 
 
 R
 
 •242 THE DOVE. 
 
 Damascus a changed and humbled spirit ; over the 
 heart, too, of the Philippian jailor, when, as in a 
 moment, he was converted and baptized. 
 
 When we see the dove flying round us, my 
 children, let us say, " thrice blessed be the em- 
 blem !" Even as that gentle bird cleaves to its 
 mate, feeds and watches over it, mourns over it 
 when away and in peril, flies continually with and 
 beside it, and never leaves it or forsakes it ; even 
 so does that Spirit of love, of gentleness, long- 
 sufFering, and forbearance still cleave to us, feeds 
 and nourishes us with its heavenly food, is grieved 
 when we are in peril, mourns over us when sepa- 
 rated from it by sin, and all day long is watching 
 by us, constraining us in love. When we see it, 
 too, let it remind us of that solemn first sacrament 
 that united us, born separate and in sin, to God, 
 and admitted us into his covenant of mercy. Let 
 it speak to us of the solemn vows and promises 
 that then were made, botli of the privileges and 
 the responsibilities of the baptismal covenant, 
 warning us to walk circumspectly, and to watch 
 unto prayer, inasmuch as we are living under daily
 
 THE DOVE. 
 
 exposure to those strong and subtle influences 
 we have so solemnly pledged ourselves to re- 
 nounce. 
 
 But, in speaking of the pigeons, we cannot pass 
 over a domesticated variety, to which a peculiar 
 and extraordinary instinct has been given. When 
 carried away from its home, even to long distances 
 of miles and leagues, and then set at liberty, it 
 mounts up with a spiral flight, until gaiiiing, appa- 
 rently, by some unknown faculty, the knowledge 
 of its direction, away it flies straight to its home, 
 with a speed that defies even railway speed to 
 compete with it. It has thus been used as a 
 means of speedy communication between parties 
 separated by a distance of leagues. Here, too, 
 we may find an emblem. These carrier-pigeons 
 may remind us of that continued intercourse be- 
 tween heaven and earth, implied by Scripture ; of 
 those angelic messengers, who, with silent and un- 
 seen wings, are continually ascending and descend- 
 ing, sent to minister unto them who are heirs of 
 salvation. 
 
 H '1
 
 244 THE DOVE. 
 
 The doves have no song ; but as it is the Bap- 
 tismal emblem, we must annex some lines ; and 
 the following, written on the occasion of the Bap- 
 tism of a little girl, may not be out of place. 
 
 I. 
 
 When thou wast born, dear child, and light 
 
 First broke upon thee, and unfurl'd 
 At once upon thy opening sight, 
 
 The objects of this new strange world ; 
 They were but senseless forms that brought 
 
 No image to the inward mind ; 
 The sleeping soul no meaning caught, 
 
 With open eyes, thou still wert blind 
 To that vast change, when with new feelings rife 
 The new-born spirit wakens into life.
 
 II. 
 
 The pain and anguish all forgot, 
 
 The joyful mother o'er thee bent ; 
 Yet thou, poor child, thou knewest not 
 
 The love that soft expression meant : 
 Kind kisses on thy fragile cheek 
 
 A grateful father's lips have prest ; 
 A mother's voice with accents weak 
 
 In holy love her child hath blest ; 
 But neither look nor voice to thee could tell. 
 Of that sweet love thoult one day know so well, 
 
 III. 
 
 Soft feet were heard with stealthy tread. 
 
 And young eyes scann'd thy stranger brow ; 
 While gentle voices whispering said, 
 
 We have another sister now. 
 Whom we will love. But thou wert still 
 
 In vague unconsciousness possest. 
 And thoughtless how one day they'd fill 
 
 The chambers of thy little breast 
 With countless ties, by strong affections wove, 
 And bind thee to them with a chain of love.
 
 246 THE DOVE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But now, dear child, thou hast been brought 
 
 Into a world of purer light, 
 With scenes of deeper im])ort fraught, 
 
 With more enduring visions bright. 
 They've made for thee a solemn vow, 
 
 For thee the prayer of faith they've sped, 
 And on thy yet unconscious brow 
 
 The emblematic water shed. 
 Come forth, thou child of God ! and take thy place 
 j In a new world of privilege and grace. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 j Yet no ! the solemn scene to thee 
 
 I Was but a mass of shapeless things : 
 
 Though faith, in that deep mystery, 
 
 Might hear the sound of angel wings 
 
 Hastening down with joyous flight. 
 
 To bear thee to thy Lord's embrace ; 
 
 Thine eyes beheld no heavenly light. 
 
 Thy young heart felt no quickening grace ; 
 
 Yet art thou his ! thou hast been prest 
 
 By arms unseen, by voice unheard been blest.
 
 VI. 
 
 But days will come, when with delight 
 
 Thou'lt watch the varying things of earth, 
 As day by day the growing light 
 
 O'er thy young mind is breaking forth. 
 Glad days, when thou wilt love to trace 
 
 The speaking love of that soft eye, 
 That looks into thy smiling face 
 With such a deep anxiety : 
 When with thy sisters', brothers' love, 
 All twining round thee, thou wilt prove 
 How true the word, that Christian homes are given 
 The type and foretaste of our home in heaven. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Oh ! child of God, to mercy born ! 
 
 Oh I thus may thy awakening youth. 
 As dawns the Spirit's glorious morn. 
 
 Discern its everlasting truth ! 
 Thus may thy faith-lit glance behold 
 
 The sun, whose healing wings remove 
 Earth's flitting shadows, and unfold 
 
 The treasures of that lasting love,
 
 248 THE DOVE. 
 
 Which, far beyond all mother's, knows no sleep, 
 But watches, night and day, its new-born child to 
 keep. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And as earth's brief affections grow, 
 
 Weaving their twisted meshes round, 
 Oh ! may thy heavenly, even so. 
 
 Strike root into thy heart's best ground ! 
 Till every struggling passion brought 
 
 Beneath their pure and chasten'd reign. 
 Thy whole conversion shall be wrought, 
 And thou indeed be born again ! 
 And as the moon, in silent beauty bright 
 With quiet walk sheds forth her gentle light, 
 So, too, shalt thou with spirit meek be found. 
 In calm and holy life casting thy light around.
 
 Ei)t Nigfjttttsalf. 
 
 Every one has heard of tlie nightingale, though 
 very many have never heard it sing. It has been 
 celebrated by poets of all countries and of all ages, 
 until it has become a kind of necessary feature in 
 the descriptions of a beautiful night ; so much so, 
 indeed, that poets have made it sing among fair 
 scenes, where its voice has never in sober reality 
 been heard. Those who have heard the night- 
 ingale in full sonw in the calm and beautiful still- 
 ness of a mild May night, will not feel surprised at 
 this. No European bird, and I should doubt 
 whether any bird of any quarter or hemisphere of 
 the world, has such a power and volume of song. 
 The poets have given their descriptions of it, 
 laying much stress on the plaintive melancholy of 
 the song ; others have written of its wonderful 
 powers of execution. But it is not the plaintive
 
 250 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 tone of its soft and melancholy cadences, nor the 
 liquid gurgling flow of its more joyous notes, 
 that give such a deep interest and charm to its 
 song ; it is the strange depth of feeling to which it 
 seems to give expression. The song of birds is 
 indeed altogether a phenomenon for which it is 
 difficult to account; but this song above all. From 
 whence, we may ask, has that comparatively sense- 
 less little creature learned expressions of such deep 
 and varied feeling ? such plaintive melancholy, and 
 then such a flood of excitement and joyousness, 
 with such gentle sweet transitions from one to the 
 other ? When we are listening to the magic song, 
 we cannot escape the impression that the bird 
 must feel somewhat of what its song would seem 
 to express. There must be feeling, we are 
 tempted to imagine, something far more in that 
 little bird vvith its animal transient existence, than 
 we are able to account for. 
 
 The poets would describe it as mourning for its 
 young. But there is a difficulty here, for tliough 
 they always sing during the time of breeding, they 
 do not always lose their young, and they cease to
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE, 251 
 
 sing when the young are hatched and demand 
 more substantial exertion and attention than mere 
 melody. But supposing its song to be really an 
 expression of sorrow, a mourning over its dis- 
 appointed parental hopes, how can we account for 
 its transitions from plaintiveness to the expression 
 of a calm and happy peacefulness, and thence 
 again to the fulness of joy and exultation? If it 
 is mourning, it is, we feel, a mourning that is 
 turned into joy. Were, indeed, the poor senseless 
 bird a Christian mother, such, we might expect, 
 would be the expression of her feelings under 
 such a bereavement. The song seems to lead us 
 through the sradations of Christian sorrow and 
 consolation under such a sad affliction. In the 
 first agony of natural affection, how much must 
 there necessarily be of plaintive misery and dis- 
 tress ! The mother sees nothing as yet, imder the 
 dark cloud that is upon her, save the earthly 
 visible loss tliat is pressing so heavily. She 
 awakes in the morning, but the infant voice that 
 gladdened her ear is heard no more ; the evening 
 comes, but the little bed is empty, and there are
 
 252 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 no peaceful angel-like slumbers for her to watch 
 over. Oh ! say not the child was but an infant, a 
 loss to be mourned but for a day ; for days and 
 months, even for years, the restless mind is busied 
 in imagining of what untold happiness that gentle 
 little being might have been the source. Long after 
 the recollection almost of its existence shall have 
 passed froiTi the minds of others, by her its sweet 
 and innocent smile will be remembered. Antici- 
 pations of all that is bright and holy in its life, had 
 it been spared, will be indulged in ; all that could 
 be otherwise will be forgotten ; and for a time the 
 mercy that removed it from the evil to come will 
 be lost sight of. This is the effect of natural 
 affection, the yearnings of disappointed parental 
 love, grasping a shadow in a frail and dying crea- 
 ture. But we are speaking of a Christian mother, 
 and in her, faith brings in the peace of confiding 
 resignation, that feels whom the Lord loveth He 
 chasteneth. She that mourned is comforted ; and 
 the earthly loss is eventually turned into compara- 
 tive joy in the fulness of hope that says her child 
 is blessed. Heaviness endured for a night, but
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 253 
 
 joy Cometh in the morning. All this the song of 
 the unconscious bird would seem to express. At 
 first plaintive and melancholy, with notes that 
 seem to come from the very depths of a sorrowing 
 spirit, then passing on into a calm and pensive 
 peacefulness, and then again swelling into a flood 
 of comfort and joy. 
 
 Such a version of its song, indeed, is merely 
 imaginary ; and yet how can we account for a 
 melody that seems to give expression to feelings 
 such as these ? The bird, as far as we know, can 
 have experienced nothing similar to them. We 
 must rest content with setting it down as one of 
 the many mysteries even in the natural world that 
 we cannot unravel. Birds have many of them 
 features and characteristics peculiar to their kind, 
 for which apparently there is no satisfactory ex- 
 planation. The wagtail derives its name from 
 that peculiar movement of the tail, for which we 
 can assign no purpose. The water-ouzle or dipper 
 is continually dipping and curtseying as it sits 
 beside the stream, as if in imitation of the undu- 
 lating motion before it. The wryneck moves its
 
 head in strange contortions from one side to the 
 other, as it clings to the tree. If we find mys- 
 teries in such simple facts as these in the natural, 
 is it strange that we should find them in the spi- 
 ritual world ? Must we not expect to meet mys- 
 teries far beyond our reach in our relations with 
 God, when we see them continually in the crea- 
 tures of his hands, in these apparently simple 
 phenomena ? 
 
 The nightingale, like the rest of its genus, is of 
 shy and retiring habits. It will not sing in a 
 crowd, would not live in the bustle of a crowded 
 aviary. If kept in a cage, it must be fed with the 
 most scrupulous attention. 
 
 It has been said that Nature proceeds on a 
 principle of compensation, giving beauty to the 
 peacock with its discordant voice, melody to the 
 nightingale with its plain and homely plumage. 
 But who that has seen the latter near, has marked 
 its beautiful full eye, its taper head and bill, its 
 slender elegant form, would think of its needing 
 compensation ? Unless in confinement indeed, it 
 is not often seen very plainly ; it loves to bury
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 255 
 
 itself in the recesses of the green fohage, and there 
 from its conceahnent pours forth a song, which 
 no one that has ever heard it can mistake. In 
 the daytime, even amidst the general concert of 
 our numerous and jealous songsters, a few notes 
 of the first, the queen of all, are at once detected 
 by the ear familiar with them ; there is a clear- 
 ness and fulness about them which the voice of 
 no other bird possesses. We sometimes hear, in- 
 deed, of birds whose song has been mistaken for 
 that of the nightingale, but I have never heard one 
 that could be confounded with it for a moment. 
 The only bird that has any notes really resembling 
 it, is not a singing bird. The nuthatch has a few 
 notes of call, and these in their peculiarly rich and 
 liquid tone remind us of the nightingale ; but as 
 there is no song, there can be no mistake be- 
 tween them. 
 
 As we have said, it is difficult to see the bird 
 when engaged in song. This is a characteristic 
 of the whole tribe of warblers. They are all shy ; 
 they seem to think that as they leave us for so 
 long a time, tliey are but strangers. While our
 
 stationary songsters sit in conspicuous places as 
 they sing, and seem to court attention, these shy 
 and gentle little creatures, coming to us from 
 strange and distant countries, seem iilmost afraid 
 of detection wlien giving utterance to the fulness 
 of their joy. They remind us of those moments 
 of overflowing gratitude, when under some mer- 
 ciful dispensation of Providence, some happy re- 
 covery or narrow escape of those we love, we 
 shrink from the eyes and ears of man, to pour out 
 the fulness of our hearts before Him, who hath not 
 dealt with us according to our sins. 
 
 Beautiful as the nightingale's song is, there is no 
 doubt that its charms are heightened by the calm 
 silence of ni^-ht amid which it is heard. It is 
 like the sweet voice of heavenly comfort heard in 
 tlie darkest and saddest night of our earthly afflic- 
 tion. But it is not heard everywhere ; the range 
 of the nightingale seems to be restricted within 
 certain limitations, for which we cannot account. 
 It goes into Sweden and Russia, while in Great 
 Britain it is never heard above a few miles nortli 
 of York. It is numerous in the eastern counties,
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 257 
 
 in the comparatively open and uninteresting dis- 
 tricts of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire, yet 
 will not visit the beautiful and wooded counties of 
 our western coast. The night there is never made 
 lovely by its sweet melody ; they are without the 
 limits within which its range is restricted. 
 
 We have compared its song to the sweet voice 
 of heavenly comfort poured forth in the night of 
 sorrow and distress ; the analogy holds good with 
 respect to these restrictions. It is not everywhere 
 that the heavenly voice is heard that would turn 
 mourning into joy. That voice has a range. If 
 we turn to the right or to the left from the straight 
 path of Christian duty, we shall not hear it, we 
 shall be beyond its limits. Our night may be 
 dark and silent, but no voice of comfort will break 
 its stillness, or soothe its sorrow, until we have 
 found again the narrow way, and again within the 
 limits of its range hear its blessed melody flowing 
 into our ears, full of hope and consolation.
 
 258 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 ^oug ot tijt i^^i'sijtinjjale. 
 
 I. 
 
 Saw ye the crimson day go down 
 
 Behind the western hill, 
 When on the glowing summit thrown, 
 
 The light was lingering still, 
 All that was left of dying splendour ? 
 How bright it past, 
 And yet how fast ! 
 Like moments brief and tender, 
 That fleet and vanish, as by spell. 
 When mourning hearts must say their sad farewell. 
 
 II. 
 And now the closing shadows make 
 
 A sadness in the hour. 
 
 And o'er the yielding spirit wake 
 
 A melancholy power. 
 
 The flowing stream that seems to sigh, 
 
 The gentle breeze 
 
 That shakes the trees, 
 
 Tell of the moments flitting by ; 
 
 Of life that is but passing breath ; 
 
 Hours, like a stream, all hurrying on to death.
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 259 
 
 III. 
 
 Even the silent earth is weeping, 
 
 Her tears are on the grass ; 
 And the stars their vigils keeping, 
 
 Look sadly as they pass. 
 Amid the gloom that reigns around, 
 With dew besprent. 
 The flowers have bent 
 Their veil'd heads to the ground ; 
 As loth to show their beauty bright, 
 Nursed by the sun, to the cold glance of night. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And yet there's peace ! a tranquil rest 
 
 Reiens over earth and heaven. 
 Calm as the deep, when o'er his breast 
 
 No angry winds have striven. 
 The rolling tide is heard no more. 
 And all the strife 
 And din of life 
 Have hush'd their busy roar. 
 While pensive shadows close around 
 With noiseless step upon the silent ground. 
 
 s 2
 
 260 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 But though the night seem dark and sad, 
 
 The light-robed morn will break, 
 And in her shining mantle clad, 
 
 Earth's sleeping millions wake ; 
 And sunny smiles will chase away 
 The tears that rest 
 On earth's sad breast, 
 Before the joyous day ; 
 When flowers fair, now closed in night, 
 Will raise their veils to o;reet the comino; light. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Such as the hour is, such my song. 
 
 Half plaintive, and half glad ; 
 At first with cadence low and long. 
 
 Mournful awhile and sad ; 
 Then like a gentle river flowing. 
 And gliding on 
 With livelier tone ; 
 Then deeper, fuller growing. 
 And onward like a torrent borne, 
 Telling of hope that waits a shining morn.
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 2G1 
 
 VII. 
 
 And ofttinies thus is Christian life ; 
 
 At first a long sad night, 
 Dark with the struggling passions' strife, 
 
 That scorn the Spirit's might ; 
 When folly's felt, though not forsaken. 
 And thoughtless sin 
 That reign'd within. 
 First on her throne is shaken ; 
 When memory o'er the soul hath cast 
 The deepening shadows of the mispent past. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 'Tis dark awhile ! the world can fill 
 
 The awakening heart no more ; 
 Nor can its passing pleasures still 
 
 The Spirit in his power ; 
 Who working deep within the breast, 
 With hopes and fears, 
 And burning tears. 
 And long-drawn sighs confest. 
 Hath waked the soul, and made to cease 
 The fatal slumber of unreal peace.
 
 262 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But stronger's He that is in us 
 
 Than He tliat's in the world ; 
 Before the Spirit working thus 
 
 Sin from her throne is hurl'd. 
 
 The weary chain at length is broken ; 
 « 
 
 The power is crush'd, 
 
 The storm is hush'd, 
 
 For hark ! a voice hath spoken, 
 
 " Peace be still," and wave and wind 
 
 Cease in a calm that stills the troubled mind. 
 
 X. 
 
 And now upon the calm still breast 
 
 Brightening hopes are stealing, 
 In hues of heavenly beauty drest, 
 
 A glorious morn revealing. 
 Faith sees the wreathing vapours break. 
 And shadowy night 
 Gives place to light, 
 Whose living beams shall wake 
 Them that sleep in Christ, to own • 
 
 Their destined seats beneath his starry throne.
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 263 
 
 XI. 
 
 Dark doubts and fears, like night, depart, 
 
 There's nothing dreary now ; 
 But hope is on the hghten'd heart. 
 
 And joy upon the brow. 
 The burning tears that flow'd so fast 
 From the sad breast 
 With sin opprest. 
 Like early dew have past ; 
 Or flow in grateful joy, to prove 
 The memory sweet of Christ's forgiving love. 
 
 XII. 
 
 As those bright tears of crystal dew 
 
 The sorrowing earth hath wept. 
 Are carried up to heaven's blue, 
 On morn's gay pinions swept. 
 The tears that from repentant eyes 
 In depth of woe 
 And sorrow flow, 
 Go up beyond the skies ; 
 Tokens there of grace begun. 
 One precious soul from sin and folly won.
 
 264 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 xni. 
 
 Sing on, sing on ! in that sweet song 
 
 I read of hours of sadness, 
 Of waiting sorrow, meek and long, 
 
 That brightens into gladness ; 
 When from the eyes the vapours roll. 
 And faith's new light 
 With promise bright 
 Breaks in upon the soul ; 
 When all the heart, like thy full tone. 
 Makes melody in love to One, 
 Who comes to save from sin and shame. 
 While all within doth bless his holy name. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 tL-^«^V^ 
 
 GiLBEUX & RiviNGTON, Printers, St. John's Squai-e, London.
 
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