Aid the full concert, while the stock-dove breathes A melancholy murmur thro' the whole.
'Tis love creates their melody, and all This waste of music is the voice of Love; That even to birds and beasts the tender arts
Of pleasing teaches: hence the glossy kind
Try every winning way inventive love
Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates
Pour forth their little fouls. First, wide around,
With distant awe, in airy rings they rove,
Endeav'ring by a thousand tricks to catch
The cunning, confcious, half-averted glance
Of their regardless charmer. Should she seem
Softening, the least approvance to bestow,
Their colours burnish, and, by hope inspir'd,
They brisk advance; then on a sudden struck,
Retire diforder'd; then again approach,
In fond rotation spread the spotted wing,
And shiver every feather with defire.
Connubial leagues agreed, to the deep woods
They haste away, all as their fancy leads,
Pleasure, or food, or secret safety prompts,
That Nature's great command may be obey'd ;
Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive
Indulg'd in vain. Some to the holly hedge
Nestling repair, and to the thicket fome;
Some to the rude protection of the thorn
Commit their feeble offspring: the cleft tree
Offers its kind concealment to a few,
Their food its infects, and its moss their nests :
Others apart, far in the grassy dale
Or roughening waste their humble texture weave:640
But most in woodland solitudes delight,
In unfrequented glooms or shaggy banks,
Steep, and divided by a babbling brook,
Whose murmurs foothe them all the live-long day,
When by kind duty fix'd. Among the roots 645
Of hazel, pendent o'er the plaintive stream,
They frame the first foundation of their domes,
Dry fprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid,
And bound with clay together. Now 'tis nought
But restless hurry thro' the bufy air,
Beat by unnumber'd wings. The swallow sweeps
The flimy pool, to build his hanging house
Intent: and often from the careless back
Of herds and flocks a thousand tugging bills
Pluck hair and wool; and oft', when unobserv'd, 655
Steal from the barn a straw; till foft and warm,
Clean and complete, their habitation grows.
As thus the patient dam assiduous sits,
Not to be tempted from her tender task,
Or by sharp hunger or by smooth delight,
Tho' the whole loosened Spring around her blows,
Her sympathizing lover takes his stand
High on th' opponent bank, and ceaseless sings
The tedious time away; or else supplies
Her place a moment, while she sudden flits
To pick the scanty meal. Th' appointed time
With pious toil fulfill'd, the callow young,
Warm'd and expanded into perfect life,
Their brittle bondage break, and come to light,
A helpless family, demanding food
With conftant clamour: O what passions then,
What melting sentiments of kindly care,
On the new parents seize! Away they fly
Affectionate, and, undefiring, bear
The most delicious morsel to their young,
Which equally distributed, again
The fearch begins. Even so a gentle pair,
By Fortune funk, but form'd of generous mould,
And charm'd with cares beyond the vulgar breast,
In some lone cott amid the distant woods,
Sustain'd alone by providential Heaven,
Oft' as they weeping eye their infant train,
Check their own appetites, and give them all.
Nor toil alone they scorn; exalting Love, By the great Father of the Spring inspir'd, Gives instant courage to the fearful race, And to the simple art. With stealthy wing Should fome rude foot their woody haunts molest, Amid a neighbouring bush they filent drop, And whirring thence, as if alarm'd, deceive 690 Th' unfeeling schoolboy. Hence around the head Of wandering swain the white-wing'd plover wheels
Her founding flight, and then directly on,
In long excursion, skims the level lawn
To tempt him from her nest. The wild-duck, hence,
O'er the rough moss, and o'er the trackless waste
The heath-hen, flutters; pious fraud! to lead
The hot-pursuing spaniel far aftray.
Be not the Muse asham'd here to bemoan
Her brothers of the grove, by tyrant Man
Inhuman caught, and in the narrow cage
From liberty confin'd and boundless air.
Dull are the pretty flaves, their plumage dull,
Ragged, and all its brightening lustre loft;
Nor is that sprightly wildness in their notes
Which, clear and vigorous, warbles from the beech.
O then, ye Friends of love and love-taught fong,
Spare the foft tribes! this barbarous art forbear!
If on your bosom Innocence can win,
Music engage, or Piety perfuade.
But let not chief the nightingale lament
Her ruin'd care, too delicately fram'd
To brook the harsh confinement of the cage.
Oft' when, returning with her loaded bill,
Th' astonish'd mother finds a vacant neft,
By the hard hand of unrelenting clowns
Robb'd, to the ground the vain provision falls,
Her pinions ruffle, and, low-drooping, scarce
Can bear the mourner to the poplar fhade,
Waere, all abandon'd to despair she sings
Her forrows thro' the night, and on the bough
Sole fitting, still at every dying fall
Takes up again her lamentable strain
Of winding woe, till, wide around, the woods
Sigh to her fong, and with her wail resound. 725
But now the feather'd youth their former bounds,
Ardent, difdain, and, weighing oft' their wings,
Demand the free possession of the sky.
This one glad office more, and then diffolves
Parental love at once, now needless grown.
Unlavish Wisdom never works in vain,
'Tis on some evening, funny, grateful, mild,
When nought but balm is breathing thro' the woods,
With yellow lustre bright, that the new tribes
Vifit the spacious heavens, and look abroad
On Nature's common, far as they can fee,
Or wing, their range and pasture. O'er the boughs
Dancing about, still at the giddy verge
Their resolution fails; their pinions ftill
In loofe libration stretch'd, to trust the void
Trembling refuse, till down before them fly
| The parent-guides, and chide, exhort, command,
Or push them off. The furging air receives
Its plumy burden, and their felf-taught wings
Winnow the waving element. On ground
Alighted, bolder up again they lead,
Farther and farther on, the lengthening flight,
Till vanish'd every fear, and every power
|