For here forlorn and sad I sit
Within the wiry grate;
And tremble at the approaching morn Which brings impending fate.
If e'er thy breast with freedom glowed,
And spurn'd a tyrant's chain,
Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain.
O do not stain with guiltless blood
Thy hospitable hearth;
Nor triumph that thy wiles betray'd
A prize so little worth!
The scatter'd gleanings of a feast
My frugal meals supply :
But, if thine unrelenting heart
That slender boon deny,
The cheerful light, the vital air,
Are blessings widely given;
Let nature's commoners enjoy
'The common gifts of heaven.
The well-taught philosophic mind
To all compassion gives,
Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.
SAY, who the various nations can declare
That plow with busy wing the peopled air?
These cleave the crumbling bark for insect food,
Those dip their crooked beak in kindred blood;
Some haunt the rushy moor, the lonely woods;
Some bathe their silver plumage in the floods;
Some fly to man, his household gods implore,
And gather round his hospitable door;
Wait the known call, and find protection there
From all the lesser tyrants of the air.
The tawny eagle seats his callow brood
High on the cliff, and feasts his young with blood.
On Snowdon's recks, or Orkney's wide domain, Whose beetling cliffs o'erhang the western main,
The royal bird his lonely kingdom forms
Amidst the gathering clouds and sullen storms;
Through the wide waste of airhe darts his sight,
And holds his sounding pinions pois'd for flight;
With cruel eye premeditates the war,
And marks his destined victim from afar :
Descending in a whirlwind to the ground,
His pinions like the rush of waters sound;
The fairest of the fold he bears away,
And to his nest compels the struggling prey.
He scorns the game by meaner hunters tore,
And dips his talons in no vulgar gore.
With lovelier pomp, along the grassy plain,
The silver pheasant draws his shining train :
Once on the painted banks of Ganges' stream
He spread his plumage to the sunny gleam;
But now the wiry net his flight confines,
He lowers his purple crest, and inly pines.
'To claim the verse unnumber'd tribes appear That swell the music of the vernal year: Seiz'd with the spirit of the kindly spring, They tune the voice, and sleek the glossy wing,
With emulative strife the notes prolong,
And pour out all their little souls in song.
When Winter bites upon the naked plain,
Nor food nor shelter in the groves remain,
By instinct led, a firm united band,
As marshall'd by some skilful general's hand,
The congregated nations wing their way
In dusky columns o'er the trackless sea;
In clouds unnumber'd annual hover o'er
The craggy Bass, or Kilda's utmost shore;
Thence spread their sails to meet the southern
wind,
And leave the gathering tempest far behind;
Pursue the circling sun's indulgent ray,
Course the swift seasons, and o'ertake the day.
OBSERVE the insect race, ordain'd to keep
The lazy sabbath of a half-year's sleep.
Entomb'd beneath the filmy web they lie,
And wait the influence of a kinder sky.
When vernal sun-beams pierce their dark retreat, The heaving tomb distends with vital heat; The full-form'd brood, impatient of their cell, Start from their trance and burst their silken shell; Trembling awhile they stand, and scarcely dare To launch at once upon the untried air.
At length assur'd, they catch the favʼring gale, And leave their sordid spoils, and high in æther sail.
Lo! the bright train their radiant wings unfold,
With silver fringed and freckled o'er with gold.
On the gay bosom of some fragrant flower
They idly fiutt'ring live their little hour;
Their life all pleasure, and their task all play,
All spring their age, and sun-shine all their day.
Not so the child of sorrow, wretched man,
His course with toil concludes, with pain began,
That his high destiny he might discern,
And in misfortune's school this lesson learn,-
Pleasure's the portion of th' inferior kind;
But glory, virtue, Heaven for man design'd.
What atom forms of insect life appear! And who can follow Nature's pencil here?
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