MV CHAFFINCH. 331 



Adovvn the lane athwart this pleasant wood 



The broad-winged butterflies their solace sought ; 



A green-necked pheasant in the sunlight stood, 

 Nor could the rushes hide him as he thought. 



A humble-bee through fern and thistle made 



A search for lowly flowers in the shade. 



A thing of many wanderings, and loss, 



Like to Ulysses on his poplar raft, 

 His treasure hid beneath the tunnelled moss 



Lest that a thief his labour steal with craft, 

 Up the round hill, sheep-dotted, was his way, 

 Zigzagging where some new adventure lay. 



' My life and soul,' as if he were a Greek, 



His heart was Grecian in his greenwood fane ; 



' My life and soul,' through all the sunny week 

 The chaffinch sang with beating heart amain. 



' The humble-bee the wide wood-world may roam ; 



One feather's breadth I shall not stir from home.' 



No note he took of what the swallows said 



About the firing of some evil gun. 

 Nor \{ the butterflies were blue or red. 



For all his feelings were intent in one. 

 The loving soul, a-thrill in all his nerves, 

 A life immortal as a man's deserves. 



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