The Wise Thrush" 99 



i. 



" Oh, to be in England 



Now that April's there ; 

 And whoever wakes in England 

 Sees, some morning, unaware, 

 That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf 

 Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 

 While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 

 In England now ! 



And after April, when May follows, 



And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows : 



Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge 



Leans to the field, and scatters on the clover 

 Blossoms and dewdrops at the bent-spray's edge 

 That's the wise thrush : he sings each song twice over, 

 Lest you should think he never could recapture 

 The first fine careless rapture. 

 And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, 

 All will be gay when noontide wakes anew 

 The buttercups, the little children dower, 

 Far brighter than this gaudy melon flower ! " 



What an exquisite sense of English bird-song there 

 is in these lines ; not to speak of the " wise thrush " 

 singing his song twice over, " lest you think he never 

 could recapture the first fine careless rapture," is that 

 reminiscence of the chaffinch not exquisite, "on the 

 orchard bough," and of the whitethroat in May, with his 

 keen varied song rick, rick, chew, rick, a-rue, rick, 

 rick-chew-chew-ke-rick-a-rew-rew ? 



And with what exquisite grace the trees in the 

 hedgerow do sometimes lean from them and dip, and 

 look over into the meadow or field beyond ! 



Within my vision, too, I can catch a glimpse of some- 

 thing leaning to the field, in the, words of Browning, 



