A SACRED BIRD. 91 



Of all the tuneful tribes, the Redbreast sole 

 Confides himself to man ; others sometimes 

 Are driven within our lintel-posts by storms, 

 And, fearfully, the sprinkled crumbs partake : 

 He feels himself at home. When lours the year, 

 He perches on the village turfy copes, 

 And, with his sweet but interrupted trills, 

 Bespeaks the pity of his future host. 

 But long he braves the season, ere he change 

 The heaven's grand canopy for man's low home ; 

 Oft is he seen, when fleecy showers bespread 

 The house tops white, on the thawed smiddy roof, 

 Or in its open window he alights, 

 And, fearless of the clang, and furnace glare, 

 Looks round, arresting the uplifted arm, 

 While on the anvil cools the glowing bar. 

 But when the season roughens, and the drift 

 Flies upward, mingling with the falling flakes, 

 In whirl confused, then on the cottage floor 

 He lights, and hops and flits from place to place, 

 Restless at first, till, by degrees, he feels 

 He is in safety : fearless then he sings 

 The winter day ; and when the long dark night 

 Has drawn the rustic circle round the fire, 

 Waked by the dinsome wheel he trims his plumes, 

 And, on the distaff perched, chaunts soothingly 

 His summer song ; or, fearlessly, lights down 

 Upon the basking sheep-dog's glossy fur ; 

 Till, 'chance, the herd-boy, at his supper mess, 

 Attract his eye, then on the milky rim 

 Brisk he alights, and picks his little share. 



Many boys who plunder the nests of other birds, hold 

 that of the Robin sacred. Mudie, in the following passage, 

 gives us the reason for this : i When the wind of winter is 

 up when the forest howls to its fury, driving the 

 twitterers from the sprays, and forcing them to take shelter 

 in clefts of the trees and crannies of the earth when the 

 sky is darkened by the congregated flakes of snow, which 

 throw their protecting mantle over the earth, but compel 

 the inhabitants of the cottage to remain within, and merely 

 eye the storm which rages without it is then that the 

 door is left ajar, and the little Eedbreast comes hopping in 

 for his crumbs, welcome and well-beloved by the very- 

 boys that make the plundering of nests a portion of their 



