LOVE- TAUGHT WARBLINGS. 133 



Or oak, among the sprigs that overhang 

 A pebble-chiding stream, the loam-lined house 

 Is fixed, well hid from ken of hov'ring hawk, 

 Or lurking beast, or schoolboy's prowling eye. 



And there as we have often seen her, when informed of 

 her whereabouts by the low soft note of connubial bliss 

 which her mate ever and anon interrupts his louder and 

 more exultant strain to emit we have put aside the 

 entwining branches, and peeped into that abode of love 

 sits the patient mother brooding on her eggs ; or it may be 

 that those beautiful tinted eggs which Clare compares to 

 * Heath bells gilt with dew,' have opened and allowed their 

 inmates to escape, and we may realise the picture drawn 

 by Burns : 



Within a milk-white hawthorn bush 

 Among her nestlings sits the Thrush ; 

 Her faithful mate will share her toil, 

 And wi' his songs her cares beguile. 



And loud and clear will that strain of his ring through 

 the coppice ; not far away will he fly from the objects of 

 his solicitude, lest danger should approach them, and he not 

 be there to give the warning note. On the tall branch of a 

 tree, or some other elevated resting-place, he sits and 

 pours out his full heart in song : 



Beyond the clust'ring filbert's high-raised arch, 

 The arbour wide expands its ample space, 

 In cool recess impervious to the beam 

 Of ardent Sol, when from meridian height 

 With blaze intense he pours the flood of day ; 

 Perched on the fickle vane the cheerful Thrush 

 In love-taught warblings cheers his constant mate, 

 As in the friendly covert close she broods 

 With patient fondness o'er her callow young. 



Cold indeed must that heart be that does not thrill in 

 unison with the swelling strain of the sylvan songster, 

 when he pours forth his matin or vesper hymn, or his 

 noontide or eventide song of praise, to the great Creator 

 of all things, and giver of all good gifts. 



The lines last quoted are by an humble poetess who 



