PLEASURES OF ORNITHOLOGY, 



Deign thou thy potent spirit to diffuse, — 

 And live the Lay shall, nor be sung in vain. 



And think YE that the princes of the air, 

 The warblers of the valley and the wood — 

 Only for mayi created ? — Think YE they 

 Have not a world of happiness their own. 

 Of sympathies, of hopes, of pleasures, fears, 

 Maugre man's intervention? That for him 

 They skim the valley — sweep the wavy main — 

 Or on her bosom buoyantly preside ; — 

 For kim, and only him the Merulid 

 Awakes the morning with his song ; for him 

 The Corvid (^) caws ; for him Luscinia*s (^) voice 

 At midnight heard in all its melody, 

 What time the amber clouds o'er ether sail. 

 And moon and stars, and all the planet host, 

 Deck, too, the deep cerulean ? — Think YE now 

 It only wakes for man? That all the sounds 

 Of Birds in wood, in valley, forest, glade. 

 The plain, the desert, and the mighty sea ; 

 On rock remote, on mountain where hath trod 



(I) CortJtd, a bird of the Crow tribe. — (*) Sylvia lusciniaf 

 or the Nightingale. 



