MY CHAFFINCH. 33 i 



Adown 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 if 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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