160 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 



too, of evenings, " the wild disguise has been apt to almost 

 antick" them. 



" Cup us till the world goes round," 



was ever the favorite chorus of their mellow vespers. God 

 bless them ! Poor Chaucer is not the only one of whom it 

 might be said 



" That mark upon his lip is wine !" 



The song-bird with its pipes a-weary, sips, for refreshing, the 

 fiery dews inspired of the sun. They, as well to awake the 

 frost-bound blood or rouse the sacred madness, have quaffed 

 at this 



Thespian spring, 



Of which sweet swans must drink before they sing 

 Their true-paced numbers and their holy lays." 



Not a strictly "Washingtonian sentiment, by the way, but it 

 will do, since Birds and Poets are accountable for it 

 though so staid a Poet as Wordsworth talks about " Thou 

 drunken Lark !" Birds are proverbially improvident and 

 regardful of the injunction, " give thyself no thought for the 

 morrow, what we shall eat, or what ye shall drink" for with 

 them " sufficient to the day is the joy thereof !" That therein 

 Birds and Poets do most agree, the Lay of " The Flower 

 and Leaf" shall bear us witness. The gentle Poet, idling 

 through an embowered Dream-land, becomes 



" Ware of the fairest medler tree 



That ever yet in all my life I see. 

 ***** 

 Wherein a goldfinch leaping pretilie 

 Fro bough to bough." 



The little bird begins to sing 



" So passing sweetly, that by manifold 

 It was more pleas aunt than I could devise." 



