of Selborne 63 



To hear the drowsy dor come brushing by 



With buzzing wing, or the shrill ^ cricket cry ; 



To see the feeding bat glance through the wood ; 



To catch the distant falling of the flood ; 



While o'er the cliff th' awakened churn-owl hung 



Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song ; 



While high in air, and pois'd upon his wings, 



Unseen, the soft enamour'd woodiark ^ sings : 



These, NATURE'S works, the curious mind employ. 



Inspire a soothing melancholy joy : 



As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain 



Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein ! 



Each rural sight, each sound, each smell combine ; 

 The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine ; 

 The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze, 

 Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees. 



The chilling night-dews fall : away, retire ; 

 For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire ! ^ 

 Thus, ere night's veil had half obscured the sky, 

 Th' impatient damsel hung her lamp on high : 

 True to the signal, by love's meteor led, 

 Leander hasten'd to his Hero's bed.'^ 



I am, etc. 



LETTER XXV 



TO THOINIAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selborne, Aug. 30, 1769. 



Dear Sir, 

 It gives me satisfaction to find that my account of the 

 ousel migration pleases you. You put a very shrewd 

 question when you ask me how I know that their 



^ Grylhts cainpestris . 



^ In hot summer nights woodlarks soar to a prodigious height, 

 and hang singing in the air. 



^ The light of the female glow-worm (as she often crawls up the 

 stalk of a grass to make herself more conspicuous) is a signal to the 

 male, which is a slender dusky scarabdjts. 



* See the story of Hero and Leander. 



