OF SELBORNE 61 



"When the still owl skims round the grassy mead, 

 What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed ; 

 Then be the time to steal adown the vale, 

 And listen to the vagrant^ cuckoo's tale; 

 To hear the clamorous^ curlew call his mate, 

 Or the soft quail his tender pain relate ; 

 To see the swallow sweep the dark'ning plain 

 Belated, to support her infant train ; 

 To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring 

 Dash round the steeple, unsubdu'd of wing : 

 Amusive birds ! — say where your hid retreat 

 When the frost rages and the tempests beat ; 

 Whence your return, by such nice instinct led. 

 When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head ? 

 Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride. 

 The GOD of NATURE is your secret guide! 



While deep'ning shades obscure the face of day 

 To yonder bench, leaf-shelter'd, let us stray, 

 'Till blended objects fail the swimming sight. 

 And all the fading landscape sinks in night ; 

 To hear the drowsy dorr come brushing by 

 With buzzing wing, or the shriU^ 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 woodlark* sings: 

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



and dies about eleven at night, determining the date of its fly state in 

 about five or six hours. They usually begin to appear about the 4th of 

 June, and continue in succession for near a fortnight. See Swammer- 

 dam, Derham, Scopoli, etc. 



^ Vagrant cuckoo ; so called because, being tied down by no incubation 

 or attendance about the nutrition of its young, it wanders without con- 

 trol. 



^ Charadrim Oedknemiu. 



* Gryllus campestris. 



* In hot summer nights woodlarks soar to a prodigious height, and hang 

 singing in the air. 



