36 
THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS. 
BIRDS. 
Say who the various nations can declare, 
That plough with busy wing the peopled air? 
These clear the crumbling bark for insect food ; 
Those dip their crooked beak in kindred blood ; 
Some haunt the rushy moor, the lonely woods ; 
Some bathe their silver plumage in the floods ; 
Some fly to man, his household t'implore 
And gather round his hospitable door. 
Wait the known call, and find protection there, 
From all the lesser tyrants of the air ; 
The tawny eagle seats his callow brood 
High in the cliff', and feasts his young with blood 
On Snowden^s rocks, or Orkney's wide domain. 
Whose beetling cliffs o'erhang the western main ; 
The royal bird his lonely kingdom forms, 
Amidst the gathering clouds, and sullen storms ; 
Through the wide waste of air he darts his sight, 
And holds his sounding pinions poised for flight ; 
With cruel eye premeditates the war, 
And marks his destin'd victim from afar ; 
Descending in a whirlwind to the ground. 
His pinions like the rush of waters sound ; 
