174 
SAXICOLA SIALIS. 
lingers over his native fields, as if loth to leave them. 
About the middle or end of November, few or none 
of them are seen; but, with every return of mild and 
open weather, we hear his plaintive note amidst the 
fields, or in the air, seeming to deplore the devastations 
of winter. Indeed, he appears scarcely ever totally to 
forsake us ; but to follow fair weather through all its 
journeyings till the return of spring. 
Such are the mild and pleasing manners of the blue- 
bird, and so universally is he esteemed, that I have 
often regretted that no pastoral muse has yet arisen in 
this western woody world, to do justice to his name, 
and endear him to us still more by the tenderness of 
verse, as has been done to his representative in Britain, 
the robin redbreast. A small acknowledgment of this 
kind I have to offer, which the reader, I hope, will 
excuse as a tribute to rural innocence. 
When winter’s cold tempests and snows are no more, 
Green meadows and brown furrow’d fields re-appearing, 
The fishermen hauling their shad to the shore, 
And cloud-cleaving geese to the lakes are a-steering ; 
When first the lone butterfly flits on the wing, 
When red glow the maples, so fresh and so pleasing, 
O then comes the bluebird, the herald of spring ! 
And hails with his warblings the charms of the season. 
Then loud piping frogs make the marshes to ring ; 
Then warm glows the sunshine, and fine is the weather ; 
The blue woodland flowers just beginning to spring, 
And spicewood and sassafras budding together : 
O then to your gardens ye housewives repair, 
Your walks border up, sow and plant at your leisure ; 
The bluebird will chant from his box such an air, 
That all your hard toils will seem truly a pleasure ! 
He flits through the orchard, he visits each tree, 
The red flowering peach, and the apple’s sweet blossoms ; 
He snaps up destroyers wherever they be, 
And seizes the caitiffs that lurk in their bosoms ; 
He drags the vile grub from the corn it devours, 
The worms from the webs, where they riot and welter ; 
His song and his services freely are ours, 
And all that he asks is — in summer a shelter. 
