AND FLOWERS OF POETRY. 
153 
the light-winged inhabitants of the air. Clare shall tell us of 
the thrush preparing her nest: — 
Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush, 
That overhangs a molehill large and round, 
1 heard, from morn to morn, a merry thrush 
Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound 
With joy; and, often an intruding guest, 
I watched her secret toils from day to day — 
How true she warped the moss, to form a nest, 
And modelled it within with wood and clay; 
And by-and-by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, 
There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers, 
Ink-spotted over shells of greeny blue ; 
And then I witnessed, in the sunny hours, 
A brood of Nature’s minstrels chirp and fly, 
Glad as that sunshine, and the laughing sky. 
The squirrel also uses it in the construction of its circular abode. 
The Laplanders, we are told, protect themselves from the 
rigours of winter by covering their subterraneous dwellings 
with moss; their numerous herds of raindeer know no other 
food; yet they yield their owners a delicious milk, a succulent 
flesh, and warm skins; affording the poor Laplander all the 
benefits we derive from the cow, the horse, and the sheep. On 
the appearance of the aurora-borealis, which cheers their long 
nights, the Laplanders assemble around poles, and celebrate, to 
the beating of the tambour, the virtues or warlike deeds of 
their forefathers; while their wives are seated near them, cher¬ 
ishing, in moss cradles, their little infants, enveloped in ermine. 
Beneficent nature, in those dreary climes, surrounds every¬ 
thing with mosses, to preserve her children from the biting 
fiosts, and to nourish them upon her maternal bosom. 
Ere yet her child has drawn its earliest breath, 
A mother’s love begins — it glows till death; 
Lives before life — with death not dies — but seems 
The very substance of immortal dreams. 1 
Anon. 
