
MATERNAL’ LOVE. 
The hours fleet by on burning wing. Awhile 
Repose thou in the shade, this stunted tree 
Grasp’d by the choking ivy—of his race 
The last, has foliage yet enough to screen 
Thine ardent brow ; and just below, a brook 
Fresh from the ever-living spring, presents 
Its purest crystal to thy lip. 
The little birds use the delicate moss in the 
formation of their nests. Is this instinct? 
Yea, truly the instinct of maternal care, and 
maternal tenderness, implanted by nature in 
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, 
T 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. 



























