Page:Poems Cook.djvu/216

Beautiful Birds! how the schoolboy remembers
 The warblers that chorus'd his holiday tune;
The Robin that chirp'd in the frosty Decembers,
 The Blackbird that whistled through flower-crown'd June.
That schoolboy remembers his holiday ramble,
 When he pull'd every blossom of palm he could see;
When his finger was raised, as he stopp'd in the bramble,
 With "Hark! there's the Cuckoo, how close he must be!"

Beautiful Birds! we've encircled your names
With the fairest of fruits and the fiercest of flames.
We paint War with his Eagle, and Peace with her Dove;
With the red bolt of Death, and the olive of Love.
The fountain of Friendship is never complete
Till ye coo o'er its waters, so sparkling and sweet;
And where is the hand that would dare to divide
Even Wisdom's grave self from the Owl by her side?

Beautiful creatures of freedom and light,
Oh! where is the eye that groweth not bright
As it watches you trimming your soft glossy coats,
Swelling your bosoms and ruffling your throats!
Oh! I would not ask, as the old ditties sing,
To be "happy as sand-boy," or "happy as king;"
For the joy is more blissful that bids me declare,
"I'm as happy as all the wild birds in the air."
I will tell them to find me a grave, when I die,
Where no marble will shut out the glorious sky;
Let them give me a tomb where the daisy will bloom,
Where the moon will shine down, and the leveret pass by;
But be sure there's a tree stretching out, high and wide,
Where the Linnet, the Thrush, and the Woodlark may hide;
For the truest and purest of requiems heard,
Is the eloquent hymn of the beautiful Bird.

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