Page:Poems Hoffman.djvu/197

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To you I sing, though others may
Their far-famed gifts rehearse
And sing of sky-larks on the wing
Where none were ever heard to sing;
And nightingales, triumphant bring
To grace their native verse.

Doubtless the Scottish poet finds
In these a lasting joy.
He loves his own green spot of earth,
Of heath-clad hill and foaming firth;
But holds not our broad land enough
Our homage to employ.

Ye golden warblers, darting now,
Through peach-bloom canopies;
Ye orioles, who seek the grove
To sing the sonnets of your love,
In joyous warblings, interwove
With softest melodies.

Ye wild canaries, caroling
Beneath the alders' shade;
Ye sprightly grosbeaks, whose rich lay
From apple-boughs at close of day,
When sauntering on my homeward way,
My willing feet have stayed.

And last, but loveliest of them all,
In fields, or woods, or dales,
The shy lazuli-finch, whose song
Is borne the forest aisles along,
Woodsy and wild, to you belong
Wild hills and wooded vales.

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