Can we think, without emotion,
What must thy Creator be?
SAY, who the various nations can declare
That plough with busy wing the peopled air?
These cleave the crumbling bark for insect food;
Those dip their crooked beak in kindred blood;
Some haunt the rushy moor, the lonely woods;
Some bathe their silver plumage in the floods;
Some fly to man, his household gods implore,
And gather round his hospitable door;
Wait the known call, and find protection there
From all the lesser tyrants of the air.
The tawny Eagle seats his callow brood
High on the cliff, and feasts his young with blood. On Snowdon's rocks, or Orkney's wide domain, Whose beetling cliffs o'erhang the western main, The Royal bird his lonely kingdom forms
Amidst the gathering clouds and sullen storms;
Through the wide waste of air he darts his sight,
And holds his sounding pinions poised for flight:
With cruel eye premeditates the war,
And marks his destined victim from afar :
Descending in a whirlwind to the ground,
His pinions like the rush of waters sound;
The fairest of the fold he bears away,
And to his nest compels the struggling prey.
He scorns the game that meaner hunters tore,
And dips his talons in no vulgar gore.
With lovelier pomp, along the grassy plain,
The silver pheasant draws his shining train:
Once on the painted banks of Ganges' stream
He spread his plumage to the sunny gleam :
But now the wiry net his flight confines,
He lowers his purple crest, and inly pines.
To claim the verse unnumbered tribes appear,
That swell the music of the vernal year:
Seized with the spirit of the kindly spring,
They tune the voice, and sleek the glossy wing;
With emulative strife the notes prolong,
And pour out all their little souls in song.
When winter bites upon the naked plain,
Nor food nor shelter in the groves remain,
By instinct led, a firm, united band,
Is marshalled by some skilful general's hand;
The congregated nations wing their way
In dusky columns o'er the trackless sea;
In clouds unnumbered annual hover o'er
The craggy Bass,' or Kilda's2 utmost shore;
Thence spread their sails to meet the southern
wind,
And leave the gathering tempest far behind;
Pursue the circling sun's indulgent ray,
Course the swift seasons, and o'ertake the day.
OBSERVE the insect race, ordained to keep
The lazy sabbath 3 of a half-year's sleep;
1 Bass-an island in the Frith of Forth, Scotland.
2 Kilda-one of the Hebrides, west of Scotland.
Sabbath-rest.
Entombed beneath the filmy web they lie,
And wait the influence of a kinder sky.
When vernal sunbeams pierce their dark retreat,
The heaving tomb distends with vital heat;
The full-formed brood, impatient of their cell,
Start from their trance and burst their silken shell;
Trembling awhile they stand, and scarcely dare
To launch at once upon the untried air;
At length assured, they catch the favouring gale, And leave their sordid spoils, and high in ether1 sail.
Lo! the bright train their radiant wings unfold,
With silver fringed and freckled o'er with gold.
On the gay bosom of some fragrant flower
They, idly fluttering, live their little hour;
Their life all pleasure, and their task all play,
All spring their age, and sunshine all their day.
What atom forms of insect life appear
And who can follow Nature's pencil here?
Their wings with azure, green, and purple glossed,
Studded with coloured eyes, with gems embossed,
Inlaid with pearl, and marked with various stains
Of lively crimson through their dusky veins.
Some shoot like living stars athwart the night
And scatter from their wings a vivid light,2
To guide the Indian to his tawny loves,
As through the wood with cautious steps he moves.
See the proud giant of the beetle race;
What shining arms his polished limbs enchase!
1 Ether-the upper region of the air.
2 Some shoot, &c.-the fireflies, which are very abundant in South America and the West Indies.
Like some stern warrior, formidably bright,
His steely sides reflect a gleaming light;
On his large forehead spreading horns he wears;
And high in air the branching antlers bears;
O'er many an inch extends his wide domain,
And his rich treasury swells with hoarded grain.
Mrs. Barbauld.
A TEAR bedews my Delia's eye
To think yon playful kid must die;
From crystal spring and flowery mead
Must, in his prime of life, recede.
Erewhile, in sportive circles, round
She saw him wheel, and fris, and bound;
From rock to rock pursue his way,
And on the fearful margin play.
Pleased on his various freaks to dwell,
She saw him climb my rustic cell;
Thence eye my lawns with verdure bright,
And seem all ravished at the sight.
She tells with what delight he stood
To trace his features in the flood:
Then skipped aloof with quaint amaze;
And then drew near again to gaze.
She tells me how, with eager speed,
He flew to hear my vocal reed;
And how, with critic face profound,
And steadfast ear, devoured the sound.
1 Erewhile-a little while ago.
His every frolic, light as air,
Deserves the gentle Delia's care;
And tears bedew her tender eye
To think the playful kid must die.
SEE the day begins to break,
And the light shoots like a streak
Of subtle fire; the wind blows cold
While the morning doth unfold;
'Now the birds begin to rouse,
And the squirrel from the boughs
Leaps, to get him nuts and fruit;
The early lark, that erst1 was mute,
Carols in the rising day
Many a note and many a lay.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
UNFOLDING THE FLOCKS.
SHEPHERDS, rise, and shake off sleep—
See the blushing morn doth peep
Through your windows, while the sun
To the mountain-tops has run,
Gilding all the vales below
With the rising flames, which grow
Brighter with his climbing still.-
Up! ye lazy swains! and fill
Bag and bottle for the field;
Clasp your cloaks fast, lest they yield
1 Erst-formerly, before.
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