A Selection of Original Songs, Scraps, Etc., by Ned Farmer/The Widowed Bird

by Edward Farmer

The Widowed Bird.

 

Addressed to Mrs. ———

 

The grove is silent, and alone is heard
The pious mourning of a widowed bird,
Who weeps unceasingly her mate at rest,
Her offspring nestled to her throbbing breast.
O'erwhelmed in woe her faithful heart, she steeps
In sorrow's fount, and mournful vigil keeps,
Becoming grief! yet certain seasons past
It is decreed, the dark hour may not last.
The heart's warm blood with gentle joy elate
At Nature's bidding, asks another mate.
Wise dispensation for the common good,
A feeling never to be long withstood.
Love lives on memory till time soften'd hours
Into another source its fondness pours.
Soon as the feather'd choir began to sing,
Their hymn of gratitude to welcome spring.
Each innate feeling thus by music stirr'd,
Its genial influence reach'd the Widowed Bird.

Unerring Nature wills that every kind,
Alike in feeling, character, and mind,
Consort together, and neglecting this,
Small, small indeed, the chance of wedded bliss.
The lovely Philomel, with instinct rife,
Takes none save Nightingale to be his wife:
Thrush will to Thrush, as Lark to Lark repairs,
From fellow feeling known each other's cares;
Each joy divided, and each sorrow known,
And met with kindred feeling all its own.
Thus time wore on, as yet no bird had come
Congenial partner of her heart and home.
A dreary void her "bosom's lord" besets,
A life is her's of sighs and vain regrets;
At last, in happy hour, one draweth near,
Whose warbled notes fall sweetly on her ear,
With fluttering plumage see he gains her side,
And once again the Widowed Bird's a bride.

 

 

A man should never think once ere he performs a good action; but a thousand times before he does a bad one!