Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/84

Sustain'd alone by providential Heaven,
Oft, as they weeping eye their infant train,
Check their own appetites and give them all.

Nor toil alone they scorn: exalting love,
By the great Father of the Spring inspir'd, 685
Gives instant courage to the fearful race,
And to the simple, art. With stealthy wing,
Should some rude foot their woody haunts molest,
Amid a neighbouring bush they silent drop,
And whirring thence, as if alarm'd, deceive 690
Th'unfeeling school-boy. Hence, around the head
Of wandering swain, the white-wing'd plover wheels
Her founding flight, and then directly on
In long excursion skims the level lawn,
To tempt him from her nest. The wild-duck, hence 695
O'er the rough moss, and o'er the trackless waste
The heath-hen flutters, pious fraud! to lead
The hot pursuing spaniel far astray.

Be not the Muse asham'd, here to bemoan
Her brothers of the grove, by tyrant man 700
Inhuman caught, and in the narrow cage
From liberty confin'd, and boundless air.
Dull are the pretty slaves, their plumage dull.
Ragged, and all its brightening lustre lost;
Nor is that sprightly wildness in their notes 705
Which, clear and vigorous, warbles from the beech.
Oh then, ye friends of love and love-taught song,
Spare the soft tribes, this barbarous art forbear!
If on your bosom innocence can win,
Music engage, or piety persuade, 710

But let not chief the nightingale lament
Her ruin'd care, too delicately fram'd

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