The Rural Muse; PoemsGeneral Books LLC, 2009 - 126 pages This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1835 Excerpt: ...as small As dust, and of a faint and pinky red.--Well! let them be, and Safety guard them well; For Fear's rude paths around are thickly spread, And they are left to many dangerous ways. A green grasshopper's jump might break the shells, Yet lowing oxen pass them morn and night. And restless sheep around them hourly stray; And no grass springs but hungry horses bite, That trample past them twenty times a day. Yet, like a miracle, in Safety's lap They still abide unhurt, and out of sight.--Stop! here's the bird--that woodman at the gap Frightened him from the hedge: --'tis olive-green. Well! I declare it is the Pettichap! Not bigger than the wren, and seldom seen. I've often found her nest in chance's way, When I in pathless woods did idly roam; But never did I dream until to-day A spot like this would be her chosen home. INSECTS. These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard, And happy units of a numerous herd Of playfellows, the laughing Summer brings, Mocking the sunshine on their glittering wings, How merrily they creep, and run, and fly! No kin they bear to labour's drudgery, Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose; And where they fly for dinner no one knows--The dew-drops feed them not--they love the shine Of noon, whose suns may bring them golden wine. All day they're playing in their Sunday dress--When night reposes, for they can do no less; Then, to the heath-bell's purple hood they fly, And like to princes in their slumbers lie, Secure from rain, and dropping dews, and all, In silken beds and roomy painted hall. So merrily they spend their summer-day, Now in the corn-fields, now the new-mown hay. One almost fancies that such happy things, With coloured hoods and richly burnished wings, Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade Disguised, as if of mort... |
