XXI. THE CONTRAST. THE PARROT AND THE WREN. [THE Parrot belonged to Mrs. Luff while living at Fox-Ghyll. The Wren was one that haunted for many years the summer-house between the two terraces at Rydal Mount.] I. WITHIN her gilded cage confined, A Parrot of that famous kind Like beads of glossy jet her eyes; Her plumy mantle's living hues Outshine the splendour that imbues And, sooth to say, an apter Mate Of feathered Thing most delicate In figure and in voice. But, exiled from Australian bowers, And singleness her lot, She trills her song with tutored powers, Or mocks each casual note. No more of pity for regrets With which she may have striven! Arch, volatile, a sportive bird Ambitious to be seen or heard, And pleased to be admired! II. THIS MOSS-LINED shed, green, soft, and dry, Not shunning man's abode, though shy, Strange places, coverts unendeared, In which this Child of Spring was reared, To the bleak winds she sometimes gives Proof that the hermitess still lives, Though she appear not, and be sought in vain. Say, Dora! tell me, by yon placid moon, XXII. THE DANISH BOY. A FRAGMENT. [WRITTEN in Germany. It was entirely a fancy; but intended as a prelude to a ballad-poem never written.] I. BETWEEN two sister moorland rills And in this smooth and open dell A thing no storm can e'er destroy, II. In clouds above, the lark is heard, No beast, no bird hath here his home; Their burthens do they bear; The Danish Boy walks here alone: III. A Spirit of noon-day is ho; Yet seems a form of flesh and blood; It fears not rain, nor wind, nor dew; IV. A harp is from his shoulder slung; Of flocks upon the neighbouring hill And often, when no cause appears, V. There sits he; in his face you spy No trace of a ferocious air, The lovely Danish Boy is blest Like a dead Boy he is serene. XXIII. 1799. SONG FOR THE WANDERING JEW. THOUGH the torrents from their fountains Clouds that love through air to hasten, What, if through the frozen centre In some nook of chosen ground: |