The open windows feemed to invite
The freeman to a farewell flight;
But Tom was ftill confined;
And Dick, although his way was clear,
Was much too generous and fincere
To leave his friend behind.
For, fettling on his grated roof,
He chirped and kiffed him, giving proof That he defired no more;
Nor would forfake his cage at last,
Till gently feized, I shut him fast,
ye, who never knew the joys Of Friendship, fatisfied with noife,
Fandango, ball, and rout!
Blush, when I tell you how a bird,
A prifon with a friend preferred
To liberty without.
THERE is a field, through which I often pass,
Thick overfpread with mofs and filky grafs,
Adjoining close to Kilwick's echoing wood,
Where oft the bitch-fox hides her hapless brood,
Referved to folace many a neighbouring 'fquire,
That he may follow them through brake and briar,
Contufion hazarding of neck or fpine,
Which rural gentlemen call sport divine.
A narrow brook, by rushy banks concealed,
Runs in a bottom, and divides the field;
Oaks intersperse it, that had once a head,
But now wear crests of oven-wood inftead;
And where the land flopes to its watery bourn,
Wide yawns a gulph befide a ragged thorn;
Bricks line the fides, but shivered long ago,
And horrid brambles intertwine below;
A hollow fcooped, I judge in ancient time,
For baking earth, or burning rock to lime.
Not yet the hawthorn bore her berries red,
With which the fieldfare, wintry gueft, is fed;
Nor autumn yet had brushed from every spray,
With her chill hand, the mellow leaves away;
But corn was housed, and beans were in the stack,
Now therefore iffued forth the spotted pack,
With tails high mounted, ears hung low, and throats
With a whole gamut filled of heavenly notes,
For which, alas! my destiny fevere,
Though ears fhe gave me two, gave me no ear.
The fun, accomplishing his early march,
His lamp now planted on heaven's topmoft arch,
When, exercise and air my only aim,
And heedless whither, to that field I came,
Ere yet with ruthless joy the happy hound
Told hill and dale that Reynard's track was found,
Or with the high-raised horn's melodious clang
All Kilwick and all Dingle-derry* rang.
Sheep grazed the field; fome with foft bofom preffed
The herb as foft, while nibbling ftrayed the reft; Nor noise was heard but of the hafty brook, Struggling, detained in many a petty nook.
*Two woods belonging to John Throckmorton, Efq.
All seemed fo peaceful, that from them conveyed To me, their peace by kind contagion spread.
But when the huntsman, with diftended cheek, 'Gan make his instrument of music speak,
And from within the wood that crafh was heard, Though not a hound from whom it burft appeared, The sheep recumbent, and the sheep that grazed, All huddling into phalanx, stood and gazed, Admiring, terrified, the novel strain,
Then courfed the field around, and coursed it round again;
But, recollecting with a fudden thought,
That flight in circles urged advanced them nought,
They gathered clofe around the old pit's brink,
And thought again-but knew not what to think.
The man to folitude accuftomed long,
Perceives in every thing that lives a tongue;
Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees,
Have speech for him, and understood with eafe;
After long drought, when rains abundant fall,
He hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all:
Knows what the freshness of their hue implies,
How glad they catch the largefs of the skies;
But, with precifion nicer ftill, the mind
He scans of every loco-motive kind;
Birds of all feather, beasts of every name,
That serve mankind, or fhun them, wild or tame;
The looks and geftures of their griefs and fears
Have all articulation in his ears;
He spells them true by intuition's light,
And needs no gloffary to fet him right.
This truth premised was needful as a text,
To win due credence to what follows next.
Awhile they mufed; surveying every face,
Thou hadft fuppofed them of fuperior race;
Their periwigs of wool, and fears combined,
Stamped on each countenance fuch marks of mind,
That fage they seemed, as lawyers o'er a doubt,
Which, puzzling long, at laft they puzzle out;
Or academic tutors, teaching youths,
Sure ne'er to want them, mathematic truths;
When thus a mutton, ftatelier than the reft,
A ram, the ewes and wethers fad, addreffed.
Friends! we have lived too long. I never heard
Sounds fuch as these, so worthy to be feared.
Could I believe that winds for ages pent
In earth's dark womb have found at laft a vent,
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