Selected Poetry. From the Providence Gazette.
As the season is now rapidly approaching, when the sportsmen will begin his depredations, you are requested to publish the following lines; and their object will be answered, if the life of a single robin should be preserved.
- The birds had sung a morning psalm,
- The music of the grove was mute,
- All was silent, all was calm
- As is the passing shadow's foot.
- "The poet's eye, in frenzy," now
- Roll'd giddily from tree to tree,
- And caught from ev'ry tranquil bough
- A deep and solemn reverie.
- A strain of music soft and low,
- And destitute of art,
- Fell in a gentle lapse, lie snow,
- And melted on his heart.
- The poet turn'd, transported now,
- And gaz'd upon the wood;
- He look'd, and on a dancing bough
- The sweet musician stood.
- Her little nest was her beside,
- Suspended in the air;
- The Robin watch'd her callow pride
- With all a mother's care.
- Her plumage glitter'd in the sun;
- While gazing on her nest,
- The poet heard the sportman's gun.
- And saw her bleeding breast.
- Fain would he sing in numbers meet;
- He faulters on the strings :
- Ill-fated bird ! he saw the beat
- The ground with bloody wings.
- But still thy young remain'd alive:
- He climb'd the nest to spy;
- He counted, and he found them five,
- And left them there to die.