Never the sympathetic joy to know

That warms the mother cowering o'er her

young,

A stranger robs, and to that stranger's love
Her egg commits unnatural: the nurse,
Unwitting of the change, her nestling feeds
With toil augmented; its portentous throat
Wondering she views with ceaseless hunger gape,
Starts at the glare of its capacious eyes,

Its giant bulk, and wings of hues unknown.
Meanwhile the little songsters, prompt to cheer
Their mates close brooding in the brake below,
Strain their shrill throats; or with parental art
From twig to twig their timid offspring lead;

Teach them to seize the unwary gnat, to poise
Their pinions, in short flights their strength to prove,
And venturous trust the bosom of the air.

O ye! whose knees a youthful progeny climbs,
While mirth, the fruit of innocence and love,

regard it in the same light. Pennant's Brit. Zool. 4th edit. vol. i. p. 238. In the midland counties of England, the common people call it the cuckoo's maiden,

Dimples their cheeks, and shuts their laughing eyes,
Think on your charge! Fast as the expanding mind
Imbibes the lesson, from her fount above

Bid Truth in ampler stream infuse her lore.
Leave not, in vernal dawn when life invokes
Your culturing hand, the field to weeds a prey
Native, quick sprouting: plant with earliest care
The seeds you most desire should fill the soil;
And nurse, with zeal proportion'd to its worth,
Each rising produce. Teach your infant race,
That 'tis not theirs, like songsters of the grove
Born but to sport and flutter for a day,

To dote on vain and transitory joys.

Teach them the harder nobler task decreed

Το prove the sons of Adam. Teach them love

Supreme of God, and, next to God, of man.

Teach them 'tis theirs, in arduous conflict ranged

'Gainst Sin and Powers of Darkness, to make known

Their firm allegiance to the King of Kings.

Teach them, though weak, to triumph in the strength

Omnipotence, spectator of the war,

At supplication's cry delights to yield

The faithful combatant; while Heaven spreads wide Her glories, and displays the victor's crown,

A crown eternal; and beneath, Hell yawns

Insatiate, thunders through each quivering gulf,
And heaves her floods of ever-during fire.

Nor want these lawns that terminate the woods
Their tenants. O'er the gorse the sportive deer
Vault with elastic bound, and sweep the plain

In mock pursuit. Pour'd from the neighbouring farms, O'er their new realms with broad inquiring gaze

The wide-spread cattle stray.

stray. Behold yon herd

Dragging, as worn with toil, the heavy step,
Or stretch'd innumerous in recumbent ease.

Mark the unguarded front, the slender limb,

The tawny ear, the sable-vested side.

From Scotian hills they come. There were they wont

To pick from rocky chinks the blade, and crop

The sapless twigs of heath; there school'd in arts

Taught by necessity, with docile feet

Uplifted and again descending quick

The stubborn furze they bruised, and of its arms,
Pungent in vain, despoil'd their wintry fare:

Or in the stormy Hebrides forlorn,

Rush'd duly from the moor, scenting afar *

The ebbing tide; and prowling on the sand,
And o'er the slippery stones, with weeds marine
And ocean's refuse famine's rage repell❜d.

Now to gay suns and fields of plenty brought,
Their driver quits them; he who, deck'd in plaid
And plumed bonnet, had their steps pursued,
While flocking children gaz'd and wonder'd loud,
All the long tedious march; and still, when showers
Beat sleety, round his limbs regardless wrapt

His chequer'd mantle; and when cross the road

A bright rill hurried, from the knapsack drew

His bowl and oaten flour, and frugal mix'd

*See Pennant's Voyage to the Hebrides, 4to. 1774, p. 308, and Lightfoot's Flora Scotica, vol. ii. p. 906.

C

The food delicious to his palate braced

By labour, and by luxury unpall'd.

How blest thy counsels, Policy, inspir'd
By Wisdom, Justice, Mercy! At thy nod,
Contiguous kingdoms, once by rival aims
And savage feuds disjoin'd and mutual wrong,
Like kindred drops of living silver blend

In one congenial mass. Their bordering plains,
No more with piles of slaughter'd warriors heap'd,
Invaders and invaded, nor illum'd

By midnight gleams from hamlets waked by shout
Of dire incursion spreading flames and death,
Smile grateful. Mouldering on its craggy base
Its useless towers unvisited by man,

Years of alarm, of conflict, and of woe
The castellated mansion scarce records.
O'er the rude storms that vex'd a jarring isle
Her veil Oblivion draws: resentment, hate,
In silence with the buried warrior sleep.

Hence with a sister's love, her wealth, her arts,