THE BIRDS OF SCOTLAND By Hugh Macdonald THE birds of bonnie Scotland, The merle that wakes their beam. O the birds of dear old Scotland, I love them every one The owl that leaves the tower by night, The swallow in the sun. I love the raven on the rock, O the birds of bonnie Scotland, The thrush that from the leafless bough Delights the infant year, The redbreast wailing sad and lone, When leaves are falling sear. O for the time when first I roamed Each summer minstrel pealed. They tell of birds in other climes With gorgeous tints that far outshine Strangers to song! more dear to me That pipes among the yellow broom More dear than all their shining hues, In throstle's matchless mottled breast And though a lordling's wealth were mine, Sweet wilding birds of Scotland, I loved ye when a boy, And to my soul your names are linked And I could wish, when death's cold hand Has stilled this heart of mine, TO AN ORIOLE By Edgar Fawcett OW falls it, oriole, thou hast In tropic splendor through our At some glad moment was it nature's choice To dower a scrap of sunset with Or did some orange tulip, flaked with black, Yearning toward Heaven until its wish was heard, B A TOAD By Edgar Fawcett LUE dusk, that brings the dewy hours, I Right ill can human wonder guess But when I meet thy dull bulk where Of these, among the garden-ways, Look down on thee and dream Of thick-lipped slaves, with ebon skin, A WHITE CAMELLIA By Edgar Fawcett MPERIAL bloom, whose every curve we see Looking, in your pale odorless apathy, Like the one earthly flower that has no soul, With all sweet radiance bathed in chill eclipse, By such inviolate calmness you are girt, I doubt, while wondering at the spell it weaves, Regenerate amid your blossoming snow. White ghost, in centuries past, has dread mischance Thus ruined your vivid warmth, your fragrant breath, While making you, by merciless ordinance, The first of living flowers that gazed on death? THE HUMMING-BIRD A By John Banister Tabb FLASH of harmless lightning, The burnished sunbeams brightening, While wakes the nodding blossom, But just too late to see What lip hath touched her bosom And drained her nectary. |