The Deserted Nest

Flown! Flown! my little ones? Your cunning house,So deftly hid beneath the mantling vine,Quite empty?But a few short days it seems,Since first we spied you, a, strange, breathing mass,Unfledged and shapeless, with bright, staring eyes,And ever-open beak. We often cameTo inspect your tiny tenement, becauseYour parents were our lodgers, in a nookOf the piazza, where the vine-leaves curled,And thatched it like a cottage. They were outMost of their time, upon the busy wing,Seeking your food, while you at leisure lived,Eating and chirping, with an equal zealAlternately; for whatsoe'er they broughtWas eagerly received. I feared you 'd beSuch gormandizers, that you 'd never learnYour gamut; for you certainly were blestWith a most wondrous appetite. And still,To help the matter on, my little girlAmused herself by dropping now and thenA small green grape into your gaping mouths,

Feeling so very sure 't would do you good.But as for me, I had a thousand fearsOf cholera, and. all the latent illsThat birds are heir to, and with fainter stepStole every morning to your curtained couch,Filled with sad visions of your early death.But lo! you grew like mushrooms, and your sires,Who screamed at first with terror, when we drewSo near their hopeful race, at length becameQuite passive to our visits, and partookOur scattered crumbs complacently.Yet now,You 're gone, my birds, and I shall miss you much,Both morn and eve.Methinks you were too youngTo try your fortune in this world of snares,And much I fear that some marauding cat,With her keen feline tastes in exercise,May seize and bear you, with your tender wingsAll helpless, hanging from her whisker'd mouth,A gift to her voracious little ones.Yet hence with such forebodings,—and I 'll thinkWhen from yon shrubbery I hear a song,Trembling with sweet, unpractised melody,It is your descant.How will ye obtainYour sustenance, thus sent as wanderers forth,Mid all the ignorance of infancyTo cater for yourselves?Yet this wide earth

Is your refectory, and the light leafThat shivers on the gale, and the seamed trunk,And the fresh furrow where the ploughman treads,Show to your microscopic glance a feastReady and full.Our Father feedeth you!Ye gather not in store-house, or in barn,But seek your meat from Him.Would that we sharedYour simple faith,—we who so duly askOur daily bread, and yet distrust His handWho feeds all creatures and upbraideth not.And when our homes below are desolate,Even like your empty nest, my winged ones,And when their eyes, who loved us here below,Shall seek and find us not, may we have risenWhere melody shall know no dissonance,And love no parting flight.

Who marketh their course through the tropics bright,Who nerveth their wing for its weary flight,

And guideth their caravan's trackless wayBy the star at night and the cloud by day.

The Indian fig, with its arching screen,Welcomes them in to its vistas green,—And the breathing buds of the spicy tree,Thrill at the burst of their melody;And the bulbul starts, and his carol clear,Such a rushing of stranger-wings to hear.

O wild-wood wanderers! though far awayFrom your summer homes in our vales ye stray,Yet when they awake at the call of spring,We shall see you again with your glancing wing,Your nest mid yon waving trees to raise,And teach our spirits their Maker's praise.