Above the russet clods the corn is seen Sprouting its spiry points of tender green, Where squats the hare, to terrors wide awake, Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break. Opening their golden caskets to the sun, The buttercups make schoolboys eager run, To see who shall be first to pluck the prize-- Up from their hurry see the Skylark flies, And oer her half-formed nest, with happy wings, Winnows the air till in the cloud she sings, Then hangs a dust spot in the sunny skies, And drops and drops till in her nest she lies, Which they unheeded passed--not dreaming then That birds, which flew so high, would drop again To nests upon the ground, which anything May come at to destroy. Had they the wing Like such a bird, themselves would be too proud And build on nothing but a passing cloud! As free from danger as the heavens are free From pain and toil, there would they build and be, And sail about the world to scenes unheard Of and unseen,--O were they but a bird! So think they, while they listen to its song, And smile and fancy and so pass along; While its low nest, moist with the dews of morn, Lies safely, with the leveret, in the corn. _The Flood_ Waves trough, rebound, and furious boil again, Like plunging monsters rising underneath, Who at the top curl up a shaggy mane, A moment catching at a surer breath, Then plunging headlong down and down, and on Each following whirls the shadow of the last; And other monsters rise when those are gone, Crest their fringed waves, plunge onward and are past. The chill air comes around me oceanly, From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread; Strange birds like snowspots oer the whizzing sea Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled. On roars the flood, all restless to be free, Like Trouble wandering to Eternity. _The Thrush's Nest_ Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush, That overhung a molehill large and round, I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound With joy; and, often an intruding guest, I watched her secret toils from day to day-- How true she warped the moss, to form a nest, And modelled it within with wood and clay; And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers, Ink-spotted-over shells of greeny blue; And there I witnessed in the sunny hours A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as that sunshine and the laughing sky. _November_