Within her gilded cage confined, I saw a dazzling Belle, A Parrot of that famous kind Whose name is NON-PAREIL. Like beads of glossy jet her eyes; 5 And, smoothed by Nature's skill, With pearl or gleaming agate vies Her finely-curvèd bill. Her plumy mantle's living hues In mass opposed to mass, 10 Outshine the splendour that imbues The robes of pictured glass. And, sooth to say, an apter Mate Did never tempt the choice Of feathered Thing most delicate 15 In figure and in voice. But, exiled from Australian bowers, And singleness her lot, She trills her song with tutored powers, Or mocks each casual note. 20 No more of pity for regrets With which she may have striven! Now but in wantonness she frets, Or spite, if cause be given; Arch, volatile, a sportive bird 25 By social glee inspired; Ambitious to be seen or heard And pleased to be admired! II This Moss-Lined shed, green, soft, and dry, Harbours a self-contented Wren, 30 Not shunning man's abode, though shy, Almost as thought itself, of human ken. Strange places, coverts unendeared, She never tried; the very nest In which this Child of Spring was reared, 35 Is warmed, thro' winter, by her feathery breast. To the bleak winds she sometimes gives A slender unexpected strain; Proof that[418] the hermitess still lives, Though she appear not, and be sought in vain. 40 Say, Dora! tell me, by yon placid moon, If called to choose between the favoured pair, Which would you be,--the bird of the saloon, By lady-fingers tended with nice care, Caressed, applauded, upon dainties fed, 45 Or Nature's DARKLING of this mossy shed? The "moss-lined shed, green, soft, and dry," still remains at Rydal Mount, as it was in the poet's time.--ED. FOOTNOTES: [417] 1832. The Contrast. 1827. [418] 1836. That tells ... 1827. TO A SKY-LARK Composed 1825.--Published 1827 [Written at Rydal Mount, where there are no skylarks, but the Poet is everywhere.--I. F.] One of the "Poems of the Imagination."--ED. Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or, while the[419] wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, 5 Those quivering wings composed, that music still!