' II. p. 44.
A third, 'on a Sparrow's Nest,' runs thus--
'Look, five blue eggs are gleaming there!
_Few visions have I seen more fair,_
_Nor many prospects of delight_
More pleasing than that simple sight.' II. p. 53.
The charm of this fine prospect, however, was, that it reminded him of
another nest which his sister Emmeline and he had visited in their
childhood.
'She look'd at it as if she fear'd it;
Still wishing, dreading to be near it:
Such heart was in her, being then
A little prattler among men,' &c., &c. II. p. 54.
We have then a rapturous mystical ode to the Cuckoo; in which the
author, striving after force and originality, produces nothing but
absurdity.
'O cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?' II. p. 57.
And then he says, that the said voice seemed to pass from hill to hill,
'about and all about!'--Afterwards he assures us, it tells him 'in the
vale of visionary hours,' and calls it a darling; but still insists,
that it is
'No bird; but an invisible thing,
A voice,--a mystery.
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