Page:Beachy Head and Other Poems.pdf/24

16

Where congregate the linnet and the finch, That on the thistles, so profusely spread, Feast in the desert; the poor family Early resort, extirpating with care These, and the gaudier mischief of the ground; Then flames the high rais'd heap; seen afar off Like hostile war-fires flashing to the sky. Another task is theirs: On fields that shew As angry Heaven had rain'd sterility, Stony and cold, and hostile to the plough, Where clamouring loud, the evening curlew runs And drops her spotted eggs among the flints; The mother and the children pile the stones In rugged pyramids;—and all this toil They patiently encounter; well content On their flock bed to slumber undisturb'd