Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/103

Rh TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE, THE NATURALISTS SUMMER-EVENING WALK.

day declining sheds a milder gleam, What time the may-fly haunts the pool or stream; When the still owl skims round the grassy mead, What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed; Then be the time to steal adown the vale, And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's tale; To hear the clamorous curlew call his mate, Or the soft quail his tender pain relate; To see the swallow sweep the dark'ning plain Belated, to support her infant train; To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring Dash round the steeple, unsubdued of wing: Amusive birds!—say where your hid retreat When the frost rages and the tempests beat; Whence your return, by such nice instinct led, When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head? Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride, The is your secret guide!
 * While deep'ning shades obscure the face of day.

To yonder bench leaf-shelter'd let us stray, 'Till blended objects fail the swimming sight, And all the fading landscape sinks in night;