Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/148

Love pair'd the birds through all the grove,
And Nature bid them sing to Love,
Sitting, hopping, fluttering, sing,
And pay their tribute from the wing,
To fledge the shafts that idly lie,
And yet unfeather'd wait to fly.

'Tis thus, when spring renews the blood,
They meet in every trembling wood,
And thrice they make the plumes agree,
And every dart they mount with three,
And every dart can boast a kind,
Which suits each proper turn of mind.

From the towering eagle's plume
The generous hearts accept their doom:
Shot by the peacock's painted eye,
The vain and airy lovers die:
For careful dames and frugal men,
The shafts are speckled by the hen:
The pies and parrots deck the darts,
When prattling wins the panting hearts:
When from the voice the passions spring,
The warbling finch affords a wing:
Together, by the sparrow stung,
Down fall the wanton and the young:
And fledg'd by geese the weapons fly,
When others love they know not why.

All this, as late I chanced to rove,