To hear the drowsy[e1] dor come brushing by
With buzzing wing, or the shrill[1] cricket cry;
To see the feeding bat glance through the wood;
To catch the distant falling of the flood;
While o'er the cliff th' awaken'd churn-owl hung
Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song;
While high in air, and poised upon his wings,
Unseen, the soft enamour'd[2] woodlark sings:
These, Nature's works, the curious mind employ,
Inspire a soothing melancholy joy:
As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain
Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein!
Each rural sight, each sound, each smell, combine;
The tinkling sheep-bell or the breath of kine;
The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze,
Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees.
The chilling night-dews fall:—away, retire!
For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire![3]
Thus, ere night's veil had half obscured the sky,
Th' impatient damsel hung her lamp on high:
True to the signal, by love's meteor led,
Leander hasten'd to his Hero's bed.[4]
note to letter xxiv.
e1 ↑ This insect, the Kentish chafer, is said to be only found in Kent.
- ↑ Gryllus campestris.
- ↑ In hot summer nights wood-larks soar to a prodigious height, and hang singing in the air.
- ↑ The light of the female glow-worm (as she often crawls up the stalk of a grass to make herself more conspicuous) is a signal to the male, which is a slender dusky scarabæus.
- ↑ See the story of Hero and Leander.
