  ELIZA WOODWORTH. Beside a quiet stream the egrets build, And, friendly, crowd their nests of wattled sticks In clustered trees, then patient keep unchilled Their sea-blue eggs, and hear the first faint pricks Against the shells; and soon each wistful brood Beneath the mother's breast will doze or wake; And soon each parent pair will wing with food From waded shallows brown, and marsh and brake. Between the flights they rest and tranquil look Far down the glade from boughs or dusky nests, And see the deer that wend beside the brook, And partridge coveys, with their freckled breasts. Oh, lives like sunny hours! Oh, peaceful glade, Where glow the early flowers! What hunters steal Along the stream, with rifles softly laid At hand, while slips the skiff on noiseless keel? The shots half-blind the air with curling haze, And from his lookout perch the watcher falls; The nested mother lifts her head to gaze, And wounded, flutters down with hollow calls. And, bleeding prone, perchance she mourns her young, And hears, as far away, their startled cries, And longs for pleasant haunts she lived among, While in an anguished dream she slowly dies. From off the gentle head they cut the crest, They loose the wedding And rend the beauty-tuft from out the breast— Then each a mangled body downward flings. The dimmed white forms strew all the blossomed ground, While clustered trees but bear the wailing young; Their plaintive little voices shrilling, sound From swiftly chilling nests, once gayly swung. Unfathered broods! In vain with hunger-calls They grieve through woeful hours the helpless air; Unmothered nests! How cold the darkness falls On harmless, tender heads, uncovered there. They live the painful night and feebly stir At dawn; with famine shine the golden eyes; They gape their mouths and seem to hear the whir Of mother-wings speed past through empty skies. And no more piteous sight the sun may see Than where those parent birds lie dead; nor wakes A sadder tone than the forsaken plea Of famished broods that o'er their silence breaks. Fainter and fainter sink the whispered cries, As wanes the life and creeps the deadly chill, Till wings are numb, and closed the hungry eyes, While droop the downy heads, and all is still. |
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