Birds in May

As (woo'd by May's delights) I have been borne     To take the kind air of a wistful morn     Near Tavy's voiceful stream (to whom I owe     More strains than from my pipe can ever flow),     Here have I heard a sweet bird never lin     To chide the river for his clam'rous din;     There seem'd another in his song to tell,     That what the fair stream did he liked well;     And going further heard another too,     All varying still in what the others do;     A little thence, a fourth with little pain     Conn'd all their lessons, and them sung again;     So numberless the songsters are that sing     In the sweet groves of the too-careless spring,     That I no sooner could the hearing lose     Of one of them, but straight another rose,     And perching deftly on a quaking spray,     Nigh tir'd herself to make her hearer stay.      .        .        .        .        .     Shrill as a thrush upon a morn of May.     From Britannia's Pastorals.