BIRDS
Chaste are their instincts, faithful is their fire,
No foreign beauty tempts to false desire;
The snow-white vesture, and the glittering crown,
The simple plumage, or the glossy down,
Prompt not their love: the patriot bird pursues
His well-acquainted tints, and kindred hues.
Hence, through their tribes no mix’d polluted flame,
No monster-breed to mark the groves with shame;
But the chaste blackbird, to its partner true,
Thinks black alone is beauty’s favourite hue;
The nightingale, with mutual passion blest,
Sings to its mate, and nightly charms the nest;
While the dark owl to court his partner flies,
And owns his offspring in their yellow eyes.49
No foreign beauty tempts to false desire;
The snow-white vesture, and the glittering crown,
The simple plumage, or the glossy down,
Prompt not their love: the patriot bird pursues
His well-acquainted tints, and kindred hues.
Hence, through their tribes no mix’d polluted flame,
No monster-breed to mark the groves with shame;
But the chaste blackbird, to its partner true,
Thinks black alone is beauty’s favourite hue;
The nightingale, with mutual passion blest,
Sings to its mate, and nightly charms the nest;
While the dark owl to court his partner flies,
And owns his offspring in their yellow eyes.49
FOOTNOTES:
49 From the Latin lines of Addison (Spectator, No. 412), who remarks:—“In birds, we often see the male determined in his courtship by the single grain, or tincture of a feather, and never discovering any charms but in the colour of its species.”