THE SQUIRREL-HUNT. But gaudy plumage, sprightly strain, And of a transient date; For caught and caged, and starved to death, Soon pass'd the wiry grate. Thanks, gentle swain, for all my woes, And thanks for this effectual close And cure of every ill! More cruelty could none express; And I, if you had shown me less, Had been your prisoner still. COWPER. THE SQUIRREL-HUNT. HEN, as a nimble Squirrel from the wood, Sits partly on a bough his browne nuts cracking, Thence to a beeche, thence to a row of ashes; The boyes runne dabling through thicke and thin, One tears his hose, another breakes his shin: THE HARE-BELL. This, torn and tatter'd, hath with much adoe Got by the bryers; and that hath lost his shoe; With stickes and stones, and many a sounding halloo, THE HARE-BELL. WILLIAM BROWNE. N Spring's green lap there blooms a flower, Clad in her sweetest, purest blue, Yet shuns the ruddy beam of morning, The shaggy wood's brown shade adorning. Simple flow'ret! child of May! Though hid from the broad eye of day, Though doom'd to waste those pensive graces In the wild wood's dark embraces, In desert air thy sweets to shed, Unnoticed droops thy languid head, |