THE HARE.

IS instinct that directs the jealous Hare

To choose her soft abode. With steps reversed
She forms the doubling maze; then, ere the morn
Peeps through the clouds, leaps to her close recess.
As wandering shepherds on th' Arabian plains
No settled residence observe, but shift

Their moving camp; now, on some cooler hill,

With cedars crown'd, court the refreshing breeze;

And then below, where trickling streams distil
From some precarious source, their thirst allay,

And feed their thirsting flocks: so the wise hares

Oft quit their seats, lest some more curious eye

Should mark their haunts, and by dark treacherous wiles

Plot their destruction; or, perchance in hopes

Of plenteous forage, near the ranker mead

Or matted grass, wary and close they sit.

When Spring shines forth, season of love and joy,
In the moist marsh, 'mong bed of rushes hid,
They cool their boiling blood. When Summer suns
Bake the cleft earth, to thick, wide-spreading fields
Of corn full-grown, they lead their helpless young:
But when autumnal torrents and fierce rains

Deluge the vale, in the dry crumbling bank

THE HARE.

Their forms they delve, and cautiously avoid
The dripping covert. Yet, when Winter's cold
Their limbs benumbs, thither with speed return'd,

In the long grass they skulk, or shrinking creep
Among the wither'd leaves; thus changing still,
As fancy prompts them, or as food invites.

SOMERVILLE.

TO A WILD DEER;

IN THE FOREST OF DALNESS, GLEN-ETIVE, ARGYLESHIRE.

IT couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee!
Magnificent prison enclosing the free!

With rock-wall encircled with precipice
crown'd-

Which, awoke by the sun, thou canst clear

at a bound.

'Mid the fern and the heather kind Nature

doth keep

One bright spot of green for her favourite's sleep;

And close to that covert, as clear as the skies

When their blue depths are cloudless, a little lake lies,
Where the creature at rest can his image behold,
Looking up through the radiance, as bright and as bold!
How lonesome! how wild! yet the wildness is rife
With the stir of enjoyment-the spirit of life.
The glad fish leaps up in the heart of the lake,
Whose depths, at the sullen plunge, sullenly quake!
Elate on the fern-branch the grasshopper sings,

And away in the midst of his roundelay springs;

'Mid the flowers of the heath, not more bright than himself,

The wild-bee is busy, a musical elf—

Then starts from his labour, unwearied and gay,

And, circling his antlers, booms far, far away.