Robert Bloomfield

Ye darksome Woods where Echo dwells,
Where every bud with freedom swells
To meet the glorious day:
The morning breaks; again rejoice;
And with old Ringwood's well-known voice
Bid tuneful Echo play.

We come, ye Groves, ye Hills, we come:
The vagrant Fox shall hear: his doom,
And dread our jovial train.
The shrill Horn sounds, the courser flies,
While every Sportsman joyful cries,
'There's Ringwood's voice again.'

Ye Meadows, hail the coming throng;
Ye peaceful Streams that wind along,
Repeat the Hark-away:
Far o'er the Downs, ye Gales that sweep,
The daring Oak that crowns the steep,
The roaring peal convey.

The chiming notes of chearful Hounds,
Hark! how the hollow Dale resounds;
The sunny Hills how gay.
But where's t...

LITTLE JABBERER,

I have many times thought of addressing to you a few words of advice, as you seem to stand in need of such a friend.

You know that I do not stand much upon ceremony; I am always ready for talking and for giving advice, and really wonder how other birds can keep themselves so quiet. Then you will pardon my frankness, since you know my character, when I inform you that I think you remarkably tame and spiritless: you have no enterprise in you. In an old farmyard, shuffling amongst the straw, there you may be found morning, noon and night; and you are never seen in the woods and groves with me and my companions, where we have the blessing of free liberty, and fly where we please. You must often have heard me sing; that cannot be doubted, because I am heard a great way. As to me, I never come down to your...

DEAR MOTHER,

I cannot exactly tell what happened before I came out of the shell; but, from circumstances, I can give you some information. When I came to life, amongst some scores of other little merry yellow creatures, I found myself, and all of us, enclosed in a thing, through which we, with our eight eyes, could see very well, but could not instantly get out. I soon perceived that we, in the egg state, wrapped in a white bag, as you left us, had been put into a thing called a bottle, by one of those great creatures whom we always call striders; but this was a particular one of that tribe, who wanted to play tricks with us - one whom they would perhaps call a philosopher. [1] Well, his own sense (if he had any) told him that we could not live without air; so he left the cork out, and went about his business; no doubt o...

OLD MAG (I won't say Neighbour),

I was hopping along the top ridge of the house when I received your insolent and conceited epistle, which does you no credit, but is very much in your usual style. "Little Jabberer" indeed! and pray, what is your letter of advice? Nothing but jabber from beginning to end. You sing, you say. I have heard you often enough; but if yours is singing, then I must be allowed to be no judge of the matter. You say you are afraid of the gamekeeper; this, perhaps, allows some sense in you, for he is paid for killing all kinds of vermin.

And so you come down to our farm when you think you can steal something! Thus, if I did not hide my eggs and my young ones, in a hole too small for you to enter, I can see pretty plainly how I should come off with your thieving and your advice.

...

Dated "Home Wood."

NEIGHBOUR,

When we last met you seemed very lively and agreeable, but you asked an abundance of questions, and particularly wanted to know whether we nightingales really do, as is said of us, cross the great water every year, and return in the spring to sing in your English groves. Now, as I am but young, I must be modest, and not prate about what I cannot as yet understand. I must say, nevertheless, that I never heard my parents talk of any particular long journey which they had performed to reach this country, or that they should return, and take me and the rest of the family with them, at this particular time or season. I know this, that I never saw my parents fly further at one flight than from one side of a field to another or from one grove to the next. Who are they who call us "birds of pass...

I have often, during the spring and summer, heard you of a morning piping away in the hedges, sometimes as soon as I was up myself, and thought your singing pretty fair, and that you conducted yourself as you ought to do. But this I cannot say lately; for it is quite overstepping the bounds of decency and good manners when you and your brother pilferers, now the winter is come, make it your daily practice to come by scores, as you do, into our yard, and, without any ceremony, eat up all the barley you can lay your beaks to. I suppose when the spring comes again, and you find more to satisfy you outside a farmyard than within, you will be off to the hedges again. I shall let you alone, unless the barley runs short, which is to support my wives and children; when if you still venture to continue your pilferings, you must not be surprised sh...

DEAR AUNT,

You cannot think how distressed I have been, and still am; for, under the bark of a large elm, which, I dare say, has stood there a great while, I had placed my whole family, where they were dry, comfortable, and, as I foolishly thought, secure. But only mark what calamities may fall upon earwigs before they are aware of them! I had just got my family about me, all white, clean, and promising children, when pounce came down that bird they call a woodpecker; when, thrusting his huge beak under the bark where we lay, down went our whole sheltering roof! and my children, poor things, running, as they thought, from danger, were devoured as fast as the destroyer could open his beak and shut it. For my own part, I crept into a crack in the solid tree, where I have thus far escaped; but as this bird can make large holes int...

Dated Lincoln and Ely Fens.

DEAR COUSIN,

I suppose I must call you so, though I declare I know not how we are related. But, though I am thought so very wild and shy, I have still a kind of fellow-feeling for you; and, if you have not gone to the spit before this comes to you, I should be glad of your reply in a friendly way. You know very well that you are intended to be eaten, and so are we - when they can catch us. I understand that you never fly and that you seldom waddle above a meadow's length from your pond, where you keep puddling and groping from daylight till dark. This, I assure you, is not the life that I lead. We fly together in vast numbers in the night, for many miles over this flat, wet country; so, as to water, we have an inexhaustible store: we may swim ourselves tired. But, I dare say, every station...

(CHARLES BLOOMFIELD.)


    Old friend, you certainly have merit;
    You really are a bird of spirit.
    I'm quite surprised, I must confess;
    I did not think you did possess
    Such valour as you've lately shown -
    In fact, 'tis nearly like my own.
    You know I've always been renown'd
    For bravery, since first I found
    That I could hiss; and feel I'm bolder
    Each year that I am growing older.



    You must, I'm sure, have often seen,
    When in the pond, or on the green,
    With all my family about me
    (I can't think how they'd do without me),
    Some human thing come striding by,
    And how, without a scruple, I
    March after him, and bite his heel;
    And then, you know, the pride I feel

COUSIN WILDING,

I confess I did not at all expect to hear from you; for I always believed you to be one of those thoughtless young creatures which are to be found in other stations of life as well as in yours and mine, who, as soon as they get fledged and able to get abroad, care no more for their parents and those who brought them up than I care for a shower of rain. However, you have escaped danger twice, and you have reason to congratulate yourself. I have been sitting here upon ten eggs for three weeks past, and of course have another week to be confined; but then the thoughts of the pleasure I shall have in hatching and guiding my young ones to the water, is ample payment for all my pains. They will look so clean and so delighted, and will do as they are bid by the smallest quack that I can utter, that I must be a b...

(CHARLES BLOOMFIELD.)




I.

    As I roamed t'other day,
    Neighbour Hop, in my way
    I discovered a nice rotten plum,
    Which you know is a treat;
    And, to taste of the sweet,
    A swarm of relations had come.


II.

    So we all settled round,
    As it lay on the ground,
    And were feasting ourselves with delight;
        But, for want of more thought
        To have watched, as we ought,
    We were suddenly seized - and held tight.

    III.

        In a human clenched hand,
        Where, unable to stand,
    We were twisted and tumbled about;
        But, perceiving a chink,
        You will readily think
    I exerted myself - I got out.

    IV.
<...

(CHARLES BLOOMFIELD.)


    Excuse, Mr. Bee, this epistle, to one
    Whose time, from the earliest gleam of the sun
    Till he sinks in the west, is so busily spent,
    That I fear I intrude; - but I write with intent
    To save your whole city from pillage and ruin,
    And to warn you in time of a plot that is brewing.
    Last night, when, as usual, enjoying the hour
    When the gloaming had spread, and a trickling shower
    Was beading the grass as it silently fell,
    And day with reluctance was bidding farewell;
    When down by yon hedge, nearly opposite you,
    And your City of Honey, as proudly I threw
    The rays from my lamp in a magical round;
    I listened, alarmed upon hearing the sound
    Of human intruders approaching more near;...

What a long time it is since I received your kind letter about the ripening corn, and the dangers you were presently to be subject to with all your children!


You will think me very idle, or very unfeeling, if I delay answering you any longer; I will therefore tell you some of my own troubles, to convince you that I have had causes of delay, which you can have no notion of until I explain them. You must know, then, that we are subject to more than the random gun-shot in the field, for we are sometimes taken out of our house a hundred at a time, and put into a large basket to be placed in a meadow or spare plat of ground suiting the purpose, there to be murdered at leisure. This they call "shooting from the trap," [3] and is done in this way:

We being imprisoned, as I have said, as thick as we can stand in the ba...