How many hours of happy pains Through early frosts and April rains, How many songs at eve and morn O'er springing grass and greening corn, What labors hard through sun and shade Before the pretty house was made! One little minute, only one, And she'll fly back, and find it--gone! I took the wren's nest: Bird, forgive me!
Thou and thy mate, sans let, sans fear, Ye have before you all the year, And every wood holds nooks for you, In which to sing and build and woo; One piteous cry of birdish pain-- And ye'll begin your life again, Forgetting quite the lost, lost home In many a busy home to come. But I? your wee house keep I must, Until it crumble into dust. I took the wren's nest: God forgive me!
Can I see another's woe, And not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief, And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear, And not feel my sorrow's share? Can a father see his child Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?
Can a mother sit and hear An infant groan, an infant fear? No, no! never can it be! Never, never can it be!
_And can He who smiles on all Hear the wren with sorrows small, Hear the small bird's grief and care,_ Hear the woes that infants bear--
And not sit beside the nest, Pouring pity in their breast, And not sit in the cradle near, Weeping tear on infant's tear?
And not sit both night and day, Wiping all our tears away? Oh no! never can it be! Never, never can it be!
My banks they are furnished with bees, Whose murmur invites one to sleep; My grottoes are shaded with trees, And my hills are white over with sheep. I seldom have met with a loss, Such health do my fountains bestow; My fountains all bordered with moss, Where the harebells and violets blow.
Not a pine in the grove is there seen, But with tendrils of woodbine is bound: Not a beech's more beautiful green, But a sweet-brier entwines it around. Not my fields in the prime of the year, More charms than my cattle unfold; Not a brook that is limpid and clear, But it glitters with fishes of gold.
I found out a gift for my fair, I have found where the wood-pigeons breed; But let me such plunder forbear, She will say 'twas a barbarous deed; For he ne'er could be true, she averred, Who would rob a poor bird of its young; And I loved her the more when I heard Such tenderness fall from her tongue.