Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush <br />That overhung a molehill large and round, <br />I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush <br />Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound <br />With joy; and often, an intruding guest, <br />I watched her secret toil from day to day - <br />How true she warped the moss to form a nest, <br />And modelled it within with wood and clay; <br />And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, <br />There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers, <br />Ink-spotted over shells of greeny blue; <br />And there I witnessed, in the sunny hours, <br />A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly, <br />Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky.<br /><br />John Clare<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-thrush-s-nest/
