Erasmus Darwin

The Linnet's Nest

The busy birds, with nice selection, cull
Soft thistle-down, gray moss, and scatter'd wool;
Far from each prying eye the nest prepare,
Form'd of warm moss, and lined with softest hair.
Week after week, regardless of her food,
Th' incumbent linnet warms her future brood;
Each spotted egg with ivory bill she turns,
Day after day with fond impatience burns;
Hears the young prisoner chirping in his cell,
And breaks in hemispheres the fragile shell.