Thomas Hardy wrote often about birds. Here are two of his most genial reflections on them.

PROUD SONGSTERS

The thrushes sing as the sun is going,

And the finches whistle in ones and pairs,

And as it gets dark loud nightingales

In bushes

Pipe, as they can when April wears,

As if all Time were theirs.

~

These are the brand-new birds of twelve-months’ growing,

Which a year ago, or less than twain,

No finches were, not nightingales,

Nor thrushes,

But only particles of grain,

And earth, and air, and rain.

A BIRD-SCENE AT A RURAL DWELLING

When the inmate stirs, the birds retire discreetly

From the window-ledge, whereon they whistled sweetly

And on the step of the door,
In the misty morning hoar;

But now the dweller is up they flee

To the crooked neighbouring codlin-tree;

Ad when he comes fully forth they seek the garden,

And call from the lofty custard, as pleading pardon

For shouting so near before

In their joy at being alive: -

Meanwhile the hammering clock within goes five.

~

I know a domicile of brown and green,

Where for a hundred summers there have been

Just such enactments, just such daybreaks seen.