| C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917. | | | | Canary |
| | | | Bird of the amber beak, |
| Bird of the golden wing! |
| Thy dower is thy carolling; |
| Thou hast not far to seek |
| Thy bread, nor needest wine |
| To make thy utterance divine; |
| Thou art canopied and clothed |
| And unto Song betrothed. |
E. C. Stedman. | 1 |
| | Sing away, ay, sing away, |
| Merry little bird, |
| Always gayest of the gay, |
| Though a woodland roundelay |
| You neer sung nor heard; |
| Though your life from youth to age |
| Passes in a narrow cage. |
D. M. Mulock. | 2 |
| | Thou shouldst be carolling thy Makers praise, |
| Poor bird! now fetterd, and here set to draw, |
| With graceless toil of beak and added claw, |
| The meager food that scarce thy want allays! |
| And thisto gratify the gloating gaze |
| Of fools, who value nature not a straw, |
| But know to prize the infraction of her law |
| And hard perversion of her creatures ways! |
| Thee the wild woods await, in leaves attired, |
| Where notes of liquid utterance should engage |
| Thy bill, that now with pain scant forage earns. |
Julian Fane. | 3 | | |
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