Wood-Duck
By Isaac McLellan
In May-time, when the lilac-plumes
Droop from the branch their purple blooms;
When chestnuts clap their leafy hands,
And every bud with joy expands;
When in the moist, sequester’d nooks
Of woods is heard the call of brooks,
The wood-duck builds its downy nest
Secure from prowling schoolboy’s quest.
The swampy, shallow creeks they haunt,
Where thick woods o’er the waters slant,
Whose interlacing branches make
A dusky evening in the brake;
And there their little nests are made
In hollow mossy log decay’d,
Or where the woodpecker had bored
The crumbling bark to hide his hoard,
Fast by the stream whose ripples beat
The tree-roots of their close retreat.
Most beauteous of all the race
That skim the wave or soar in space,
With plumage fairer than the rays
The bird-of-paradise displays,
A mottled purple gloss’d with green,
All colors in the rainbow seen;
No tropic bird of Indian skies
May rival thy imperial dyes.
Least wary of all fowl that wing
O’er salty bay or inland spring,
They haunt the pond whose reedy shore
Extendeth by the farmer’s door,
Or rivulet whose waters trill
Their melodies below the mill;
And here the ambush’d gunner lies
To gather in his lovely prize.
