...clamorous rooks thick urge their weary flight. Assiduous in his bower the wailing owl Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high Wheels from the deep, and screams...with wild wing The circling seafowl cleave the flaky clouds.5 Their lessons he repaid with tenderness and pity. Charmingly he touches a theme The imprisonment...

...flame Foretell the blast. But chief the plumy race, The tenants of the sky, its changes speak. . . . The cormorant on high Wheels from the deep, and screams...wing, The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds. The models for this may be found in the following lines from the first Georgic: saepe etiam Stellas...

...seek the closing shelter of the grove. Assiduous, in his bower, the wailing owl Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high Wheels from the deep, and screams along the land. The observation is as precise as ever, but a frost is settling upon the language. Not that Thomson's...