Though ’tis not thought she feeds on smoke alone. 
  From hence she has been held of heavenly line,
  Endued with particles of soul divine. 
  This merry chorister had long possess’d
  Her summer seat, and feather’d well her nest: 
  Till frowning skies began to change their cheer,
  And time turn’d up the wrong side of the year;
  The shedding trees began the ground to strow
  With yellow leaves, and bitter blasts to blow. 440
  Sad auguries of winter thence she drew,
  Which by instinct, or prophecy, she knew: 
  When prudence warn’d her to remove betimes,
  And seek a better heaven, and warmer climes.

    Her sons were summon’d on a steeple’s height,
  And, call’d in common council, vote a flight;
  The day was named, the next that should be fair: 
  All to the general rendezvous repair,
  They try their fluttering wings, and trust themselves in air. 
  But whether upward to the moon they go, 450
  Or dream the winter out in caves below,
  Or hawk at flies elsewhere, concerns us not to know.

    Southwards, you may be sure, they bent their flight,
  And harbour’d in a hollow rock at night: 
  Next morn they rose, and set up every sail;
  The wind was fair, but blew a mackerel gale: 
  The sickly young sat shivering on the shore,
  Abhorr’d salt water never seen before,
  And pray’d their tender mothers to delay
  The passage, and expect a fairer day. 460

    With these the Martin readily concurr’d,
  A church-begot, and church-believing bird;
  Of little body, but of lofty mind,
  Round-bellied, for a dignity design’d,
  And much a dunce, as Martins are by kind. 
  Yet often quoted Canon-laws, and Code,
  And Fathers which he never understood;
  But little learning needs in noble blood. 
  For, sooth to say, the Swallow brought him in,
  Her household chaplain, and her next of kin:  470
  In superstition silly to excess,
  And casting schemes by planetary guess: 
  In fine, short-wing’d, unfit himself to fly,
  His fears foretold foul weather in the sky.

   Besides, a Raven from a wither’d oak,
  Left of their lodging, was observed to croak. 
  That omen liked him not; so his advice
  Was present safety, bought at any price;
  A seeming pious care, that cover’d cowardice. 
  To strengthen this, he told a boding dream 480
  Of rising waters, and a troubled stream,
  Sure signs of anguish, dangers, and distress,
  With something more, not lawful to express: 
  By which he slily seem’d to intimate
  Some secret revelation of their fate. 
  For he concluded, once upon a time,
  He found a leaf inscribed with sacred rhyme,
  Whose antique characters did well denote
  The Sibyl’s hand of the Cumaean