On a Journey: Fragment

The coy hedge-sparrow flaps her wing
And hops about the hedges,
And soon to brood the early spring
Will have some downy pledges;
They'll lift their heads and cree and crow
Hid by the dyke's bulrushes,
Almost before the winter haw
Has left the leafing bushes.

The blackbird's wing was drabbling wet
With the shower so sudden coming
As on the whitethorn bush he sat
Where the wild white rose was blooming;
The young ones in a nest of love,
Where the hedge the bramble hopples,
Cree'd, cawed and stretched their necks above
With their down all hung with dropples.

The jay set up his copple crown
And screamed to see a stranger
And swopt and hurried up and down
To warn the birds of danger;
And magpies where the spinney was
Noised five and six together,
While patiently the woodman's ass
Stood stretching round his tether.