Emmonsail's Heath in Winter

I love to see the old heath's withered brake Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze and ling, While the old heron from the lonely lake Starts slow and flaps his melancholy wing, And oddling crow in idle motions swing On the half rotten ashtree's topmost twig, Beside whose trunk the gipsy makes his bed. Up flies the bouncing woodcock from the brig Where a black quagmire quakes beneath the tread, The fieldfares chatter in the whistling thorn And for the awe round fields and closen rove, And coy bumbarrels twenty in a drove Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain And hang on little twigs and start again.