The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse, by
Richard Doddridge Blackmore

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Title: Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse

Author: Richard Doddridge Blackmore

Illustrator: Louis Fairfax-Muckley and James W. R. Linton

Release Date: August 31, 2007 [EBook #22474]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRINGILLA: SOME TALES IN VERSE ***

Produced by David Widger

FRINGILLA: SOME TALES IN VERSE

By Richard Doddridge Blackmore

Illustrated by Louis Fairfax-Muckley and James W. R. Linton

CONTENTS:

TO MY PEN

LITA OF THE NILE

KADISHA; OR, THE FIRST JEALOUSY

MOUNT ARAFA

THE WELL OF SAINT JOHN

PAUSIAS AND GLYCERA; OR, THE FIRST FLOWER-PAINTER

BUSCOMBE; OR, A MICHAELMAS GOOSE

FAME

[Illustration: 013]

[_Fringilla loquitur_]

"What means your finch?"

"Being well aware that he cannot sing like a Nightingale,
He flits about from tree to tree, and twitters a little tale."

Albeit he is an ancient bird, who tried
his pipe in better days, and then was
scared by random shots, he is fain to
lift the migrant wing once more towards the
humble perch, among the trees he loves. All
gardeners own that he does no harm, unless
he flits into a thicket of young buds, or a very
choice ladies' seed-bed. And he hopes that he is
now too wise to commit such indiscretions.

Perhaps it would have been wiser still to
have shut up his little mandible, or employed it

only upon grub. But the long gnaw of last
winter's frost, which set mankind a-shivering,
even in their most downy nest, has made them
kindly to the race that has no roof for shelter
and no hearth for warmth.

Anyhow, this little finch can do no harm,
if he does no good; and if he pleases nobody,
he will not be surprised, because he has never
satisfied himself.

May-day, 1895.

NOTE

With kind consent of Messrs. Harper, "Buscombe" returns in altered form
from the other side of the ocean. Two other little tales appeared of
old, but nobody would look at them,