Poems, &c. By James Shirley.

The Common-Wealth of Birds.

LEt other Poets write of dogs, Some sing of fleas, or fighting frogs, Anothers Muse be catching fish, And every Bird cook his owne dish. The Common-wealth of Birds I bring To feast your eares: then hear me sing.

A Buzzard is the Major o'th' Town, And Gulls are Brethren of the Gown, Some Widgens of the Peace and Quorum, Commit all that are brought before um.

Cocks are the under-men of trade, Within whose Hall a Law is made, That every Spring each Citizen Shall march, to bring the Cuckoe in. Every Constable has a claw, A head of Batt, and brain of Daw;

And as wife as these, you will Know the Watchmen by their bill; Who take no wandring Owles by night But they convey them to the Kite Who keeps the Compter, where together They laugh, and drink, and molt their feather.

If you come to Court, there are A Robin Red-brest, and a Stare; Canary Birds do sigh, not sing, The Larks have quite forgot the Spring. What should harmonious birds sing there, When a Rook's master of the Quire?

They that do practise Common-pleas With greatest art, are Goldfinches: And Crowes by Physick, plump, and thrive, Men die, that birds of prey may live.

If for the Church you look, sad age! You'l find the Clergie in a Cage: Faith and Religion declines, When good wits are no more Divines: For Lapwings every-where you'l see Perch up, and preach Divinitie; Who sing, though every soul be vext, Here 'tis, when farthest from their Text. But what most admiration moves, The souldiers are all fighting Doves; And no reward for Prose, or Verse, The Scholars are turn'd wood-peckers. So fast the various birds intrude, Art cannot name them; To conclude, Every wise-marris a VVren, And black-Swans the honest men.

A wonder in the close I bring, A Nightingale to these is King, Who never (sweet Bird) goes to rest, But has a Thorne upon his brest.