The screech-owl, with ill-boding cry,
Portends strange things, old women say;
Stops every fool that passes by,
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The screech-owl, with ill-boding cry,
Portends strange things, old women say;
Stops every fool that passes by,
And frights the school-boy from his play.

The wailing owl
Screams solitary to the mournful moon.

The wailing owl
Screams solitary to the mournful moon.

O you virtuous owle,
The wise Minerva's only fowle.

O you virtuous owle,
The wise Minerva's only fowle.

It is the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman
Which gives the stern'st good-night.

It is the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman
Which gives the stern'st good-night.

St Agnes' Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold.

St Agnes' Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold.

In the hollow tree, in the old gray tower,
The spectral Owl doth dwell;
Dull, hated, despised, read more

In the hollow tree, in the old gray tower,
The spectral Owl doth dwell;
Dull, hated, despised, in the sunshine hour,
But at the dusk--he's abroad and well!
Not a bird of the forest e'er mates with him--
All mock him outright, by day:
But at night, when the woods grow still and dim,
The boldest will shrink away!
O, when the night falls, and roosts the fowl,
Then, then, is the reign of the Horned Owl!

When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the read more

When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

Then lady Cynthia, mistress of the shade,
Goes, with the fashionable owls, to bed.

Then lady Cynthia, mistress of the shade,
Goes, with the fashionable owls, to bed.

Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence--
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Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence--
Some to kill canters in the musk-rose buds,
Some war with reremice for their leathren wings,
To make my small elves coats, and some keep back
The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders
At our quaint spirits.