Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

KEATS.

THE NIGHTINGALE.

As it fell upon a day

In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade

Which a grove of myrtles made,
Beasts did leap, and birds did sing,
Trees did grow, and plants did
spring,

Every thing did banish moan,
Save the nightingale alone.
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Leaned her breast against a thorn,
And there sung the dolefulest ditty,
That to hear it was great pity.
Fie, fie, fie! now would she cry;
Tereu, tereu, by and by:
That to hear her so complain
Scarce I could from tears refrain;
For her griefs so lively shown
Made me think upon mine own.
Ah, thought I, thou mourn'st in
vain,

None takes pity on thy pain: Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee,

Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee;

King Pandiva, he is dead,

All thy friends are lapp'd in lead:
All thy fellow-birds do sing
Careless of thy sorrowing;
Even so, poor bird, like thee,
None alive will pity me.

R. BARNEFIELD.

THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG.

ROUND my own pretty rose I have hovered all day,

I have seen its sweet leaves one by one fall away:

They are gone, they are gone; but I go not with them,

I linger to weep o'er its desolate stem.

They say if I rove to the south I shall meet

With hundreds of roses more fair and more sweet;

But my heart, when I'm tempted to wander, replies,

Here my first love, my last love, my only love lies.

When the last leaf is withered, and falls to the earth,

The false one to southerly climes may fly forth;

But truth cannot fly from his sorrows: he dies,

Where his first love, his last love, his only love lies.

T. H. BAYLY.

THE NIGHTINGALE'S DEATHSONG.

MOURNFULLY, sing mournfully,
And die away my heart!

The rose, the glorious rose, is gone,
And I, too, will depart.

The skies have lost their splendor, The waters changed their tone, And wherefore, in the faded world, Should music linger on?

Where is the golden sunshine,

And where the flower-cup's glow? And where the joy of the dancing leaves,

And the fountain's laughing flow?

Tell of the brightness parted,

Thou bee, thou lamb at play! Thou lark, in thy victorious mirth! Are ye, too, passed away?

With sunshine, with sweet odor,
With every precious thing,
Upon the last warm southern breeze,
My soul its flight shall wing.

Alone I shall not linger

When the days of hope are past, To watch the fall of leaf by leaf, To wait the rushing blast.

Triumphantly, triumphantly,
Sing to the woods, I go!
For me, perchance, in other lands
The glorious rose may blow.

No more, no more, sing mournfully! Swell high, then break, my heart! The rose, the royal rose, is gone, And I, too, will depart.

THE BIRD.

HEMANS.

BIRDIE, Birdie, will you, pet? Summer is far and far away yet. You'll have silken quilts and a velvet bed,

And a pillow of satin for your head."

"I'd rather sleep in the ivy wall: No rain comes through, though I hear it fall;

The sun peeps gay at dawn of day, And I sing, and wing away, away!”

"O Birdie, Birdie, will you, pet? Diamond stones and amber and jet We'll string on a necklace fair and fine, To please this pretty bird of mine."

"Oh! thanks for diamonds, and thanks for jet;

But here is something daintier yet,
A feather necklace, round and round,
That I would not sell for a thousand
pound!"

"O Birdie, Birdie, won't you, pet?
We'll buy you a dish of silver fret,
A golden cup and an ivory seat,
And carpets soft beneath your feet."

"Can running water be drunk from

gold?

Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye

Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?

Thy nest, which thou canst drop into at will,

Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

To the last point of vision, and beyond,

Mount, daring warbler! That loveprompted strain,

"Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond,

Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain;

Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing

All independent of the leafy spring.

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;

A privacy of glorious light is thine, Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood

Of harmony, with instinct more divine;

Type of the wise, who soar, but never

FLIGHT OF THE WILD GEESE.

RAMBLING along the marshes,
On the bank of the Assabet,
Sounding myself as to how it went,
Praying that I might not forget,
And all uncertain

Whether I was in the right,
Toiling to lift Time's curtain,

And if I burnt the strongest light;
Suddenly,

High in the air,

I heard the travelled geese
Their overture prepare.

Stirred above the patent ball,
The wild geese flew,

Nor near so wild as that doth me befall,

Or, swollen Wisdom, you.

In the front there fetched a leader,
Him behind the line spread out,
And waved about,

As it was near night,

When these air-pilots stop their flight.

Cruising off the shoal dominion
Where we sit,

Depending not on their opinion,
Nor hiving sops of wit;
Geographical in tact,

Naming not a pond or river,

Pulled with twilight down in fact,
In the reeds to quack and quiver,
There they go,

Spectators at the play below,
Southward in a row.

"Let's brush loose for any creek,
There lurk fish and fly,
Condiments to fat the weak,
Inundate the pie.

Flutter not about a place,
Ye concomitants of space!"

Mute the listening nations stand
On that dark receding land;
How faint their villages and towns,
Scattered on the misty downs!
A meeting-house

Appears no bigger than a mouse.

How long?

Never is a question asked,
While a throat can lift the song,
Or a flapping wing be tasked.

All the grandmothers about
Hear the orators of Heaven,
Then put on their woollens stout,
And cower o'er the hearth at even;
And the children stare at the sky,
And laugh to see the long black line
so high!

Then once more I heard them say, "Tis a smooth, delightful road, Difficult to lose the way,

And a trifle for a load.

""Twas our forte to pass for this, Proper sack of sense to borrow, Wings and legs, and bills that clat

ter,

And the horizon of To-morrow." CHANNING.