Both are ever on the wing, Wanderers both in foreign bowers; Both depart with summer hours. Should not on each other prey. Translation of G. MERIVALE. SONG OF THE SWALLOW. FROM THE GREEK, Sung by the Children, passing from Door to Door, at the Return of the Swallow. The swallow is come! The swallow is come! He brings us the season of vernal delight, With his back all of sable, and belly of white. Have you nothing to spare, That his palate would please A fig, or a pear, Or a slice of rich cheese? Mark, he bars all delay: At a word, my friend, say, Is it yes, is it nay? Do we go? do we stay? One gift, and we're gone: Refuse, and anon, On your gate and your door All our fury we pour; Or our strength shall be tried On your sweet little bride; From her seat we will tear her, From her home we will bear her; She is light, and will ask But small hands for the task. Let your bounty then lift A small aid to our mirth, And whate'er the gift, Let its size speak its worth. An alms-man and suppliant, He stands at your gate; For no gray-beards are we, To be foiled in our glee; But boys who will have our own way. Translation of MITCHELL SWALLOWS. FROM SALMONIA." Hal. While we have been conversing, the May-flies, which were in such quantities, have become much fewer; and I believe the reason is. that they have been greatly diminished by the flocks of swallows which everywhere pursue them. I have seen a single swallow take four, in less than a quarter of a minute, that were descending to the water. Poict. I delight in this living landscape! The swallow is one of my favorite birds, and a rival of the nightingale; for he cheers my sense of seeing as much as the other does my sense of hearing. He is the glad prophet of the year-the harbinger of the best season: he lives a life of enjoyment among the loveliest forms of Nature. Winter is unknown to him; and he leaves the green meadows of England, in autumn, for the myrtle and orange groves of Italy, and for the palms of Africa. He has always objects of pursuit, and his success is secure. Even the beings selected for his prey are poetical, beautiful, and transient. The ephemeræ are saved by his means from a slow and lingering death in the evening, and killed in a moment, when they have known nothing of life but pleasure. He is the constant destroyer of insects-the friend of man; and, with the stork and ibis, may be regarded as a sacred bird. This instinct, which gives him his appointed seasons, and teaches him always when and where to move, may be regarded as flowing from a Divine Source; and he belongs to the Oracles of Nature, which speak the awful and intelligible language of a present Deity. SIR HUMPHREY DAVY. LINES FROM THE POLYOLBION." When Phoebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave, Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's sight; THE BLACK COCK. Good-morrow to thy sable beak, A maid there is in yonder tower, Through Snowdon's mist red beams the day; JOANNA BAI. LIE. TO THE MOCKING-BIRD. Wing'd mimic of the woods! thou motley fool, Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe: Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school, RICHARD HENRY WILDE. THE BOB-O-LINKUM. Thou vocal sprite-thou feathered troubadour! And play in foppish trim the masking stranger? Say, art thou long 'mid forest glooms benighted, And, Ariel-like, again on men to lavish? They tell sad stories of thy mad-cap freaks, They say alike thy song and plumage changes; Thou art unmatch'd, blithe warbler of the North, While through the balmy air thy clear notes quiver. Joyous, yet tender, was that gush of song, Caught from the brooks, where 'mid its wild flowers smiling, The silent prairie listens all day long, The only captive to such sweet beguiling; Or didst thou, flitting through the verdurous halls, And column'd isles of western groves symphonious, Learn from the tuneful woods rare madrigals, To make our flowering pastures here harmonious? Caught'st thou thy carol from Ottawa maid, Where through the liquid fields of wild rice plashingBrushing the ears from off the burden'd blade, Her birch canoe o'er some lone lake is flashing? Or did the reeds of some savanna South, Detain thee while thy northern flight pursuing, To place those melodies in thy sweet mouth, The spice-fed winds had taught them in their wooing? Unthrifty prodigal! is no thought of ill Thy ceaseless roundelay disturbing ever? CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. THE OWL. High rides the moon amid the fleecy clouds, That dismal cry! it is the wailing owl, Night long she mourns, perched in some vacant niche, Or time-rent crevice; sometimes to the woods She bends her silent, slowly-moving wing, And on some leafless tree, dead of old age, To deeper solitude she wings her way. 10 REV. JAMES GRAHAME. |