Whose shrill, capricious song Breathes like a flute along,

With many a careless tone,

THE NIGHTINGALE BEREAVED.

FROM THE SEASONS."

OFT when, returning with her loaded bill,
Th' astonished mother finds a vacant nest,
By the hard hand of unrelenting clown
Robbed, to the ground the vain provision falls,
Her pinions ruffle, and low-drooping scarce
Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade;
Where, all abandoned to despair, she sings
Her sorrows through the night; and on the bough
Sole-sitting, still at every dying fall
Takes up again her lamentable strain
Of winding woe, till, wide around, the woods
Sigh to her song, and with her wail resound.

Say, will it never heal? And can this fragrant lawn, With its cool trees, and night, And the sweet, tranquil Thames, And moonshine, and the dew, To thy racked heart and brain Afford no balm ?

Dost thou to-night behold,

Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,

The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?

Dost thou again peruse,

alone.

O charming creature rare!

Can aught with thee compare?
Thou art all song, - thy breast

Thrills for one month o' the year, is tranquil all the rest.

The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame? Dost thou once more essay

Thy flight; and feel come over thee,

Poor fugitive! the feathery change
Once more; and once more make resound,
With love and hate, triumph and agony,
Lone Daulis, and the high Cephisian vale?

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;
Everything did banish moan,
Save the nightingale alone.
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Leaned her breast up-till a thorn;
And there sung the doleful'st ditty
That to hear it was great pity.
Fie, fie, fie! now would she cry;
Teru, teru, 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 bears, they will not cheer thee;
King Pandion, he is dead;

All thy friends are lapped in lead:
All thy fellow-birds do sing,
Careless of thy sorrowing!
Whilst as fickle Fortune smiled,
Thou and I were both beguiled,
Every one that flatters thee
Is no friend in misery.

Words are easy, like the wind ; Faithful friends are hard to find.

RICHARD BARNFIELD.

THE MOTHER NIGHTINGALE.

I HAVE seen a nightingale
On a sprig of thyme bewail,
Seeing the dear nest, which was
Hers alone, borne off, alas!
By a laborer: I heard,
For this outrage, the poor bird
Say a thousand mournful things
To the wind, which, on its wings,
To the Guardian of the sky
Bore her melancholy cry,

Bore her tender tears. She spake
As if her fond heart would break :
One while in a sad, sweet note,
Gurgled from her straining throat,
She enforced her piteous tale,
Mournful prayer and plaintive wail ;
One while, with the shrill dispute
Quite outwearied, she was mute;
Then afresh, for her dear brood,
Her harmonious shrieks renewed.
Now she winged it round and round;
Now she skimmed along the ground;
Now from bough to bough, in haste,
The delighted robber chased,
And, alighting in his path,
Seemed to say, 'twixt grief and wrath,
"Give me back, fierce rustic rude,
Give me back my pretty brood,"
And I heard the rustic still
Answer, "That I never will."

From the Spanish of ESTEVAN MANUEL De Villegas, by THOMAS ROSCOE.

THE PELICAN.

FROM "THE PELICAN ISLAND."

Ar early dawn I marked them in the sky, Catching the morning colors on their plumes; Not in voluptuous pastime reveling there, Among the rosy clouds, while orient heaven Flamed like the opening gates of Paradise, Whence issued forth the angel of the sun, And gladdened nature with returning day :

Eager for food, their searching eyes they fixed On ocean's unrolled volume, from a height That brought immensity within their scope; Yet with such power of vision looked they down, As though they watched the shell-fish slowly

gliding

O'er sunken rocks, or climbing trees of coral.
On indefatigable wing upheld,

Breath, pulse, existence, seemed suspended in

them:

They were as pictures painted on the sky ;
Till suddenly, aslant, away they shot,

Like meteors changed from stars to gleams of lightning,

And struck upon the deep, where, in wild play,
Their quarry floundered, unsuspecting harm ;
With terrible voracity, they plunged

Their heads among the affrighted shoals, and beat
A tempest on the surges with their wings,
Till flashing clouds of foam and spray concealed
them.

Nimbly they seized and secreted their prey,
Alive and wriggling in the elastic net,
Which Nature hung beneath their grasping beaks,
Till, swollen with captures, the unwieldy burden

Clogged their slow flight, as heavily to land
These mighty hunters of the deep returned.
There on the cragged cliffs they perched at ease,
Gorging their hapless victims one by one;
Then, full and weary, side by side they slept,
Till evening roused them to the chase again.

Love found that lonely couple on their isle, And soon surrounded them with blithe companions.

The noble birds, with skill spontaneous, framed
A nest of reeds among the giant-grass,
That waved in lights and shadows o'er the soil.
There, in sweet thraldom, yet unweening why,
The patient dam, who ne'er till now had known
Parental instinct, brooded o'er her eggs,
Long ere she found the curious secret out,
That life was hatching in their brittle shells.
Then, from a wild rapacious bird of prey,
Tamed by the kindly process, she became
That gentlest of all living things, a mother;
Gentlest while yearning o'er her naked young,
Fiercest when stirred by anger to defend them.
Her mate himself the softening power confessed,
Forgot his sloth, restrained his appetite,
And ranged the sky and fished the stream for her.
Or, when o'erwearied Nature forced her off
To shake her torpid feathers in the breeze,
And bathe her bosom in the cooling flood,
He took her place, and felt through every nerve,
While the plump nestlings throbbed against his
heart,

The tenderness that makes the vulture mild;
Yea, half unwillingly his post resigned,
When, homesick with the absence of an hour,
She hurried back, and drove him from her seat
With pecking bill and cry of fond distress,
Answered by him with murmurs of delight,
Whose gutturals harsh to her were love's own

music.

Then, settling down, like foam upon the wave,
White, flickering, effervescent, soon subsiding,
Her ruffled pinions smoothly she composed;
And, while beneath the comfort of her wings,
Her crowded progeny quite filled the nest,
The haleyon sleeps not sounder, when the wind
Is breathless, and the sea without a curl,
- Nor dreams the halcyon of serener days,
Or nights more beautiful with silent stars,
Than in that hour, the mother pelican,
When the warm tumults of affection sunk
Into calm sleep, and dreams of what they were,
Dreams more delicious than reality.
He sentinel beside her stood, and watched
With jealous eye the raven in the clouds,
And the rank sea-mews wheeling round the cliffs.
Woe to the reptile then that ventured nigh!
The snap of his tremendous bill was like

Death's scythe, down-cutting every thing it struck.
The heedless lizard, in his gambols, peeped
Upon the guarded nest, from out the flowers,
But paid the instant forfeit of his life;
Nor could the serpent's subtlety elude
Capture, when gliding by, nor in defense
Might his malignant fangs and venom save him.

Ere long the thriving brood out grew their cradle,
Ran through the grass, and dabbled in the pools;
No sooner denizens of earth than made
Free both of air and water; day by day,
New lessons, exercises, and amusements
Employed the old to teach, the young to learn.
Now floating on the blue lagoon behold them;
The sire and dam in swan-like beauty steering,
Their cygnets following through the foamy wake,
Picking the leaves of plants, pursuing insects,
Or catching at the bubbles as they broke:
Till on some minor fry, in reedy shallows,
With flapping pinions and unsparing beaks,
The well-taught scholars plied their double art,
To fish in troubled waters, and secure
The petty captives in their maiden pouches;
Then hurried with their banquet to the shore,
With feet, wings, breast, half swimming and
half flying.

But when their pens grew strong to fight the storm,
And buffet with the breakers on the reef,
The parents put them to severer proof:
On beetling rocks the little ones were marshaled;
There, by endearments, stripes, example, urged
To try the void convexity of heaven,
And plow the ocean's horizontal field.
Timorous at first they fluttered round the verge,
Balanced and furled their hesitating wings,
Then put them forth again with steadier aim;
Now, gaining courage as they felt the wind
Dilate their feathers, fill their airy frames
With buoyancy that bore them from their feet,
They yielded all their burden to the breeze,
And sailed and soared where'er their guardians led;
Ascending, hovering, wheeling, or alighting,
They searched the deep in quest of nobler game
Than yet their inexperience had encountered;
With these they battled in that element,
Where wings or fins were equally at home,
Till, conquerors in many a desperate strife,
They dragged their spoils to land, and gorged at
leisure.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

TO A WATERFOWL.

WHITHER, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

THAT HAUNTED THE WATERS OF LAAKEN IN THE WINTER.

O MELANCHOLY bird, a winter's day

Thou standest by the margin of the pool,
And, taught by God, dost thy whole being
school

To patience, which all evil can allay.
God has appointed thee the fish thy prey,
And given thyself a lesson to the fool
Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule,
And his unthinking course by thee to weigh.
There need not schools nor the professor's chair,
Though these be good, true wisdom to impart :
He who has not enough for these to spare,
Of time or gold, may yet amend his heart,
And teach his soul by brooks and rivers fair, -
Nature is always wise in every part.

EDWARD HOVEL (LORD THURLOW),

THE LITTLE BEACH BIRD.

THOU little bird, thou dweller by the sea,
Why takest thou its melancholy voice?
Why with that boding cry
O'er the waves dost thou fly?

O, rather, bird, with me

Through the fair land rejoice!

Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale, As driven by a beating storm at sea;

Thy cry is weak and scared, As if thy mates had shared The doom of us. Thy wail

What does it bring to me?

Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt'st the surge, Restless and sad; as if, in strange accord