How pleasant the lives of the birds must be,
Living in love in a leafy tree!
And away through the air what joy to go,
And to look on the green, bright earth below!
What joy it must be, like a living breeze,
To flutter about 'mid the flowering trees;
Lightly to soar, and to see beneath
The wastes of the blossoming purple heath,
And the yellow furze, like fields of gold,
That gladdened some fairy region old!
On the mountain tops, on the billowy sea,
On the leafy stems of a forest tree,
How pleasant the life of a bird must be!
Shrill-voiced and loud, the messenger of morn.
Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings.
Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts
Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse
Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush
Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads
Of the coy quiristers that lodge within,
Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush
And woodlark, o'er the kind contending throng
Superior heard, run through the sweetest length
Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns
To let them joy, and purposes, in thought
Elate, to make her night excel their day.
The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake;
The mellow bulfinch answers from the grove;
Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze
Poured out profusely, silent; joined to these,
Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade
Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix
Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw,
And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone,
Aid the full concert; while the stockdove breathes
A melancholy murmur through the whole.
'Tis love creates their melody, and all
This waste of music is the voice of love;
That even to birds and beasts the tender arts of pleas
NIGHTINGALE that all day long
Had cheered the village with his song,
Nor yet at eve his note suspended,
Nor yet when eventide was ended,
Began to feel as well he might,
The keen demands of appetite,
When, looking eagerly around,
He spied far off upon the ground,
A something shining in the dark,
And knew the glowworm by his spark;
So, stooping down from hawthorn-top,
He thought to put him in his crop.
The worm, aware of his intent,
Harangued him thus, right eloquent :
"Did you admire my lamp," quoth he,
"As much as I your minstrelsy,
You would abhor to do me wrong
As much as I to spoil your song;
For 'twas the selfsame Power Divine
Taught you to sing, and me to shine,
That you with music, I with light,
Might beautify and cheer the night."
The songster heard his short oration,
And, warbling out his approbation,
Released him, as my story tells,
And found a supper somewhere else.
Hence jarring sectaries may learn
Their real interest to discern,-
That brother should not war with brother,
And worry and devour each other,
But sing and shine by sweet consent
Till life's poor transient night is spent,
Respecting in each other's case
The gifts of nature and of grace.
Those Christians best deserve the name
Who studiously make peace their aim,
Peace, both the duty and the prize
Of him that creeps and him that flies.
Vanished! Earth is not his home;
Onward, onward, must he roam,
Swift passion-thought,
In rapture wrought,
Issue of the soul's desire,
Plumed with beauty and with fire.
OUD is the summer's busy song,
The smallest breeze can find a
While insects of each tiny size
Grow teasing with their melodies,
Till noon burns with its blistering breath
Around, and day lies still as death.
The busy noise of man and brute
Is on a sudden lost and mute;
Even the brook that leaps along,
Seems weary of its bubbling song,
And, so soft its waters creep,
Tired silence sinks in sounder sleep;
The cricket on its bank is dumb;
The very flies forget to hum ;
And, save the wagon rocking round,
The landscape sleeps without a sound.
The breeze is stopped, the lazy bough
Hath not a leaf that danceth now;
The taller grass upon the hill,
And spider's threads, are standing still;
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