And deserve you master's love.

Now, good night! may sweetest slumbers
And soft silence fall in numbers

On your eyelids! so farewell;

Thus I end my evening knell.

J. Fletcher.

* 60 *

THE SINGING LESSON.

A nightingale made a mistake;
She sang a few notes out of tune;
Her heart was ready to break,
And she hid from the moon.
She wrung her claws, poor thing,
But was far too proud to speak;
She tucked her head under her wing,
And pretended to be asleep.

A lark, arm-in-arm with a thrush,

Came sauntering up to the place;
The nightingale felt herself blush,
Though feathers hid her face;
She knew they had heard her song,
She felt them snicker and sneer;
She thought this life was too long,
And wished she could skip a year.

"Oh nightingale !" cooed a dove; "Oh nightingale ! what's the use; You bird of beauty and love,

Why behave like a goose

?

Don't skulk away from our sight,

Like a common, contemptible fowl;

You bird of joy and delight,

Why behave like an owl?

"Only think of all you have done;
Only think of all you can do;
A false note is really fun

From such a bird as you!
Lift up your proud little crest;
Open your musical beak;
Other birds have to do their best,
You need only to speak."

The nightingale shyly took
Her head from under her wing,
And giving the dove a look,
Straightway began to sing.
There was never a bird could pass;
The night was divinely calm;
And the people stood on the grass
To hear that wonderful psalm!

The nightingale did not care,
She only sang to the skies;
Her song ascended there,

And there she fixed her eyes.

The people that stood below
She knew but little about;

And this story's a moral, I know,
If you'll try to find it out!

.61.

ARIEL'S SONGS.

I.

Jean Ingelow.

Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands;

Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,
The wild waves whist!

Foot it featly here and there;

And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.

Hark, hark!
Bow-wow.

The watch-dogs bark-
Bow-wow.

Hark, hark! I hear

The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry Cock-a-doodle-doo.

II.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange;
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell;
Ding-dong,

Hark! now I hear them-ding, dong, bell!

III.

Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie;

There I couch when owls do cry;

On the bat's back I do fly

After summer merrily.

Merrily, merrily shall I live now,

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

William Shakespeare.

* 62 *

SONG OF THE FAIRY.

Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier,

Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,

Swifter than the moones sphère;
And I serve the fairy queen;
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats, spots you see;
These be rubies, fairy favors-
In those freckles live their savors,
I must go seek some dew drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

*63*

William Shakespeare.

THE STORMY PETREL.

A thousand miles from land are we,
Tossing about on a stormy sea;
From billow to bounding billow cast,
Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast;
The sails are scattered abroad like weeds,

The strong masts shake like quivering reeds,
The mighty cables, and iron chains,

The hull which all earthly strength disdains,
They strain and they crack, and hearts like stone
Their natural hard, proud strength disown.

Up and down! Up and down!

From the base of the wave to the billow's crown,
And amidst the flashing and feathery foam
The Stormy Petrel finds a home,—

A home, if such a place may be,

For her who lives on the wide, wide sea,

On the craggy ice, in the frozen air,

And only seeketh her rocky lair

To warm her young, and to teach them to spring
At once o'er the waves on their stormy wing!

O'er the Deep! O'er the Deep!

Where the whale, and the shark, and the sword-fish sleep, Ont-flying the blast and the driving rain,