"Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee! Companions of the spring." 6. Further observation and experience have given me a different idea of this feathered voluptuary, which I will venture to impart for the benefit of my young readers, who may regard him with the same unqualified envy and admiration which I once indulged. I have shown him only as I saw him at first, in what I may call the poetical part of his career, when he in a manner devoted himself to elegant pursuits and enjoyments, and was a bird of music, and song, and taste, and sensibility, and refinement. this lasted he was sacred from injury; the very school-boy would not fling a stone at him, and the merest rustic would pause to listen to his strain. While 7. But mark the difference. As the year advances, as the clover-blossoms disappear, and the spring fades into summer, he gradually gives up his elegant tastes and habits, doffs his poetical suit of black, assumes a russet, dusty garb, and sinks to the gross enjoyment of common, vulgar birds. His notes no longer vibrate on the ear; he is stuffing himself with the seeds of the tall weeds on which he lately swung and chanted so melodiously. He has become a gourmand; with him now there is nothing like the "joys of the table." In a little while he grows tired of plain, homely fare, and is off on a gastronomic tour in quest of foreign luxuries. 8. We next hear of him, with myriads of his kind, banqueting among the reeds of the Delaware, and grown corpulent with good feeding. He has changed his name in traveling. Boblincoln no more, he is the reed-bird now, the much-sought-for tidbit of Pennsylvanian epicures, the rival in unlucky fame of the ortolan! Wherever he goes, pop! pop! pop!-every rusty firelock in the country is blazing away. He sees his companions falling by thousands around him. Does he take warning and reform? Alas! not he. Again he wings his flight. The riceswamps of the south invite him. He gorges himself among them almost to bursting; he can scarcely fly for corpulency. He has once more changed his name, and is now the famous rice-bird of the Carolinas. Last stage of his career: behold him spitted, with dozens of his corpulent companions, and served up, a vaunted dish, on some southern table. 9. Such is the story of the bobolink: once spiritual, musical, admired, the joy of the meadows, and the favorite bird of spring; finally, a gross little sensualist, who expiates his sensuality in the larder. His story contains a moral worthy the attention of all little birds and little boys; warning them to keep to those refined and intellectual pursuits which raised him to so high a pitch of popularity during the early part of his career, but to eschew all tendency to that gross and dissipated indulgence which brought this mistaken little bird to an untimely end. WASHINGTON IRVING. 82. THE O'LINCOLN FAMILY. A FLOCK of merry singing-birds were sporting in the grove; Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love : There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Con quedle, A livelier set was never led by tabor,1 pipe, or fiddle, Up flies Bobolincon, perching on an apple-tree, Startled by his rival's song, quickened by his raillery, Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curveting 2 in the air, And merrily he turns about, and warns him to beware! ""T is you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O! But wait a week, till flowers are cheery, wait a week, and ere you marry, Be sure of a house wherein to tarry! Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!" Every one's a funny fellow; every one's a little mellow; Follow, follow, follow, follow, o'er the hill and in the hollow! Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly; They cross and turn, and in and out, and down in the middle, and wheel about, With a "Phew, shew, Wadolincon! listen to me, Bobolincon ! Happy 's the wooing that's speedily doing, that's speedily doing, That's merry and over with the bloom of the clover! Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me!" WILSON FLAGG. 1 tuber, a small drum, 2 curvet-ing, bounding friskily. 83.- THE SKYLARK. HAIL to thee, blithe spirit, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. Like a glow-worm golden Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view. Sound of vernal showers On the tinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous and clear and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. |