The Wood-Mouse.

And though it keeps no calendar,

It knows when flowers are springing; And waketh to his summer life

When nightingales are singing.

Upon the boughs the squirrel sits;
The wood-mouse plays below,
And plenty of food it finds itself
Where the beech and chestnut grow.

In the hedge-sparrow's nest he sits
When its summer brood is fled,
And picks the berries from the bough
Of the hawthorn overhead.

I saw a little wood-mouse once,

Like Oberon in his hall,

With the green, green moss beneath his feet,
Sit under a mushroom tall.

I saw him sit, and his dinner eat,
All under the forest tree;

His dinner of chestnut ripe and red,

And he ate it heartily.

I wish you could have seen him there,
It did my spirit good

To see the small thing God had made
Thus eating in the wood.

I saw that he regardeth them,—
Those creatures weak and small.
Their table in the wild is spread
By Him who cares for all.

87

MARY HOWITT.

THE SPARROW'S NEST.

EHOLD, within the leafy shade, Those bright blue eggs together laid! On me the chance-discovered sight. Gleamed like a vision of delight.—

I started-seeming to espy

The home and sheltered bed,—

The sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by
My father's house in wet or dry
My sister Emmeline and I
Together visited.

She looked at it as if she feared it;
Still wishing, dreading to be near it :
Such heart was in her, being then
A little prattler among men.
The blessing of my later years
Was with me when a boy :

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;

And love, and thought, and joy.

WORDSWORTH.

THE PARROT.

PARROT from the Spanish main,

Full young and early caged came o'er, With bright wings to the bleak domain Of Mulla's shore.

The Nightingale and Glowworm.

To spicy groves where he had won

His plumage of resplendent hue,
His native fruits, and skies, and sun,
He bade adieu.

For these he changed the smoke of turf,
A heathery land and misty sky,
And turned on rocks and raging surf
His golden eye.

But petted in our climate cold,

He lived and chattered many a day :
Until with age, from green and gold
His wings grew grey.

At last when blind, and seeming dumb,
He scolded, laughed, and spoke no more,
A Spanish stranger chanced to come

To Mulla's shore;

He hailed the bird in Spanish speech,
The bird in Spanish speech replied:
Flapped round the cage with joyous screech,
Dropt down, and died.

89

T. CAMPBELL

THE NIGHTINGALE AND GLOWWORM.

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.

Cowper.

The Romance of the Swan's Nest.

THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST.

ITTLE Ellie sits alone

'Mid the beaches of a meadow,

By a stream-side on the grass;

And the trees are showering down

Doubles of their leaves in shadow
On her shining hair and face.

She has thrown her bonnet by;
And her feet she has been dipping
In the shallow waters' flow-
Now she holds them nakedly
In her hands, all sleek and dripping,
While she rocketh to and fro.

Little Ellie sits alone,

And the smile she softly useth

Fills the silence like a speech:

While she thinks what shall be done,

And the sweetest pleasure chooseth
For her future, within reach.

Little Ellie in her smile
Chooseth-"I will have a lover,
Riding on a steed of steeds!
He shall love me without guile;
And to him I will discover

That swans' nest among the reeds.

And the steed it shall be red-roan,
And the lover shall be noble,

With an eye that takes the breathi

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