CCXXIV

THE LEGEND OF THE CROSSBILL

From the German

N the cross the dying Saviour

Oferoward tidy his eyelids calm,

Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling
In His pierced and bleeding palm.

And by all the world forsaken,
Sees He how with zealous care

At the ruthless nail of iron

A little bird is striving there.

Stained with blood and never tiring,
With its beak it doth not cease,
From the cross 't would free the Saviour,
Its Creator's Son release.

And the Saviour speaks in mildness : "Blest be thou of all the good!

Bear, as token of this moment,

Marks of blood and holy rood!"

And that bird is called the crossbill;
Covered all with blood so clear,

In the groves of pine it singeth
Songs, like legends, strange to hear.

H. W. Longfellow

CCXXV

MY DOVES

Y little doves have left a nest

MY Upon an Indian tree,

Whose leaves fantastic take their rest
Or motion from the sea:
Forever there the sea-winds go
With sunlit paces, to and fro.

The tropic flowers looked up to it,
The tropic stars looked down :
And there my little doves did sit
With feathers softly brown,

And glittering eyes that showed their right
To general Nature's deep delight.

And God them taught at every close

Of water far, and wind

And lifted leaf, to interpose
Their chanting voices kind;
Interpreting that love must be
The meaning of the earth and sea.

My little doves were borne away
From that glad nest of theirs ;
Across an ocean foaming aye,

And tempest-clouded airs.

My little doves! who lately knew

The sky and wave by warmth and blue!

And now within the city prison,

In mist and chillness pent,

With sudden upward look they listen -
For sounds of past content,—

For lapse of water, swell of breeze,
Or nut-fruit falling from the trees.

The stir, without the glow of passion,
The triumph of the mart,—
The gold and silver's dreary clashing
With man's metallic heart,-
The wheeled pomp, the pauper tread,
These only sounds are heard instead.

Yet still, as on my human hand
Their fearless heads they lean,
And almost seem to understand
What human musings mean,-
With such a plaintive gaze, their eyne
Are fastened upwardly to mine.

Their chant is soft as on the nest
Beneath the sunny sky,

For love that stirred it in their breast

Remains undyingly,

And 'neath the city's shade can keep

The well of music clear and deep.

And love, that keeps the music, fills
With pastoral memories;
All echoings from out the hills,

All droppings from the skies,

All flowings from the wave, and wind, Remembered in their chant I find.

So teach ye me the wisest part,
My little doves! to move

Along the city ways with heart
Assured by holy love,

And vocal with such songs as own
A fountain to the world unknown.

'T was hard to sing by Babel's stream,
More hard in Babel's street!
But, if the soulless creatures deem
Their music not unmeet,

For sunless walls,- let us begin,
Who wear immortal wings within!

To me fair memories belong
Of scenes that erst did bless

;

For no regret - but present song

And lasting thankfulness,-

And very soon to break away

Like types, in purer things than they !

I will have hopes that cannot fade,
For flowers the valley yields;
I will have humble thoughts instead
Of silent dewy fields!

My spirit and my God shall be

My sea-ward hill, my boundless sea.

E. B. Browning

E

CCXXVI

TO A SKYLARK

THEREAL minstrel, pilgrim of the sky,

Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or, while thy wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still.

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home,
William Wordsworth