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Every spring awakes new hope,

Every autumn new regret. 'Tis the truth (but truth is strange) Naught's immutable but change."

Snow-bunting, in winter cry:
"Misery, and cold, and dearth!
Darkness in the shrouded sky!

Silence o'er the snowy earth!
Every tree looks white and wan,
Barbed with icicles, unclad,
Like some featherless old man,
Withered, toothless, poor, and sad.
Yet be trustful, Man and Bird;

Winter shall not kill the soul.
Life on earth is hope deferred,

Since beyond it lies the Pole.
Death, whose bounds are snow and ice,
Is the door of Paradise."

WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE.

A BIRD'S NEST.

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BUT most of all it wins my admiration
To view the structure of this little work,
A bird's nest, mark it well within, without :
No tool had he that wrought, no knife to cut,
No nail to fix, no bodkin to insert,
No glue to join his little beak was all;
And yet how neatly finished! What nice hand,
With every implement and means of art,
And twenty years' apprenticeship to boot,
Could make me such another? Fondly then
We boast of excellence, where noblest skill
Instinctive genius foils.

BIRDS.

JAMES HURDIS,

FROM "THE PELICAN ISLAND."

- BIRDS, the free tenants of land, air, and ocean, Their forms all symmetry, their motions grace; In plumage, delicate and beautiful,

Thick without burden, close as fishes' scales,
Or loose as full-blown poppies to the breeze;
With wings that might have had a soul within
them,

They bore their owners by such sweet enchantment, Birds, small and great, of endless shapes and colors,

Some sought their food among the finny shoals,
Swift darting from the clouds, emerging soon
With slender captives glittering in their beaks;
These in recesses of steep crags constructed
Their eyries inaccessible, and trained
Their hardy broods to forage in all weathers:
Others, more gorgeously appareled, dwelt
Among the woods, on nature's dainties feeding,
Herbs, seeds, and roots; or, ever on the wing,
Pursuing insects through the boundless air :
In hollow trees or thickets these concealed
Their exquisitely woven nests; where lay
Their callow offspring, quiet as the down

On their own breasts, till from her search the dam
With laden bill returned, and shared the meal
Among her clamorous suppliants, all agape;
Then, cowering o'er them with expanded wings,
She felt how sweet it is to be a mother.
Of these, a few, with melody untaught,
Turned all the air to music within hearing,
Themselves unseen; while bolder quiristers
On loftiest branches strained their clarion-pipes,
And made the forest echo to their screams
Discordant, yet there was no discord there,
But tempered harmony; all tones combining,
In the rich confluence of ten thousand tongues,
To tell of joy and to inspire it. Who
Could hear such concert, and not join in chorus?

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Here flew and perched, there swam and dived at You slay them all! and wherefore? For the gain pleasure;

Watchful and agile, uttering voices wild
And harsh, yet in accordance with the waves
Upon the beach, the winds in caverns moaning,
Or winds and waves abroad upon the water.

Of a scant handful more or less of wheat, Or rye, or barley, or some other grain, Scratched up at random by industrious feet Searching for worm or weevil after rain ; Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet

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When the snows had melted, and the Fifth-
month grass was growing,

Up this sea-shore, in some briers,
Two guests from Alabama, two together,
And their nest, and four light-green eggs, spotted
with brown,

How can I teach your children gentleness,
And mercy to the weak, and reverence
For Life, which, in its weakness or excess,
Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence,
Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less
The selfsame light, although averted hence,
When by your laws, your actions, and your speech,, And every day I, a curious boy, never too close,
You contradict the very things I teach?

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand, And every day the she-bird, crouched on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,

never disturbing them,
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.

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And thenceforward, all summer, in the sound of the sea,

And at night, under the full of the moon, in calmer weather,

Over the hoarse surging of the sea,

Or flitting from brier to brier by day,

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"O throat! O trembling throat! Sound clearer through the atmosphere ! Pierce the woods, the earth;

I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one, Somewhere listening to catch you, must be the

the he-bird,

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"O night! do I not see my love fluttering out there among the breakers?

one I want.

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"O darkness! O in vain!

What is that little black thing I see there in the O, I am very sick and sorrowful."

white?

WALT WHITMAN.

TO THE CUCKOO.

HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.

Soon as the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear.
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?

Delightful visitant! with thee

I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
From birds among the bowers.

The school-boy, wandering through the wood
To pull the primrose gay,

Starts, thy most curious voice to hear,
And imitates thy lay.

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When the tongue swings out to the midnight moon,
When the sexton cheerly rings for noon,
When the clock strikes clear at morning light,
When the child is waked with "nine at night,"
When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air,
Filling the spirit with tones of prayer,
Whatever tale in the bell is heard,
He broods on his folded feet unstirred,
Or, rising half in his rounded nest,
He takes the time to smooth his breast,
Then drops again, with filmèd eyes,
And sleeps as the last vibration dies.

Sweet bird! I would that I could be
A hermit in the crowd like thee!
With wings to fly to wood and glen,
Thy lot, like mine, is cast with men ;
And daily, with unwilling feet,

I tread, like thee, the crowded street,
But, unlike me, when day is o'er,
Thou canst dismiss the world, and soar;
Or, at a half-felt wish for rest,
Canst smooth the feathers on thy breast,
And drop, forgetful, to thy nest.

I would that in such wings of gold

I could my weary heart upfold;

I would I could look down unmoved

(Unloving as I am unloved),

And while the world throngs on beneath,
Smooth down my cares and calmly breathe;
And never sad with others' sadness,

And never glad with others' gladness,
Listen, unstirred, to knell or chime,
And, lapped in quiet, bide my time.

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS

THE BELFRY PIGEON.

ON the cross-beam under the Old South bell
The nest of a pigeon is builded well.
In summer and winter that bird is there,
Out and in with the morning air;

I love to see him track the street,
With his wary eye and active feet;
And I often watch him as he springs,
Circling the steeple with easy wings,
Till across the dial his shade has passed,
And the belfry edge is gained at last;
"T is a bird I love, with its brooding note,
And the trembling throb in its mottled throat;
There's a human look in its swelling breast,
And the gentle curve of its lowly crest;
And I often stop with the fear I feel,
He runs so close to the rapid wheel.
Whatever is rung on that noisy bell,
Chime of the hour, or funeral knell,
The dove in the belfry must hear it well.

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O, to abide in the desert with thee!

Wild is thy lay and loud

Far in the downy cloud,

Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
Where, on thy dewy wing,
Where art thou journeying?

Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.
O'er fell and fountain sheen,
O'er moor and mountain green,
O'er the red streamer that heralds the day,
Over the cloudlet dim,

Over the rainbow's rim,

Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!
Then, when the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms

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