She wrung her claws, poor thing!
But was far too proud to weep;
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 common, contemptible fowl;

You bird of joy and delight,

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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.

BALLADE OF BLUE CHINA.

ANDREW LANG.

THERE'S a joy without canker or cark;
There's a pleasure eternally new:
'Tis to gloat on the glaze and the mark
Of china that's ancient and blue;
Unchipped all the centuries through
It has passed since the chime of it rang,
And they fashioned it, figure and hue,
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

These dragons (their tails, you remark,
Into bunches of gillyflower grew) —
When Noah came out of the ark,

Did these lie in wait for his crew?

They snorted, they snapped, and they slew, They were mighty of fin and of fang, And their portraits Celestials drew In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

Here's a pot, with a cot in a park,

In a park where the peach-blossoms blew, Where the lovers eloped in the dark, And died, and were changed into two Bright birds, that eternally flew Through the boughs of the May, as they sang; 'Tis a tale was undoubtedly true In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

Envoy.

Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do,

Kind critic, your tongue has no fang;

But a sage never minded a shrew,

In the days of the Emperor Hwang.

PADDY BLAKE'S ECHO.

SAMUEL Lover.

IN the gap of Dunlo

There's an echo, or so,

And some of them echoes is very surprisin';

You'll think, in a stave,

That I mane to desave,

For a ballad's a thing you expect to find lies in.
But visible thrue

In that hill forminst you

There's an echo as plain and as safe as the Bank, too; But civilly spake

"How d'ye do, Paddy Blake?"

The echo politely says, "Very well, thank you!"
One day Teddy Keogh
With Kate Conner did go

To hear from the echo such wondherful talk, sir;
But the echo, they say,

Was conthrairy that day,

Or perhaps Paddy Blake had gone out for a walk, sir; So Ted says to Kate,

"'Tis too hard to be bate

By that deaf and dumb baste of an echo, so lazy,
But if we both shout

At each other, no doubt,

We'll make up an echo between us, my daisy!"

"Now, Kitty," says Teddy,

“To answer be ready."

“Oh, very well, thank you!" cried out Kitty then, sir; "Would you like to wed,

Kitty darlin'?" says Ted.

"Oh, very well, thank you!" says Kitty again, sir.

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D'ye like me?" says Teddy;

And Kitty, quite ready,

Cried, "Very well, thank you!" with laughter beguiling.

Than pay

Now won't you confess,

Teddy could not do less

his respects to the lips that were smiling?

Oh, dear Paddy Blake,

May you never forsake

Those hills that return us such echoes endearing!
And, girls, all translate

The sweet echoes like Kate,

No faithfulness doubting, no treachery fearing!
And, boys, be you ready,

Like frolicsome Teddy,

Be earnest in loving, though given to joking;
And, when thus inclined,

May all true lovers find

Sweet echoes to answer from hearts they're invoking!

ROAST PIG.

CHARLES LAMB. EXTRAct.

Of all the delicacies in the whole world of eatables, I will maintain Roast Pig to be the most delicate.

-

I speak not of your grown porkers — things between pig and pork those hobbydehoys-but a young and tender suckling-under a moon old-guiltless as yet of the sty—with no original speck of the amor immunditiæ, the hereditary failing of the first parent, yet manifest his voice as yet not broken, but something