To spicy groves where he had won For these he changed the smoke of turf, But petted in our climate cold, He lived and chattered many a day; At last, when blind, and seeming dumb, He hailed the bird in Spanish speech; Flapped round the cage with joyous screech, T. CAMPBELL Thrice welcome, darling of the spring! Even yet thou art to me No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery; The same that in my school-boy days I listened to; that cry Which made me look a thousand ways, To seek thee did I often rove And I can listen to thee yet, — Can lie upon the plain And listen, till I do beget That golden time again. O blessed bird! the earth we pace An unsubstantial, fairy place, That is fit home for thee ! WORDSWORTH. WHITHER, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day. Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seekest thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge1 of river wide, There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast The desert and illimitable air Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere; And soon that toil shall end, Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, Will lead my steps aright. 1 des'ert, empty, pathless. BRYANT, 1. IT is difficult to tell how Thomas Edward became a naturalist. He himself says he could never tell. Va |