HAIL to thee, blithe spirit, In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. Like a glow-worm golden Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view. Sound of vernal showers On the tinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous and clear and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 84. BIRD OF THE WILDERNESS. BIRD of the wilderness, Blithesome and cumberless,1 Sweet be thy matin2 o'er moorland and lea! Blest is thy dwelling-place Oh! 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 art thou journeying? Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth. 3 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, Then, when the gloaming* comes, Low in the heather blooms, Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be; Blest is thy dwelling-place : Oh! to abide in the desert with thee! JAMES HOGG. 1 cum'ber-less, free from care. 2 mat'in, morning song. 3 fell, field. 4 gloam'ing, evening twilight. dis-patched', devoured. mo-răss', swamp, marsh. păr'o-quet [ket], the little parrot of Carolina. 1. ANXIOUS to try the effects of education on one of these birds which I procured at the Big Bone Lick, and which was but slightly wounded in the wing, I fixed up a place for it in the stern of my boat, and presented it with some cockleburs, which it freely fed on in less than an hour after it had been on board. The intermediate time between eating and sleeping was occupied in gnawing the sticks that formed its place of confinement, in order to make a practicable breach, which it repeatedly effected. 2. When I abandoned the river and traveled by land, I wrapped it up closely in a silk handkerchief, tying it tightly around, and carried it in my pocket. When I stopped for refreshment, I unloosened my prisoner and gave it its allowance, which it generally dispatched with great dexterity, unhusking the seeds from the bur in a twinkling; in doing which it always employed its left foot to hold the bur, as did several others that I kept for some time. 3. I began to think that this might be peculiar to the whole tribe, and that they were all, if I may use the expression, left-footed; but by shooting a number afterwards while engaged in eating mulberries, I found sometimes the left and sometimes the right foot stained with the fruit, the other always clean; from which, and the constant practice of those I kept, it appears that, like the human species in the use of their hands, they do not prefer one or the other indiscriminately, but are either left or right footed. 4. The path between Nashville and Natchez is in some places bad beyond description. There are dangerous creeks to swim, miles of morass to struggle through, rendered almost as gloomy as night by a prodigious growth of timber and an underwood of canes and other evergreens; while the descent into these sluggish streams is often ten or fifteen feet perpendicular into a bed of deep clay. In some of the worst of these places, where I had, as it were, to fight my way through, the paroquet frequently escaped from my pocket, obliging me to dismount and pursue it through the worst of the morass before I could regain it. 5. On these occasions I was several times tempted to abandon it, but I persisted in bringing it along. When at |