For no gray-beards are we, But boys who will have our own way. Translation of MITCHELL SWALLOWS. FROM "SALMONIA." Hal. While we have been conversing, the May-flies, which were in such quantities, have become much fewer; and I believe the reason is, that they have been greatly diminished by the flocks of swallows which everywhere pursue them. I have seen a single swallow take four, in less than a quarter of a minute, that were descending to the water. Poict. I delight in this living landscape! The swallow is one of my favorite birds, and a rival of the nightingale; for he cheers my sense of seeing as much as the other does my sense of hearing. He is the glad prophet of the year—the harbinger of the best season: he lives a life of enjoyment among the loveliest forms of Nature. Winter is unknown. to him; and he leaves the green meadows of England, in autumn, for the myrtle and orange groves of Italy, and for the palms of Africa. He has always objects of pursuit, and his success is secure. Even the beings selected for his prey are poetical, beautiful, and transient. The ephemeræ are saved by his means from a slow and lingering death in the evening, and killed in a moment, when they have known nothing of life but pleasure. He is the constant destroyer of insects--the friend of man; and, with the stork and ibis, may be regarded as a sacred bird. This instinct, which gives him his appointed seasons, and teaches him always when and where to move, may be regarded as flowing from a Divine Source; and he belongs to the Oracles of Nature, which speak the awful and intelligible language of a present Deity. SIR HUMPHREY DAVY. 66 LINES FROM THE POLYOLBION." When Phoebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave, Those choristers are perch'd, with many a speckled breast; Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night THE BLACK COCK. Good-morrow to thy sable beak, A maid there is in yonder tower, One fleeting moment of delight Through Snowdon's mist red beams the day; JOANNA BAI. LIE. TO THE MOCKING-BIRD. Wing'd mimic of the woods! thou motley fool, Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe: Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school, RICHARD HENRY WILDE. THE BOB-O-LINKUM. Thou vocal sprite-thou feathered troubadour! And play in foppish trim the masking stranger? Say, art thou long 'mid forest glooms benighted, They tell sad stories of thy mad-cap freaks, They say alike thy song and plumage changes; Thou art unmatch'd, blithe warbler of the North, Joyous, yet tender, was that gush of song, Caught from the brooks, where 'mid its wild flowers smiling, The silent prairie listens all day long, The only captive to such sweet beguiling; Or didst thou, flitting through the verdurous halls, To make our flowering pastures here harmonious? Caught'st thou thy carol from Ottawa maid, Where through the liquid fields of wild rice plashingBrushing the ears from off the burden'd blade, Her birch canoe o'er some lone lake is flashing? Or did the reeds of some savanna South, Detain thee while thy northern flight pursuing, To place those melodies in thy sweet mouth, The spice-fed winds had taught them in their wooing? Unthrifty prodigal! is no thought of ill Thy ceaseless roundelay disturbing ever? CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. THE OWL. High rides the moon amid the fleecy clouds, Night long she mourns, perched in some vacant niche, She bends her silent, slowly-moving wing, To deeper solitude she wings her way. 10 REV. JAMES GRAHAME. EXTRACT. FROM JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST." Rural sounds, the voices, the language of the wild creatures, as heard. by the naturalist, belong to, and are in concord with, the country only, Our sight, our smell may perhaps be deceived for an interval by conservatories, horticultural arts, and bowers of sweets; but our hearing can in no way be beguiled by any semblance of what is heard in the grove or the field, The hum, the murmur, the medley of the mead, is peculiarly its own, admits of no imitation, and the voices of our birds convey particular intimation, and distinctly notify the various periods of the year with an accuracy as certain as they are detailed in our calendars. The season of spring is always announced as approaching by the notes of the rookery, by the jingle or wooing accents of the dark frequenters of the trees; and that time having passed away, these contentions and cadences are no longer heard. The cuckoo then comes and informs us that spring has arrived; that he has journeyed to see us, borne by gentle gales in sunny days; that fragrant flowers are in the copse and the mead, and all things telling of gratulation and of joy; the children mark this well-known sound, spring out, and cuckoo! cuckoo! as they gambol down the lane; the very plow-boy bids him welcome in early morn. It is hardly spring without the cuckoo's song: and, having told his tale, he has voice for no more-is silent or away. Then comes the dark, swift-winged marten, glancing through the air, that seems afraid to visit our uncertain clime; he comes, though late, and hurries through his business here eager again to depart, all day long in agitation and precipitate flight. The bland zephyrs of the spring have no charms for them; but basking and careering in the sultry gleams of June and July, they associate in throngs, and, screaming, dash round the steeple or the ruined tower, to serenade their nesting mates; and glare and heat are in their train. When the fervor of summer ceases, this bird of the sun will depart. The evening robin, from the summit of some leafless bough or projecting point, tells us that autumn is come, and brings matured fruits, chilly airs, and sober hours; and he, the lonely minstrel that now sings, is understood by all. These four birds thus indicate a separate season, have no interference with the intelligence of the other, nor could they be transposed without the loss of all the meaning they convey, which no contrivance of art could supply; and, by long association, they have become identified with the period, and in peculiar accordance with the time. J. L. KNAPP. |