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And so may we, with charmèd mind

Beholding what your skill has wrought, Another Star-of-Bethlehem find,

A new Forget-me-not.

From earth to heaven with motion fleet,

From heaven to earth, our thoughts will pass,

A Holy-Thistle here we meet

And there a Shepherd's Weather-glass;

And haply some familiar name

Shall grace the fairest, sweetest plant,

Whose presence cheers the drooping frame
Of English Emigrant.

Gazing, she feels its power beguile

Sad thoughts, and breathes with easier breath; Alas! that meek, that tender smile

Is but a harbinger of death:

And pointing with a feeble hand,

She says, in faint words by sighs broken,

Bear for me to my native land

This precious Flower, true love's last token.

XX.

GLAD sight wherever new with old

Is joined, through some dear home-born tie! The life of all that we behold

Depends upon that mystery.

Vain is the glory of the sky,

The beauty vain of field and grove,

Unless, while with admiring eye

We gaze, we also learn to love.

XXI.

THE CONTRAST.

THE PARROT AND THE WREN.

I.

WITHIN her gilded cage confined,
I saw a dazzling Belle,

A Parrot of that famous kind
Whose name is NONPAREIL.

Like beads of glossy jet her eyes;
And, smoothed by Nature's skill,
With pearl or gleaming agate vies
Her finely-curvèd bill.

Her plumy mantle's living hues,
In mass opposed to mass,
Outshine the splendor that imbues
The robes of pictured glass.

And, sooth to say, an apter Mate
Did never tempt the choice

Of feathered thing most delicate
In figure and in voice.

But, exiled from Australian bowers,

And singleness her lot,

She trills her song with tutored powers,

Or mocks each casual note.

No more of pity for regrets

With which she may have striven!

Now but in wantonness she frets,

Or spite, if cause be given;

Arch, volatile, a sportive bird
By social glee inspired;
Ambiticus to be seen or heard,

And pleased to be admired!

II.

THIS moss-lined shed, green, soft, and dry,
Harbors a self-contented Wren,

Not shunning man's abode, though shy,
Almost as thought itself, of human ken.

Strange places, coverts unendeared,

She never tried; the very nest

In which this Child of Spring was reared,

Is warmed, thro' Winter, by her feathery breast.

To the bleak winds she sometimes gives

A slender, unexpected strain;

Proof that the hermitess still lives,

Though she appear not, and be sought in vain.

Say, Dora! tell me, by yon placid moon,
If called to choose between the favored pair,
Which would you be, the bird of the saloon,
By lady-fingers tended with nice care,
Caressed, applauded, upon dainties fed,

Or Nature's DARKLING of this mossy shed?

XXII.

THE DANISH BOY.

A FRAGMENT.

I.

BETWEEN two sister moorland rills

There is a spot that seems to lie
Sacred to flowerets of the hills,
And sacred to the sky.

1825.

And in this smooth and open dell
There is a tempest-stricken tree;
A corner-stone by lightning cut,
The last stone of a lonely hut;
And in this dell you see

A thing no storm can e'er destroy,
The shadow of a Danish Boy.

II.

In clouds above, the lark is heard, But drops not here to earth for rest; Within this lonesome nook the bird Did never build her nest.

No beast, no bird, hath here his home; Bees, wafted on the breezy air,

Pass high above those fragrant bells

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Their burdens do they bear;

The Danish Boy walks here alone :

The lovely dell is all his own.

III.

A Spirit of noonday is he;

Yet seems a form of flesh and blood;
Nor piping shepherd shall he be,
Nor herdboy of the wood.

A regal vest of fur he wears,

In color like a raven's wing:

It fears not rain, nor wind, nor dew;
But in the storm 't is fresh and blue

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