render my muse utilitarian. Deluged the gasping world have I, with floods from the source of poesie; epic and lyric and classic ode, tragic and comic alike have flowed, with serious drama and light vaudeville, from the teeming tube of my fertile quill; and late I roved through the seventh heaven, seeking a poem in cantos seven, when you broke my head and reverie, and down I tumbled into this tree; stranger, your servant consider me.'

'Indeed, Sir,' rejoined I, ' you can do me a great service, for never was any body in a worse dilemma than I am at the present moment. It would, perhaps, be too much for me to say that I am a poet; or, at least, to class myself with such lyrists as you,' added I, with a low bow; but nature has gifted me with a musical voice, which I feel a strong impulse to make use of whenever I happen to be deeply affected either by joy or by grief. To tell you the truth, however, I am utterly ignorant of the rules of art.'

‘And I,' said the great Kacatogan, 'have utterly forgotten them Trouble not thy spirit with such trifles.'

'But the worst of it,' continued I, 'is the melancholy effect produced by my voice upon all who hear it; an effect which I cannot describe, but which you can, perhaps, imagine.'

'I should think I could,' said the poet, with a bitter laugh, 'for it's no less strange than true that I have frequently produced the very same effect myself. The cause I cannot pretend to account for; but as to the effect, there can be no mistake whatever about that.'

'Then, Sir, to you, the father of poetry, I appeal, imploring you to impart to me the secret by which so terrible an effect may be counteracted.'

None such have I,' said Kacatogan, 'nor could I ever discover one. Affliction sore long time I bore when I was young and green, in consequence of the marks of popular disapprobation with which my best efforts were oft-times greeted. What care I about such now? Know I not that if there were no other poems in the world but mine, the public would be quite satisfied with them?'

'Doubtless they would. But you must allow that it is hard one's best intentions cannot be practically developed without spreading panic through the ranks of one's friends. Pray let me give you a specimen of my powers, and then favor me with your candid opinion on the subject.

With the greatest pleasure,' said Kacatogan; 'I am all ears for

you.'

I told out a few staves of my song, and was delighted to find that the great Kacatogan neither flew away nor fell asleep. On the contrary, he regarded me with great apparent attention, occasionally nodding his head, with a low murmur which I took to be expressive of approbation. But, alas! I soon perceived that so far from listening to me, he was thinking of nothing but his poem in seven cantos; for, suddenly, as I paused for an effect, he croaked out in a polyglot of excite

ment:

Heureka! heureka! I have found the rhyme for it at last!

Doxa

en hupsistois They may say I'm in my dotage, O profanum vulgus!

but, nevertheless, there goes rhyme number sixty thousand seven hun. dred and fourteen, and I defy them to say it's not as good as number one! Away where the aspens quiver, down by the flowing river! thither rush I to read it to my expectant friends.'

And with that he rose on his short wings, and flapped rapidly away, leaving me and my song as if he had never seen the one or heard the other.

FEATHER FIVE.

ALONE, and disgusted, I thought the best thing I could do was to make the most of the afternoon, and fly with all speed toward Paris. But, unluckily, I had a very indistinct idea of the route; for, my journey with the carrier was of too rapid and harassing a nature to permit of my making any notes of localities; so that, instead of going to the right, I turned to the left at Bourget, and flew straight on until night overtook me, when I was forced to seek a lodging in the wood of Mortfontaine.

When I arrived there, the inhabitants were all going to rest. The magpies and jays, notoriously the most restless of birds, were squabbling away in every direction. In some thick bushes twittered a host of sparrows, trampling and jostling each other unceremoniously; and on the borders of a pond marched two stately herons, balancing themselves upon their tall stilts in silent contemplation.

Immense ravens, already half asleep, pitched heavily upon the topmost branches of the tallest trees, snoring lazily as they droned forth their drowsy vespers.

Lower down, the amorous titmice still chased each other through the brush-wood; and a well-whiskered green wood-pecker might be seen pushing his family with great care into the hollow of an old tree.

A detachment of finches came from the field, wavering through the air like a cloud of smoke, and falling upon a bush, they covered it completely; whilst the linnets, the chaffinches, and the robins, grouped upon. the slender branches that cut out sharp against the evening sky, swung there amidst the tracery like the crystal-drops of some mighty chandelier.

And a Babel of small voices went through the forest, in which I could plainly distinguish such addresses as:

'Rest thee, my titmice.'

'Blow out that glow-worm!'

'Farewell, my finches.'

What an alternative for an unfortunate bachelor, to be obliged to seek refuge in such a hostelrie as that!

I looked around for some birds of about my own size, within whose family-circle I might seek a shelter; for,' thought I, all birds appear

much of one color at night; and beside, after all, it will be hardly imposing too much on their hospitality to claim the privilege of being allowed to occupy the same branch with them.

First, I approached some starlings, who were encamped near a ditch; they were making themselves up for the night with great care, and I observed that most of them had gold-spangled wings and varnished feet. They were evidently the exquisites of the wood-side, and might, for all I knew, have been very good fellows in their way; but they did not honor me with the slightest notice; and their conversation was so vapid, and their demeanor so disgustingly foppish, that I was glad to get away from them.

I next perched upon a bough where several birds of different species were arraying themselves. Hoping that they would, at least, endure my presence, I meekly placed myself at the extreme end of a branch; but, with my usual ill-luck, my next neighbor happened to be an old hen-pigeon, as dry as a rusty weather-cock. Just as I arrived, the old creature was pretending to trim out the few miserable feathers that · were still scattered over her angular anatomy; but she took good care not to pull one of them out. Perhaps she was only counting them; but, at all events, the moment I came within wing's length of her, she drew herself up majestically, and said, pursing up her old bill: What are you about, Sir?' and following up her words with gestures, she elbowed me off the branch with a jerk of exceeding force and sharp

ness.

I fell into a thicket, in which a fat old pheasantess was cultivating balmy sleep. She was so full, and so round, and so well feathered out, that even my mother, in her palmiest pride of incubation, was nothing to her; and so, not wishing to throw away my chance of such a featherbed, I crept stealthily under her wing, thinking that such a comfortable old god-mother must surely be of a benevolent turn. Perhaps she was, but all I got from her was, 'Get out of that, you young jackanapes, and do n't bother me with any of your tricks!'

Just then, some birds called out to me. They were thrushes, and made signs to me to join them in the top of a service-tree. 'Friends at last?' thought I, as I went to them, dropping lightly into the middle of the circle, like a love-letter into a muff; but I soon perceived that these excellent people had been indulging to excess in grapes, for they could hardly keep their seats upon the branches; and their wild laughter and boisterous songs soon drove me to seek an asylum elsewhere.

Despondent and weary, I was looking for a solitary corner to rest in, when, suddenly, a nightingale began to sing. In a moment, all was hushed, save the melting strains of that bewitching voice, which, so far from disturbing the denizens of the forest, seemed to lull them to repose. No body bid him hold his tongue; no body abused him for singing at such a time of night; nor did his father kick him out, nor his friends flee from him.

'To me alone,' cried I, 'is happiness denied! Let me go; let me fly from this cruel world; better to seek my way in the dark, even at the risk of being devoured by some hungry owl, than to remain here, and be blighted with the sight of felicity in which I cannot participate!'

A naiad lifts her fair head, rainbow-crowned,
Her lips red flushing, and her tangled hair
A golden glimmer through the veiling foam.

The Spring-wind never brought a sweeter song
From lark or nightingale, than falls to-night
From yon dim olive-grove upon my ear.
And when the song grows fainter with the day,
Broken by its own echoes in the grove,
Still the air revels with soft music-sounds,
The shepherd's pipe dropping in silver rings
A-down the rocky hill-sides to the sea;
The vesper-bells from Norna's convent-town,
Born under blue beams of the evening-star;
The broken winds and waves about the shore,
The fountains tinkle in its marble bowl;
The merry music of a lone guitar
Throbbing a tune for some gay village-dance.

Dear Italy is full of love and joy;

The Spring hath crowned her with his brightest star
Clasped her in arms of sun-shine and of flowers;
Hushed her sweet lips with kisses; sang to her,
Till her whole soul is tranced in Love's wild dream.
Ah! Mother-land, and silver-voiced Spring,
I cannot sing at thy gay bridal-feast;
My hands are all too weak to offer flowers;
My step too faltering to grace the dance
Thy glad Bacchantes lead so joyously;
My cheek hath grown too delicate and pale
To glow even at thy altar's rosy fire.

I weary of splendor, ROSALINE;

I cannot look on this grand march of stars,
Or drink this cup of passion-laden air;
The glowing beauty of the love-thrilled earth
But fills my heart with loud regret and pain;
For HE whose soul drank in its sweet delight,
With such rare thirst; whose skilful voice and lute
Echoed its changeful songs so wondrously,
Lies-where no setting sun, or evening star,
No night-bird's song, or vesper-chime may come;
Whose loving lips, and my pale aching brow,
The river Death rolls cold and dark between.

Phoenix look to his laurels when I come out. Let the feathered tribes in general sing small and hide their diminished heads, whilst I take up my rank with all things next to impossible. Sea-serpents, mermaids, woolly horses, fossil alligators, bearded women, hide your diminished heads! Calf with two heads, hide both your diminished heads! Dwarf with enormous head, diminish your head!'

sur

But hold! shall. I, exhibiting myself for base lucre to the gaze of the profane, neglect the finer gifts of intellect with which bounteous PROVIDENCE has seen fit to endow me? Shall I be content to build my fame upon any thing so light and perishable as a bunch of white feathers? Not so. Rather let me emulate the great Kacatogan pass him, I should say for, instead of launching a poem in seven cantos, why should I not go forth to the world on the wings of one in twenty-four, or even in forty-eight? The latter, indeed, with notes and a copious appendix, would be little enough as a vehicle for my pent-up melancholy. Alone I stand, a bird of many sorrows. expatiate on the dreariness of my lot. The pathless woods,' 'the lonely shore,' the desert for a dwelling-place,' myself for a theme! I will write it with a pen of bitterness, and publish it with a purpose. I will be the Byron of Birds!'

Let me

LEONORA

OPEN the western lattice, ROSALINE;
I fain would feel the blessed air again,

The air so sweet with April winds and flowers.

It is as fair an eve as I e'er saw:

Far mountains clustering their golden heads
Along the gorgeous altar of the West;
The sea a fallen cloud of rosy light,

Wherein some buried stars look faintly forth,
Smiling to their twin-sisters throned above,
And where the broken moon hath left a part
Of her white circle dropping far away.

The hills are fair as when I saw them last,

Dimpled with valleys all their green slopes o'er;

Crowned with ripe groves, and traced with winding walks,

Down which the evening trails its rosy fire;

Belted with brooks, within whose golden dance

The white flocks wander homeward to the fold.

The setting sun ne'er wore a sweeter smile
In all the pleasant childhood-hours a-gone
Than burns to-night upon his glorious brow.
Leaning upon a pillow of blue cloud,
Parting the curtains of the April shower,
He looks a-down the lonesome evening dells,
O'er all the dear familiar things about my home
With the deep tenderness of other days;
Over the white curve of our palace-walls,
Lifting with lordly grace above the sea,
O'er winding stairs, and turrets lone and high,
O'er quaint old carvings, fretted cornices,
And balustrades all wreathed with ivy vines: