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This dog only crept and crept
Next a languid cheek that slept,
Sharing in the shadow.

Other dogs of loyal cheer
Bounded at the whistle clear,
Up the wood-side hieing;
This dog only watched in reach
Of a faintly utter'd speech,
Or a louder sighing.

And if one or two quick tears
Dropp'd upon his glossy ears,
Or a sigh came double;
sprang in eager haste,
Fawning, fondling, breathing fast,
In a tender trouble.

Up he

This dog, if a friendly voice
Call him now to blither choice
Than such chamber-keeping,—
"Come out!" praying from the door,—
Presseth backward as before,
Up against me leaping.

Therefore to this dog will I,
Tenderly, not scornfully,
Render praise and favor:
With my hand upon his head,
Is my benediction said
Therefore and for ever.

E. B. Browning.

ON MY DOVE.

I HAD a dove, and the sweet dove died;
And I have thought it died of grieving;

Oh, what could it grieve for? Its feet were tied
With a silken thread of my own hands' weaving;
Sweet little red feet! why should
you die-

Why would you leave me, sweet bird! why?
You lived alone in the forest tree,

Why, pretty thing! would you not live with me?
I kiss'd you oft and gave you white peas;
Why not live sweetly, as in the green trees?

G

J. Keats.

INVITATION TO BIRDS.

YE gentle warblers! hither fly,
And shun the noontide heat,
My shrubs a cooling shade supply,
My groves a safe retreat.

Here freely hop from spray to spray,
And weave the mossy nest;
Here rove and sing the live-long day,
At night here sweetly rest.

Amid this cool transparent rill,

That trickles down the glade,

Here bathe your plumes, here drink your fill,
And revel in the shade.

No schoolboy rude, to mischief prone,
Here shows his ruddy face,
Or twangs his bow, or hurls a stone
In this sequestered place.

Hither the vocal thrush repairs;
Secure the linnet sings;

The goldfinch dreads no slimy snares
To clog her painted wings.

Sweet nightingale! oh, quit thy haunt,
Yon distant woods among,
And round my friendly grotto chant
Thy sadly-pleasing song.

Let not the harmless redbreast fear,
Domestic bird, to come

And seek a safe asylum here,

With one that loves his home.

My trees for you, ye artless tribe,
Shall store of fruit preserve;
Oh! let me thus your friendship bribe-
Come, feed without reserve.

For you these cherries I protect,
Το you these plums belong;

Sweet is the fruit that you have pecked,

But sweeter far your song.

Graves.

THE PARROT.

THE deep affections of the breast,
That Heaven to living things imparts,
Are not exclusively possessed
By human hearts.

A Parrot from the Spanish main,

Full young, and early caged, came o'er,
With bright wings, to the bleak domain
Of Mulla's shore..

To spicy groves, where he had won
His plumage of resplendent hue,
His native fruits, and skies, and sun,
He bade adieu.

For these he changed the smoke of turf,
A heathery land and misty sky,
And turned on rocks and raging surf
His golden eye.

But, petted, in our climate cold

He lived and chatted many a day;
Until with age, from green and gold,
His wings grew grey.

At last, when blind and seeming dumb,
He scolded, laughed, and spoke no more,
A Spanish stranger chanced to come
To Mulla's shore.

He hailed the bird in Spanish speech,
The bird in Spanish speech replied,
Flapped round his cage with joyous screech,
Dropt down, and died.

Campbell.

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