THE LITTLE BEACH-BIRD.

THOU little bird, thou dweller by the sea,
Why takest thou its melancholy voice?
And with that boding cry

Along the waves dost thou fly!

O! rather, bird, with me

Through the fair land rejoice!

Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale,
As driven by a beating storm at sea:
Thy cry is weak and scared,

As if thy mates had shared

The doom of us: Thy wail

What does it bring to me?

Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt'st the surge, Restless and sad: as if, in strange accord

With the motion and the roar

Of waves that drive to shore,

One spirit did ye urge

The Mystery-the Word.

Of thousands, thou both sepulchre and pall,
Old ocean, art! A requiem o'er the dead,
From out thy gloomy cells

A tale of mourning tells

Tells of man's wo and fall,
His sinless glory fled.

Then turn thee, little bird, and take thy flight

Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring

Thy spirit never more.

Come, quit with me the shore,

For gladness and the light

Where birds of summer sing.

R. H. DANA.

THE WINGED WORSHIPPERS.

GAY, guiltless pair,

What seek ye from the fields of heaven?
Ye have no need of prayer,

Ye have no sins to be forgiven.

Why perch ye here,

Where mortals to their Maker bend?
Can your pure spirits fear

The GoD ye never could offend?

Ye never knew

The crimes for which we come to weep.
Penance is not for you,
Blessed wanderers of the upper deep.
To you 'tis given

To wake sweet nature's untaught lays;
Beneath the arch of heaven

To chirp away a life of praise.

Then spread each wing,

Far, far above, o'er lakes and lands,
And join the choirs that sing

In

yon

blue dome not rear'd with hands.

Or, if ye stay,

To note the consecrated hour,
Teach me the airy way,
And let me try your envied

Above the crowd,

power.

On upward wings could I but fly,
I'd bathe in yon bright cloud,
And seek the stars that gem the sky.

'Twere heaven indeed

Through fields of trackless light to soar,
On Nature's charms to feed,

And Nature's own great God adore.

C. SPRAGUE.

TO THE CONDOR.

WONDROUS, majestic bird! whose mighty wing
Dwells not with puny warblers of the spring;-
Nor on earth's silent breast-

Powerful to soar in strength and pride on high,
And sweep the azure bosom of the sky-
Chooses its place of rest.

Proud nursling of the tempest! where repose
Thy pinions at the daylight's fading close?
In what far clime of night

Dost thou in silence, breathless and alone-
While round thee swells of life no kindred tone-
Suspend thy tireless flight?

The mountain's frozen peak is lone and bare,
No foot of man hath ever rested there;-
Yet 'tis thy sport to soar

Far o'er its frowning summit-and the plain
Would seek to win thy downward wing in vain,
Or the green sea-beat shore.

The limits of thy course no daring eye

Has marked; thy glorious path of light on high Is trackless and unknown;

The gorgeous sun thy quenchless gaze may share; Sole tenant of his boundless realm of air,

Thou art, with him, alone.

Imperial wanderer! the storms that shake
Earth's towers, and bid her rooted mountains quake,
Are never felt by thee!

Beyond the bolt-beyond the lightning's gleam,
Basking for ever in the unclouded beam-

Thy home-immensity!

And thus the soul, with upward flight like thine, May track the realms where Heaven's own glories

shine,

And scorn the tempter's power;

Yet meaner cares oppress its drooping wings; Still to earth's joys the sky-born wanderer clingsThose pageants of an hour!-Mrs. Ellet.

TO THE CANARY-BIRD.

I CANNOT hear thy voice with others' ears,
Who make of thy lost liberty a gain;
And in thy tale of blighted hopes and fears
Feel not that every note is born with pain.
Alas! that with thy music's gentle swell

Past days of joy should through thy memory throng,
And each to thee their words of sorrow tell,
While ravish'd sense forgets thee in thy song.
The heart that on the past and future feeds,
And pours in human words its thoughts divine,
Though at each birth the spirit inly bleeds,
Its song may charm the listening ear like thine,
And men with gilded cage and praise will try
To make the bard like thee, forget his native sky.
JONES VERY.

TO A WATERFOWL.

WE HITHER, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way!

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-
The desert and illimitable air,-

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fann'd,

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end:

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy shelter'd nest.

Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallow'd up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

Bryant

EPITAPH UPON A DOG.

An ear that caught my slightest tone,
In kindness or in anger spoken ;
An eye that ever watch'd my own,
In vigils death alone has broken;
Its changeless, ceaseless, and unbought
Affection to the last revealing;
Beaming almost with human thought,

And more far more than human feeling!

Can such in endless sleep be chill'd,
And mortal pride disdain to sorrow,
Because the pulse that here was still'd
May wake to no immortal morrow?