On the We'd be so happy by the day, So safe and happy through the night, And we'll make merry whilst we may. Perhaps some day there'd be an egg When spring had blossomed from the snow: Like chanticleer I'd almost crow Next you should sit and I would sing I'd sit; and you should spread your wing Fancy the breaking of the shell, The chirp, the chickens wet and bare, Fancy the embryo coats of down, The gradual feathers soft and sleek; So would it last an April through And early summer fresh with dew, Then should we part and live as twain: Love-time would bring me back to you And build our happy nest again. CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI. The Flight of the Birds Whither away, Robin, Is it through envy of the maple-leaf, The summer days were long, yet all too brief Whither away, Bluebird, The blast is chill, yet in the upper sky Warbler, why speed thy southern flight? ah, why, Whither away, Swallow, On the Canst thou no longer tarry in the North, nest? Not one short day? Wilt thou-as if thou human wert-go forth EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. The Shepherd's Home My banks they are furnished with bees, And my hills are white over with sheep. I seldom have met with a loss, Such health do my fountains bestow; Not a pine in the grove is there seen, But with tendrils of woodbine is bound; But a sweetbrier entwines it around. I have found out a gift for my fair, I have found where the wood pigeons breed, She will say 'twas a barbarous deed; On the To a Cricket Voice of Summer, keen and shrill, For thy song with Summer's filled Filled with sunshine, filled with June; Firelight echo of that noon Heard in fields when all is stilled WILLIAM C. BENNETT. On the Wing On the Grasshopper and Cricket The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, That is the Grasshopper's—he takes the lead He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, The Tax-Gatherer "And pray, who are you?" To the Bee, with surprise At his wonderful size, In her eye-glass of dew. |