The felon stood awhile aghast,
Then fled through the forest, fast, fast, fast!
The harden'd murderer hath fled,
But the owl kept watch by the shroudless dead,
Until came friends with the early day,
And bore the mangled corse away;
Then, cutting the air all silently,
He fled away from his hollow tree.
Why is the crowd so great to-day,
And why do the people shout "huzza?"
And why is yonder felon given
Alone to feed the birds of heaven?
Had he no friend, now all is done,
To give his corse a grave? Not one!
Night has fallen. What means that cry?
It descends from the gibbet high:
There sits on its top a lonely owl,
With a staring eye, and a dismal scowl;
And he screams aloud, "Revenge is sweet!"
His mortal foe is at his feet!
QUESTION AND ANSWER.
THE SWALLOW.
SWALLOW, why homeward turn'd thy joyful wing?
-In a far land I heard the voice of spring:
I found myself that moment on the way;
My wings, my wings, they had not power to stay.
What hand lets fly the skylark from his rest?
-That which detains his mate upon the nest:
Love sends him soaring to the fields above,
She broods below, all bound with cords of love.
Familiar warbler, wherefore art thou come!
-To sing to thee when all beside are dumb;
Pray let your little children drop a crumb.
Sparrow, the gun is levell'd; quit that wall!
-Without the will of Heaven, I cannot fall.
THE WATER-WAGTAIL.
What art thou made of—air, or light, or dew?
-I have not time to tell you, if I knew:
My tail-ask that-perhaps may solve the matter;
I've miss'd three flies already by this chatter.
Wren, canst thou squeeze into a hole so small?
-Ay, with nine young ones, too, and room for all:
Go, compass sea and land, in search of bliss;
Find, if you can, a happier home than this.
-Spare your idle words;
I'm the perpetual mobile of birds;
My days are running, rippling, twittering streams; When fast asleep, I'm broad awake in dreams.
Dost thou not languish for thy native land,
Madeira's fragrant woods and billowy strand?
-My cage is father-land enough for me;
Your parlour all the world-heaven, earth, and sea.
Least, nimblest, merriest bird of Albion's isle,
I cannot look on thee without a smile!
-I envy thee the sight, for all my glee
Could never yet extort a smile from me;
Think what a tiresome thing iny life must be
Why ever on the wing, or perch'd elate?
-Because I fell not from my first estate;
This is my charter to the boundless skies,—
Stoop not to earth, on pain no more to rise."
Who taught thee, Chanticleer, to count the clock? -Nay, who taught man that lesson but the cock? Long before wheels and bells had learn'd to chime, I told the steps, unseen, unheard, of Time.
Canst thou remember that unlucky day,
When all thy peacock's plumes were pluck'd away?
-Remember it ?-believe me that I can,
With right good reason,-I was then a man!
And for my folly, by a wise old law,
Stript, whipt, tarr'd, feather'd, turn'd into a daw.
Pray, how d'ye like my answer?-Caw, caw, caw!
Blue-eyed, strange-voiced, sharp-beak'd, ill-omen'd What art thou? [fowl,
-What I ought to be,-an owi: But if I'm such a scarecrow in your eye,
You're a much greater fright in mine,-good by !
What means that riot in your citadel?
Be honest, peaceable, like brethren dwell!
-How, while we live so near to man, can life
Be anything but knavery, noise, and strife?
THE MAGPIE.
Magpie, thou, too, hast learn'd by rote to speak
Words without meaning, through thy uncouth beak.
-Words have I learn'd?-and without meaning too?
Mark well, my masters taught me all they knew.
A life at every meal, rapacious hawk?
Spare helpless innocence.
-Troth, pleasant talk!
Yon sparrow snaps more lives up in a day
Than in a twelvemonth I could take away;
But hark, most gentle censor, in your ear
A word, a whisper,-you, are you quite clear?
Creation's groans, through ocean, earth, and sky,
Ascend from all that walk, or swim, or fly.
Abominable harpies! spare the dead.
-We only clear the field which man hath spread : On whom should heaven its hottest vengeance rain? You slay the living, we but strip the slain.
Art thou the king of birds, proud eagle, say?
-I am my talons and my beak bear sway;
A greater king than I, if thou wouldst be,
Govern thy tongue, but let thy thoughts be free.
THE BIRD OF PARADISE.
Though I am nothing but a bird of air:
Thou art a child of earth, and yet to thee,
Lost and recover'd, Paradise is free:
Oh! that such glory were vouchsafed to me!
Hast thou expell'd the mother from thy breast,
And to the desert's mercies left thy nest?
-Ah! no; the mother in me knows her part;
Yon glorious sun is warmer than my heart;
And when to life he brings my hungry brood,
He spreads for them the wilderness with food.
HYMN TO THE FLOWERS.
DAY-STARS! that ope your eyes with man, to twinkle
From rainbow galaxies of earth's creation,
And dewdrops on her lonely altars sprinkle
As a libation:
Ye matin worshippers! who bending lowly
Before the uprisen sun, God's lidless eye,
Throw from your chalices a sweet and holy
Incense on high.
Ye bright Mosaics! that, with storied beauty,
The floor of Nature's temple tesselate,
What numerous emblems of instructive duty
Your forms create!
'Neath cloister'd boughs, each floral bell that swingeth,
And tolls its perfume on the passing air,
Makes sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth
A call to prayer.
Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column
Attest the feebleness of mortal hand,
But to that fane, most catholic and solemn,
Which God hath plann❜d.
To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder,
Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply; Its choir the winds and waves,-its organ,thunder,Its dome the sky.
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