The well-known corpse, did I say ?—Ay, ay ;
For they know a deal better than you or I
The neighbour that's ailing and going to die.

One evening, when passing the Rookery,

I heard two crows on an outside tree :—

“Quhare haif yo bein, gossip Croak?" quoth the one :— Quoth the other, "Just to see quhat good could be done In the kirkyard ”—“ And what your reward ?”

"Red worms all over and fine white grubs

At the new happ'd grave of honest John Stubbs ”—
Quoth the first, "Then to-morrow we'll all of us go,
And hold a grand hillario !”

At weddings, too, have you never seen,

When the couples prance o'er the village green,
With a smile and smirk on their way to the kirk,
What a skelloching hulla-baloo would arise

As the Rookery emptied into the skies :

For the gossiping rooks without papers or books
Know all the news of the country side—
Croak for the corpse and caw for the bride.

What a busy, busy time in the Rookery,
When Spring comes round and nests to be found,
Almost a dozen on every tree!

Four nests deep, how they manage to keep

Each pair to their own, is a marvel to me!
Building the new, and repairing the old,

What a Babel of tongues! how they clamour and scold!
No doubt, like us, they have rights to defend,
And perhaps like us, too, they borrow and lend;
While some will thieve, and some show their greed,

By massing up more than they'll ever need—

THE ROOKERY.

Which of course will give rise to many a plea,
And they'll have their lawsuits as well as we.
How else account for all this babble,

This "plucking of crows," and perpetual squabble?

The cawing clamour grows wilder still,

When the eggs new hatched and mouths are to fill,
Four or five gaping in every nest,

And the old ones alighting from east to west,
From north and south, and far and wide,
With their dainty pickings to dole and divide.

But there comes yet a noisier racket than all,
When the callow young crows flap out on the boughs,
Tempted to fly, yet afraid they fall;

And shooters appear from far and near,

Round the old dilapidated hall

For the lord of the manor appoints a day,

To come who will, and shoot who may;

And the shopkeeper leaves both scoop and scale,
The carpenter stops at a half-driven nail,

The smith drops the hammer, his bellows their blast,
The cobbler kicks into a corner his last,

The tailor jumps up with three cuts and a caper,
Hops over his goose, and is off with the draper,
And student and clerk throw aside their books,
For all are bent on the same intent,-
A regular racketing day at the rooks!

And hark! what a row at the Rookery,

As the shooters make head with their powder and lead,
And the 'larum is spread from tree to tree;

The young on the branches, the old in the air,
Screaming a curse, and cawing and cawing a pray'r;

21

And as crack, crack, crack go the belching pieces,
The madden'd roar of the siege increases,

Till the quietest sepulchres in the wood
Are shrieking of broken solitude.

But the long and noisy summer day,

Comes to a close; and, with slaughtered crows,
In bunches their foes go marching away ;
Stopping at publics along the roads

To wet their weazens, and rest their loads.
The evening breeze lifts away the smoke,
And the roar of the Rookery sinks to a croak,—
Croak, croak, half the night through,
About this battle of Rookieloo.

A few more days of golden June,
And the Rookery rises to famous tune.

The

young that were spared from the fiery assault,
With full-fledged quill arise at will,

And tumble and wheel through the azure vault.
Both old and young let loose the tongue,
And, lo! what a song of madcap glee :

For now their days are idle and long,
And every one a jubilee.

Up, up in the morning, up
and away
To some chosen field to feed and play,
And home at night in gossiping flight,
And daft* delight of their every day ;
All fearless now of the treacherous gun,
Or lure of the wiliest mother's son ;

For they scent his powder, see through his trick,

*Daft.-A Scotch term, meaning, in a good sense, mad-as mad (daft)

with delight. It is often used as a term of endearment.

GOLDEN Dell.

And know when a gun is a gun or a stick :
So a good wide berth they give to their foe,
Slanting aside with an easy glide,

And a fine contempt for all below.

If they knew what an old fashion'd love I bear
For them, I am sure they would not care
Though I sat up beside them on a tree,
And took down all their history.

For I know they have something worth our ear,
Which all my life I have yearned to hear;
But, woe is me! it may not be,

They never will let me come so near.

So this is all I may hear or see

About the Rooks and the Rookery.

ROBERT LEIGHTON.

GOLDEN DELL.

BEYOND our moss-grown pathway lies
A dell so fair, to genial eyes

It dawns an ever-fresh surprise!

To touch its charms with gentler grace,
The softened heavens a loving face
Bend o'er that sweet, secluded place.

There first, despite the March winds cold,
Above the pale-hued emerald mould,
The earliest spring-tide buds unfold ;

There first the ardent mock-bird, long
Winter's dumb thrall, from Winter's wrong
Breaks into gleeful floods of song;

Till from coy thrush to garrulous wren,
The humbler bards of copse and glen
Outpour their vernal notes again ;

While such harmonious rapture rings, With stir and flash of eager wings Glimpsed fleetly, where the jasmine clings.

To bosk and brier,-we blithely say, "Farewell! bleak nights and mornings gray, Earth opes her festal court to-day !”

There first, from out some balmy nest,
By half-grown woodbine flowers caressed,
Steal zephyrs of the mild south-west.

Soft trembling through yon verdurous mass,
Dew-stained, and dimpling as they pass,
The wavelets of the billowy grass!

But fairest of fair things that dwell,
'Mid sylvan nurslings of the dell,
Is that clear stream whose murmurs swell

To music's airiest issues wrought,
As if a Naiad's tongue were fraught
With secrets of its whispered thought.

Yea, fairest of fair things, it flows
"Twixt banks of violet and of rose,
Touched always by a quaint repose.

How golden bright its currents glide!
While goldenly from side to side
Bird-shadows flit athwart the tide.