SECTION IV.

A

PART I.

Poems of Nature.

THE SWALLOWS.

I REMEMBER in my boy-time,
How the swallows always came
To build within the cottage eaves—
They still
may do the same.

Their twitter in the mornings oft
Would waken me from sleep;
I used to lie and halfways dream,
And out on them would peep.

I saw their wisdom as they worked
Most busily at morn,

To lay the wet clay in its place

With many a swift return;

And leave it, when the sun's fierce rays

Had come, to dry and form;

And often saw them mourn defeat

From sudden rushing storm.*

* It is a fact that the swallows build in the early morning before the sun

is strong, and then leave their work to dry in the afternoon.

With patient careful work again
Their labour they repaired;
And all ungrudging, to and fro,
Incessantly they fared.

How oft at eve my father sat
To taste the evening air,

And full of thankfulness would breathe
A lowly, heartfelt prayer.

They bring my childhood back again,
The suns of summers dead;

I think of those whose pains are o'er,
Whose tears have all been shed.

And surely to the mind and heart
Full goodly hopes are borne,

With memory of the swallows' flight

About the eaves at morn.

A. H. J.

WINDS OF APRIL.

BLOW, winds of April, over the sea,
The world is wide and your wings are free!
No towering Alp on the bulging earth
Can break the leap of your bounding mirth;
No isle lies hid in the ocean vast,

Where ye may not fold your wings at last;
Then up and away in
your dauntless pride,
Your wings are free and the world is wide!