Love you not, then, to list and hear
The crackling of the gorse-flowers near,
Pouring an orange-scented tide
Of fragrance o'er the desert wide ?
To hear the buzzard whimpering shrill
Hovering above you high and still?
The twittering of the bird that dwells
Amongst the heath's delicious bells?
While round your bed, o'er fern and blade,
Insects in green and gold array'd,
The sun's gay tribes have lightly stray'd;
And sweeter sound their humming wings
Than the proud minstrel's echoing strings.

HOWITT.

HUMANITY TOWARDS INSECTS.

TURN, turn, thy hasty foot aside,
Nor crush that helpless worm;
The frame thy scornful thoughts deride,
From God receiv'd its form.

The common Lord of all that move,
From whom thy being flow'd,
A portion of his boundless love
On that poor worm bestow'd.

The Sun, the Moon, the Stars He made
To all his creatures free;

And spreads o'er earth the grassy blade,
For worms, as well as thee.

Let them enjoy their little day,
Their humble bliss receive;
Oh! do not lightly take away

The life thou canst not give.

"Most musical, most melancholy" Bird !*

A melancholy Bird? oh, idle thought!
In Nature there is nothing melancholy.
- 'Tis the merry Nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chaunt, and disburden his full soul
Of all its music!

And I know a grove
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge,
Which the great lord inhabits not; and so

* Milton.

This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
Thin grass and kingeups grow within the paths;
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many Nightingales; and far and near,
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove.
They answer and provoke each other's song
With skirmishes and capricious passagings,
And murmurs musical and swift, jug, jug,
And one low piping sound more sweet than all-
Stirring the air with such an harmony,

That should you close your eyes, you might almost
Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,
Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclos'd,

You may perchance behold them on the twigs,
Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,
Glistening, while many a glow worm in the shade
Lights up her love torch.

And oft a moment's space,

What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,
Hath heard a pause of silence; till the moon
Emerging, hath awaken'd earth and sky
With one sensation, and these wakeful birds
Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
As if some sudden gale had swept at once
A hundred airy harps!

COLERIDGE.

The Nightingale, Sylvia Luscinia, is the largest of British warblers, and is deservedly esteemed for the variety and richness of its song, the compass of which is such as to reach through three octaves. This bird is said never to have ventured north of the Tweed,-the poet Leyden therefore feelingly laments:

Sweet bird! how long shall Teviot's maids deplore
Thy song, unheard along her woodland shore!

Yet Douglas and Dunbar, though probably using only a poetical licence allude to its song, in their descriptive poems. Sir J. Sinclair endeavoured to introduce this delightful songster into the groves of Scotland. The eggs of Robins, Sylvia rubecula, were exchanged for those of the Nightingales, were hatched, and brought up by their foster parents. The young Nightingales migrated at the usual time, (September,) but never returned to the place of their birth.-Magazine of Nat. Hist., vol. 1. p. 376.

It is strange that this lively bird should ever be thought melancholy :-no bird sings when it is sad:-its solitary habits and its love of the night have probably given rise to this opinion. The different views taken of its song by poets may be summed up in the words of the Abbé La Pluche: "The Nightingale," says that writer, "passes from grave to gay; from a simple song to a warble the most varied; and from the softest trillings and swells to languishing and lamentable sighs, which he as quickly abandons, to return to his natural sprightliness."-For a most interesting discussion on this subject, see, Habits of Birds, p. 284-289.

TO A MOUSE.

ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH.

WEE, sleekit,† cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
O, what a panic's in thy breastie !
Thou need na start away so hasty,

Wi' bickerin brattel!

I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,

Wi' murdering pattle!||

I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

An' justifies that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy pour earth-born companion,
An' fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker,|| in a thrave §

'S a sma' request:

I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,

And never miss 't!

† Sleek, sly.

A short race or hurry.

An ear of corn now and then.

A plough-staff. § A shock of corn.

What is left, remainder.

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big* a new ane,
O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's win's ensuin,

Baith snell and keen.

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary Winter, comin fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel coulter pass'd

Out through thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou 's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,

To thole the Winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch|| cauld !

But, mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men,

Gang aft a-gley,§

An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain,

For promis'd joy.

Still thou art bless'd, compar'd wi' me!

The present only toucheth thee :

But, och! I backward cast my e'e,

On prospects drear,

An' forward, tho' I canna see

I guess an' fear.

BURNS.

* Build.

Bitter, biting.

The hoar-frost.

Suffer, endure. § Wrong.