WITH STEEL portraITS, WOOD ENGRAVINgs by engLISH AND AMERICAN ARTISTS, LAMBS AT PLAY. SAY, ye that know, ye who have felt and seen Spring's morning smiles, and soul-enlivening green, Say, did you give the thrilling transport way, ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. FOLDING THE FLOCKS. SHEPHERDS all, and maidens fair, And let your dogs lie loose without, So shall you good shepherds prove, Now, good night! may sweetest slumbers On your eyelids. So farewell : BEAUMONT and FLETCHER. The finely checkered duck before her train His every-colored glory to the sun, O'er the whole homely scene, the cooing dove JAMES THOMSON. THE SONGSTERS. FROM "THE SEASONS." UP springs the lark, Shrill-voiced and loud, the messenger of morn. Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads Of the coy quiristers that lodge within, Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush And woodlark, o'er the kind-contending throng Superior heard, run through the sweetest length Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns To let them joy, and purposes, in thought Elate, to make her night excel their day. The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake ; The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove; Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze Poured out profusely, silent: joined to these, Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw, And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone, Aid the full concert; while the stockdove breathes A melancholy murmur through the whole. "T is love creates their melody, and all This waste of music is the voice of love; That even to birds and beasts the tender arts Of pleasing teaches. JAMES THOMSON. DOMESTIC BIRDS. FROM "THE SEASONS." THE careful hen Calls all her chirping family around, Sing, O nightingale, in June: "Now it is the shortest night, And to-morrow's sun by noon Will have climbed his yearly height. Rarer sounds the blackbird's pipe; Redder grows the apricot; Everything is still and ripe; From to-morrow all things rot. Life's climacteric of power Is the half-way house of Death; Man's decline, like bird and flower, Dates from parting of a breath. Night must now shift hands with day; Fullest ripeness brings decay.” Swallow, in September sing: "Quit we now our northern eaves ; All the gnats are perishing; Sere and sapless look the leaves. Where are flown the summer flies? Like men's riches they have wings. Vanity of vanities! Fleeting are all feathered things! We have read our horoscope, But in summer we forget; |