Ill fared it with the birds, both great and small;
Hardly a friend in all that crowd they found,
But enemies enough, who every one
Charged them with all the crimes beneath the sun.
When they had ended, from his place apart,

Rose the Preceptor, to redress the wrong,
And, trembling like a steed before the start,
Looked round bewildered on the expectant throng;
Then thought of fair Almira, and took heart

To speak out what was in him, clear and strong,
Alike regardless of their smile or frown,
And quite determined not to be laughed down.
"Plato, anticipating the Reviewers,

From his republic banished without pity
The Poets; in this little town of yours,

You put to death, by means of a Committee,
The ballad-singers and the Troubadours,

The street-musicians of the heavenly city,
The birds, who make sweet music for us all
In our dark hours, as David did for Saul.
"The thrush that carols at the dawn of day
From the green steeples of the piny wood;
The oriole in the elm; the noisy jay,

Jargoning like a foreigner at his food,
The blue-bird balanced on some topmost spray
Flooding with melody the neighbourhood;
Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng
That dwell in nests, and have the gift of song.
"You slay them all! and wherefore? for the gain
Of a scant handful more or less of wheat,
Or rye, or barley, or some other grain,

Scratched up at random by industrious feet,
Searching for worm or weevil after rain!

Or a few cherries that are not so sweet

As are the songs these uninvited guests

Sing at their feast with comfortable breasts.

"Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?

Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught

The dialect they speak, where melodies

Alone are the interpreters of thought?

Whose household words are songs in many keys,

Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught!

Whose habitations in the tree-tops even

Are half-way houses on the road to heaven!

"Think, every morning when the sun peeps through The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove, How jubilant the happy birds renew

Their old melodious madrigals of love!

And when you think of this, remember too
'Tis always morning somewhere, and above

The awakening continents, from shore to shore,
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.

"Think of your woods and orchards without birds! Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams As in an idiot's brain remembered words

Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams! Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds

Make up for the lost music, when your teams Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more The feathered gleaners follow to your door? "What! would you rather see the incessant stir Of insects in the windrows of the hay, And hear the locust and the grasshopper Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play? Is this more pleasant to you than the whirr Of meadow-lark, and its sweet roundelay, Or twitter of little field-fares, as you take Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake? "You call them thieves and pillagers; but know They are the winged wardens of your farms, Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, And from your harvests keep a hundred harms; Even the blackest of them all, the crow,

Renders good service as your man-at-arms, Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, And crying havoc on the slug and snail. "How can I teach your children gentleness, And mercy to the weak, and reverence For Life, which, in its weakness or excess, Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence, Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less The selfsame light, although averted hence, When by your laws, your actions, and your speech, You contradict the very things I teach?" With this he closed; and through the audience went A murmur, like the rustle of dead leaves: The farmers laughed and nodded, and some bent Their yellow heads together like their sheaves; Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment

Who put their trust in bullocks and in beeves. The birds were doomed, and, as the record shows, A bounty offered for the heads of crows.

There was another audience out of reach,

Who had no voice nor vote in making laws,

But in the papers read his little speech,

And crowned his modest temples with applause; They made him conscious, each one more than each, He still was victor, vanquished in their cause. Sweetest of all the applause he won from thee, O fair Almira at the Academy!

And so the dreadful massacre began;

O'er fields and orchards, and o'er woodland crests, The ceaseless fusillade of terror ran,

Dead fell the birds, with blood-stains on their breasts,

Or wounded crept away from sight of man,

While the young died of famine in their nests;
A slaughter to be told in groans, not words,
The very St Bartholomew of Birds!

The Summer came, and all the birds were dead;
The days were like hot coals; the very ground
Was burned to ashes; in the orchards fed

Myriads of caterpillars, and around

The cultivated fields and garden beds

Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found
No foe to check their march, till they had made
The land a desert without leaf or shade.

Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town,
Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly

Slaughtered the Innocents. From the trees spun down
The canker-worms upon the passers-by,

Upon each woman's bonnet, shawl, and gown,

Who shook them off with just a little cry;

They were the terror of each favourite walk,

The endless theme of all the village talk.

The farmers grew impatient, but a few

Confessed their error, and would not complain, For after all, the best thing one can do

When it is raining, is to let it rain.

Then they repealed the law, although they knew
It would not call the dead to life again;
As school-boys, finding their mistake too late,
Draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate.
That year in Killingworth the Autumn came
Without the light of his majestic look,
The wonder of the falling tongues of flame,

The illumined pages of his Doom's-Day book.
A few lost leaves blushed crimson with their shame,
And drowned themselves despairing in the brook,
While the wild wind went moaning everywhere,
Lamenting the dead children of the air!

But the next Spring a stranger sight was seen,

A sight that never yet by bard was sung, As great a wonder as it would have been

If some dumb animal had found a tongue!

A wagon, overarched with evergreen,

Upon whose boughs were wicker cages hung, All full of singing birds, came down the street, Filling the air with music wild and sweet.

From all the country round these birds were brought, By order of the town, with anxious quest,

And, loosened from their wicker prisons, sought In woods and fields the places they loved best, Singing loud canticles, which many thought

Were satires to the authorities addressed, While others, listening in green lanes, averred Such lovely music never had been heard! But blither still and louder carolled they Upon the morrow, for they seemed to know It was the fair Almira's wedding-day,

And everywhere, around, above, below, When the Preceptor bore his bride away, Their songs burst forth in joyous overflow, And a new heaven bent over a new earth Amid the sunny farms of Killingworth.

FINALE.

THE hour was late; the fire burned low,
The Landlord's eyes were closed in sleep,
And near the story's end a deep
Sonorous sound at times was heard,
As when the distant bagpipes blow.

At this all laughed; the Landlord stirred,
As one awakening from a swound,
And, gazing anxiously around,
Protested that he had not slept,
But only shut his eyes, and kept
His ears attentive to each word.

Then all arose, and said "Good Night."
Alone remained the drowsy Squire
To rake the embers of the fire,

And quench the waning parlour light;
While from the windows, here and there,
The scattered lamps a moment gleamed,
And the illumined hostel seemed
The constellation of the Bear,
Downward, athwart the misty air,
Sinking and setting toward the sun.
Far off the village clock struck one.

EARLIER POEMS.

[WRITTEN FOR THE MOST PART DURING MY COLLege life, and ALL OF THEM BEFORE THE AGE OF NINETEEN.]

WOODS IN WINTER.

WHEN Winter winds are piercing chill,
And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill

That overbrows the lonely vale.

O'er the bare upland, and away

Through the long reach of desert woods,
The embracing sunbeams chastely play,
And gladden these deep solitudes.
Where, twisted round the barren oak,
The summer vine in beauty clung,
And summer winds the stillness broke,
The crystal icicle is hung.

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs
Pour out the river's gradual tide,

Shrilly the skater's iron rings,

And voices fill the woodland side.

Alas! how changed from the fair scene,
When birds sang out their mellow lay,
And winds were soft, and woods were green,
And the song ceased not with the day.

But still wild music is abroad,

Pale, desert woods! within your crowd;
And gathering winds, in hoarse accord,
Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.

Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear

Has grown familiar with your song;

I hear it in the opening year,

I listen, and it cheers me long.

AN APRIL DAY.

WHEN the warm sun, that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,

'Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
The first flower of the plain.