The blackbird's nest, of grass and mud, In bush and bank is found; The lapwing's darkly spotted eggs The magpie's nest is girt with thorns The wild duck and the water-hen Build by the water's edge. Birds build their nests from year to year, Some very neat and beautiful, The habits of each little bird, THE CUNNING OLD CROW. On the limb of an oak sat a cunning old crow, As he saw the old farmer go out to sow, "Look, look, how he scatters his seeds around; How thoughtful he is of the poor! If he'd empty it down in a pile on the ground, I could find it much better, I'm sure! "I've learned all the tricks of this wonderful man, Who has such regard for the crow That he lays out his grounds in a regular plan, And covers his corn in a row. "The man has a very great fancy for me; But I measure his distance as nicely as he, THE SNOW-BIRD'S SONG. The ground was all covered with snow one day, And two little sisters were busy at play, When a snow-bird was sitting close by on a tree, And merrily singing his chick-a-dee-dee; Chick-a-dee-dee, chick-a-dee-dee, And merrily singing his chick-a-dee-dee. He had not been singing that tune very long, Ere Emily heard him, so loud was his song; "Oh, sister, look out of the window," said she, "Here's a dear little bird singing chick-a-dee-dee; Chick-a-dee-dee, chick-a-dee-dee, Here's a dear little bird singing chick-a-dee-dee. "Oh, mother, do get him some stockings and shoes, How warm we would make him, poor chick-a-dee-dee ; How warm we would make him, poor chick-a-dee dee." And away he went, singing his chick-a-dee-dee. HEIGH-HO! Heigh-ho! daisies and buttercups, Fair yellow daffodils stately and tall, When the wind wakes, how they rock in their grasses, Heigh-ho! daisies and buttercups, Mother shall thread them a daisy chain, Sing them a song of the pretty hedge-sparrow That loved her brown little ones, loved them full fain; Sing, "Heart thou art wide, though the house be but narrow, Sing once, and sing it again." Heigh-ho! daisies and buttercups, Sweet wagging cowslips, they bend at thy bow; A ship sails afar over warm ocean waters, And haply one musing doth stand at her prow; Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups, Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall, A sunshiny world, full of laughter and leisure, And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall, Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its measure God that is over us all! SELF-ESTEEM. A plump little robin flew down from the tree, Said the chick, "What a queer-looking chicken is that; While the robin remarked loud enough to be heard! "Dear me! an exceedingly strange looking bird!" "Can you sing?" robin asked, and the chicken said "No," But asked in its turn if the robin could crow. So the bird sought a tree and the chicken a wall, Little robin in the tree, sing a song to me. BIRD TRADES. The swallow is a mason, And underneath the eaves High on the branches of the tree The woodpecker is hard at work- And you may hear him hammering, Some little birds are miners; Some build upon the ground; And busy little tailors too, Among the birds are found. 144. THE SEMINOLE'S DEFIANCE. G. W. PATTEN. Blaze, with your serried columns! I will not bend the knee; Revenge is stamped upon my spear, and "blood" my battle-cry! Some strike for hope of booty; some to defend their all;— I love, among the wounded, to hear his dying moan, 145.-THE MAYFLOWER. EDWARD EVERETT. Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route;-and now driven in fury before the raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring masts seem straining from their base;-the dismal sound of the pumps is heard ;the ship leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow;-the ocean breaks, and settles with engulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening weight against the staggering vessel. I see them escape from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth-weak and weary from the voyage-poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their ship-master for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shore-without shelter-without means-surrounded by hostile tribes. Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any prin ciple of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes, enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventurers of other times, and find the parallel of this. Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads of women and children; was it hard labor and spare meals; was it disease; was it the tomahawk; was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching, in its last moments, at the recollection of the loved and left, beyond the sea;-was it some, or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible that, from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious? 146. SORROW FOR THE DEAD. WASHINGTON IRVING. The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open; this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved-when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portals-would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness? No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish |