cowslip and the first-born spring flowers; scarcely has nature decked their nuptial couch with verdure,-before the sky is enlivened with the aërial legions.

12. The robin sings his own welcome to his native bowers. The boblink chatters in the meadows an air of inexpressible gladness and gaiety. The perwink and the thrasher draw out their canzonette* among the birchen thickets. The martin chatters under his accustomed window. The swallow skims the surface of the streams.

13. The night-hawk darts down the sky, proud of his feeble imitation of thunder, and the whip-poor-will again soothes the laborers to their evening rest. Every meadow, stream, and field, has its musician; and the fair girl, who watched the oriole in its hanging nest the preceding year, sees the same gilded traveller return to build again on the pensile branches of the whispering elm.

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14. Poets have seen, in these migrating travellers of the air, only the desire to live in the bosom of eternal spring. They come to us," say they, "with the month of flowers, dwell in their peaceful groves while they are green, and disappear with their verdure." We have here attempted to point out the secret purpose of Nature, and the harmony and benevolence of her design. It is admirable to see her sending, with the unvarying regularity of the seasons, armies of birds feeding upon grain and insects, precisely at the epoch when the earth seems to implore their assistance.

15. The autumnal departure of these aërial voyagers has always been, to me, a period of not unpleasing melancholy. Many of them, in our climate, as the boblink, the oriole, the robin-red-breast, mount the air for departure, with a business note indeed, but not of song. There is a plaintive sadness in it. They sail over the bowers where they were born, where they have found their loves, and reared their young.

16. Their note seems to me the dirge of exile. In my ear it sounds as if questioning, whether, at the renewal of spring, they shall return to their natal bowers. Between their departure and the settled reign of winter, we have our flocks of plovers and ducks, of sand-hill cranes and pelicans, of geese, brants, and swans, that descend upon the western prairies.

17. They are joined by armies of ravens and vultures. They complete gathering the harvest of seeds and fruit, Canzonette, a short song.

and cleansing away the last remains of decaying animals. Having finished their work, enveloped with fogs, they mount the wintry winds, and push their southern course, raising their sinister croakings, and winter resumes its reign of silence and sadness.

Questions. What is meant by feathered family, in par. 1? cavities, inflated, in par. 2? menace, in 6th par.? emigrated? of vicissitudes, in par. 7? What time in the year do the equinoxes occur? the meaning of equinox? of aerial? the meaning of pensile, in par. 13? epoch, in par. 14? dirge, in par. 16? natal bowers?

Who taught the birds at what time in autumn to migrate to a warmer elimate, and when to return, as spring approaches? Who directs them in their course? Does the youngest bird know as well before it has ever made the voyage, as after it has passed over the route many times? What is that called, which God has thus implanted within the animals, that leads them to provide for their safety and support?

LESSON LXIII.

The Birds in Autumn.

1. NOVEMBER came on with an eye severe,
And his stormy language was hoarse to hear-
And the glittering garland of brown and red,
Which he wreathed for a while round the forest's head,
With sudden anger he rent away,

And all was cheerless, and bare, and gray.

2. Then the houseless grasshopper told his woes,

And the humming-bird sent forth a wail for the rose;
And the spider, that weaver, of cunning so deep,
Rolled himself up like a ball to sleep;

And the cricket his merry horn laid by,
On the shelf, with the pipe of the dragon-fly.

3. Soon voices were heard at the morning prime,
Consulting of flight to a warmer clime;

"Let us go! let us go!" said the bright-winged jay;
And his gay spouse sang from a rocking spray,
"I'm tired to death of this hum-drum tree;

I'll go if 'tis only the world to see."

4. "Will you go?" said the robin, "my only love?"
And a tender strain from the leafless grove
Responded, "Wherever your lot is cast,
'Mid summer skies or the northern blast,
I am still at your side, your heart to cheer,
Though dear is our nest in this thicket here."

5. The oriole told, with a flashing eye,

How his little one shrank from the frosty sky-
How his mate with an ague had shaken the bed,
And lost her fine voice by a cold in her head-
And their oldest daughter, an invalid grown,
No health in this terrible climate had known.

6. "I am ready to go," said the plump young wren,
"From the hateful home of these northern men;
My throat is sore, and my feet are blue-
I'm afraid I have caught the consumption too;
And then I've no confidence left, I own,
In the doctors out of the southern zone.'

7. Then up went the thrush, with a trumpet call ;

And the martins came forth from their box on the wall,
And the owlet peeped from his secret bower,

And the swallows convened on the old church tower;
And the council of blackbirds was long and loud—
Chattering and flying from tree to cloud.

8. "The dahlia is dead on her throne," said they ;
"And we saw the butterfly cold as clay;
Not a berry is found on the russet plains-
Not a kernel of ripened maize remains—
Every worm is hid-shall we longer stay,
To be wasted with famine? Away!-away!"
9. But what a strange clamor, on elm and oak,
From a bevy of brown-coated mocking-birds broke
The theme of each separate speaker they told,
In a shrill report, with such mimicry bold,
That the eloquent orators stared to hear
Their own true echo, so wild and clear.

10. Then tribe after tribe, with its leader fair,

Swept off through the fathomless depths of air.
Who marketh their course to the tropics bright?
Who nerveth their wing for its weary flight?
Who guideth their caravan's trackless way,
By the star at night, and the cloud by day?

11. Some spread o'er the waters a daring wing,
In the isles of the southern sea to sing;
Or where the minaret, towering high,
Pierces the gold of the western sky;

Or amid the harem's haunts of fear,

Their lodges to build, and their nurslings to rear. 12. The Indian fig, with its arching screen, Welcomes them into its vistas green;

And the breathing buds of the spicy tree
Thrill at the burst of their revelry;

And the bulbul starts 'mid his carol clear,
Such a rushing of stranger wings to hear.
13. Oh, wild-wood wanderers! how far away
From your rural homes in our vales ye stray!
But when they are waked by the touch of Spring,
We shall see you again, with your glancing wing-
Your nests 'mid our household trees to raise,
And stir our hearts in our Maker's praise.

LESSON LXIV.
Winter Song.

1. Now the summer days are past,
Pleasant fruits and beauteous flowers,
Hear the cold and cheerless blast
Whistling through the leafless bowers.
Silent is the insect hum,

Now the wintry time has come.

2. Short and gloomy are the days;

Oft the storm roars round our dwelling:
How the snow fills up the ways!

List the winds, of sorrow telling;
Telling of the shivering poor,
Oh, what hardships they endure!
3. Come around the pleasant fire;

See how sprightly it is burning!
Evening lights the tall church spire;
All are to their homes returning:
Let us try to spend it well,
Till we hear its closing bell.

4. Soon the spring of life will end;

Fast our youthful days are flying!
To the grave our footsteps tend,
Where the frozen snows are lying :
Father, when our age is past,
Oh, receive our souls at last.

LESSON LXV.

It Snows.

1. "IT snows!" cries the School-boy,-" Hurrah!" and his shout

Is ringing through parlor and hall,

While, swift as the wing of a swallow, he's out,
And his play-mates have answered his call;
It makes the heart leap but to witness their joy—
Proud wealth has no pleasures, I trow,

Like the rapture that throbs in the pulse of the boy,
As he gathers his treasures of snow;

Then lay not the trappings of gold on thine heirs,
While health, and the riches of Nature, are theirs.

2. "It snows!" sighs the Imbecile,-" Ah!" and his breath Comes heavy, as clogged with a weight;

While, from the pale aspect of Nature in death,
He turns to the blaze of his grate;

And nearer and nearer, his soft, cushioned chair
Is wheeled tow'rds the life-giving flame-
He dreads a chill puff of the snow-burdened air,
Lest it wither his delicate frame:

Oh! small is the pleasure existence can give,
When the fear we shall die only proves that we live!

3. "It snows!" cries the Traveller,-" Ho!" and the word Has quickened his steed's lagging pace;

The wind rushes by, but its howl is unheard—

Unfelt the sharp drift in his face;

For bright, through the tempest, his own home appeared-
Ay, through leagues intervened, he can see:

There's the clear, glowing hearth, and the table prepared,
And his wife with her babes at her knee:

Blest thought! how it lightens the grief-laden hour,
That those we love dearest are safe from its power!

4. "It snows!" cries the Belle,-" Dear, how lucky!" and

turns

From her mirror to watch the flakes fall;

Like the first rose of summer, her dimpled cheek burns,
While musing on sleigh-ride and ball:

There are visions of conquests, of splendor, and mirth,
Floating over each drear winter's day;