Historical:

HELPS TO STUDY.

The male bobolink moults in midsummer, taking on

a "plain brown" plumage like that of his "Quaker wife." In the

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spring he regains his black and buff colors without moulting any feathers. He sings only in the spring.

Fire-winged blackbirds sound the merry fife,

Soldiers without strife;

And the robins wind the mellow horn

Loudly, eve and morn.

Who shall clash the cymbals? Jay and crow,

That is all they know;

And, to roll the deep melodious drum,

Lo! the bull-frogs come.

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Then the splendid chorus! Who shall sing
Of so fine a thing?

Who the names of the performers call
Truly, one and all?

2

Loved-one of my youth thou wast,
Of my merry youth,
And I see,

Tearfully,

All the fair and sunny past,
All its openness and truth,
Ever fresh and green in thee
As the moss is in the sea.

3

Thy little heart, that hath with love
Grown colored like the sky above,
On which thou lookest ever,

Can it know

All the woe

Of hope for what returneth never,
All the sorrow and the longing
To these hearts of ours belonging?

4

Out on it! no foolish pining

For the sky

Dims thine eye,

Or for the stars so calmly shining;

Like thee let this soul of mine Take hue from that wherefor I long, Self-stayed and high, serene and strong, Not satisfied with hoping- but divine. Violet! dear violet!

Thy blue eyes are only wet

With joy and love of him who sent thee,

And for the fulfilling sense

Of that glad obedience

Which made thee all that nature meant thee!

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Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight;
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.
Linger a while upon some bending planks
That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks,
And watch intently Nature's gentle doings:
They will be found softer than ringdove's cooings.
How silent comes the water round that bend!
Not the minutest whisper does it send

To the o'erhanging sallows: blades of grass
Slowly across the chequered shadows pass.

HELPS TO STUDY.

Biographical: John Keats, 1795-1821, was the son of a London stablekeeper. He lived at the time of Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Leigh Hunt, from whom he gathered inspiration. He had a passion