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 neighborhood:
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!
Vhose habitations in the tree-tops even

re halfway houses on the road to heaven!

hink, every morning when the sun peeps througe.
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove,
How jubilant the happy birds renew
Their old, melodious madrigals of love!
nd when you think of this, remember too
'Tis always morning somewhere, and above
he awakening continents, from shore to shore,
mewhere the birds are singing evermore.

ink of your woods and orchards without birds!
Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams,
in an idiot's brain remembered words
Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!
ill bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds
Make up for the lost music, when your teams
ag home the stingy harvest, and no more
e 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 self-same 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.

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 favorite 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 her 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 br
By order of the town, with anxious quest,
And, loosened from their wicker prisons, sought
In woods and fields the places they loved bes
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 caroled 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.

Seven minor and recent poems, called Birds of Flight the Second, are included in the above volum these we find one of the most graphic and soulthe poems inspired by our late war, namely:

THE CUMBERLAND.

AT anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,

On board of the Cumberland, sloop-of-w
And at times from the fortress across the
The alarum of drums swept past,
Or a bugle blast

From the camp on the shore.

Then far away to the south uprose

A little feather of snow-white smoke, And we knew that the iron ship of our f Was steadily steering its course