Sweet is the fruit that you have peck'd,
But sweeter far your song.

Let then this league betwixt us made

Our mutual interests guard,

Mine be the gift of fruit and shade;
Your songs be my reward.

THE SWALLOW.

Hurdis.

THE chimney-haunting Swallow, too, my eye
And ear well pleases. I delight to see
How suddenly he skims the glassy pool,

How quaintly dips, and with a bullet's speed
Whisks by. I love to be awake, and hear
His morning song twitter'd to young-eyed day.

PRETTY little feather'd fellow,

Why so far from home dost rove? What misfortune brought thee hither, From the green, embowering grove? Let thy throbbing heart be still, Here secure from danger rest thee; No one here shall use thee ill,

Here no cruel boy molest thee. Barley-corns and crumbs of bread, Crystal water, too, shall cheer thee; On soft sails recline thy head,

Sleep, and fear no danger near thee. So when kindly winds shall speed us To the land we wish to see,

Then, sweet captive, thou shalt leave us,

Then amidst the groves be free.

WHITHER, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight, to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or maze of river wide,

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-tide ?

For thee, then, may the hawthorn bush, The elder, and the spindle tree,

With all their various berries, blush,

And the blue sloe abound for thee! For thee the coral holly glow

Its armed and glossy leaves among ; And the pellucid mistletoe

O'er many a branched oak be hung!

Still may thy nest, with soft moss lined,
Be hidden from the invading jay;
Nor truant boy its covert find,

To bear thy callow young away.
So thou, precursor still of good,
Shalt to the pensive wanderer sing
Thy song of hope and fortitude,

Oh! herald of approaching spring.

BIRDS IN SUMMER.

Mary Howitt.

How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Flitting about in each leafy tree;
In the leafy trees so broad and tall,
Like a green and beautiful palace-hall,
With its airy chambers, light and boon,
That opens to sun, and stars, and moon;
That open unto the bright blue sky,

And the frolicsome winds, as they wander by!

They have left their nests in the forest bough, Those homes of delight they need not now; And the young and the old they wander out, And traverse their green world round about; And hark! at the top of this leafy hall,

How, one to the other, they lovingly call :"Come up, come up!" they seem to say, "Where the topmost twigs in the breezes play!"