I'VE seen a Pheasant from a brake

Start up, spring forth, and soar on high;

Its golden plumage, wide display'd,
Seem'd of the lovely rainbow's dye.

Splendid, when cowering on the ground;

But when upsprung, and stretch'd for flight,

Oh, never did my wondering eyes

In nature see so fair a sight!

Then rapid as the lightning's gleam,
Or as the Indian arrow flies,
Flitted before my eyes the beam
Of joys I since had learn'd to prize.

In vain I stretch'd my eager hands
To press the shadowy pinions down;
The dear delight eludes the grasp,—
I find the beauteous treasure flown.

THE HUMMING-BIRD.

MINUTEST of the feather'd kind,
Possessing every charm combined,
Nature, in forming thee, design'd
That thou should'st be

A proof within how little space
She can comprise such perfect grace,
Rendering thy lovely fairy race

Beauty's epitome.

Those burnish'd colours to bestow,

Her pencil in the heavenly bow

She dipp'd, and made thy plumes to glow With every hue

That in the dancing sunbeam plays,

And with the ruby's vivid blaze,

Mingled the emerald's lucid rays
With halcyon blue.

Then placed thee under genial skies,
Where flowers and shrubs spontaneous rise,
With richer fragrance, bolder dyes,
By her endued;

And bade thee pass thy happy hours
In tamarind shades and palmy bowers,
Extracting from unfading flowers
Ambrosial food.

There, lovely Bee-bird, may'st thou rove
Through spicy vale and citron grove,
And woo and win thy fluttering love,
With plume so bright;

There rapid fly, more heard than seen,
'Mid orange boughs of polish'd green,
With glowing fruits and flowers between,
Of purest white.

There is a Power, whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,

The desert and illimitable air,

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fann'd,

At that far height, the cool thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not weary to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon thy toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer-home and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend Loose o'er thy shelter'd nest.

Thou'rt gone; th' abyss of heaven

Hath swallow'd up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He, who from zone to zone

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

THE Carrion Crow is a sexton bold,

He raketh the dead from out of the mould; He delveth the ground like a miser old,

Stealthily hiding his store of gold.

Caw! Caw!