THE FORGET ME NOT. MONTGOMERY. What is Life. WHAT is life? 'tis a delicate shell Gone back to its element grand, Is the billow that brought it on shore; See, another is washing the strand, And the beautiful shell is no more. B The Gentianella. IN LEAF. GREEN thou art, obscurely green, From the dust 1 took my birth; Scorn not thou my low estate; Time will come when thou shalt see Honour crown humility, Beauty set her seal on me. IN FLOWER. Blue thou art, intensely blue, When I open'd first mine eye, Upward glancing to the sky, Straightway from the firmament Was the sapphire brilliance sent. Brighter glory wouldst thou share, Do what I did,-look up there, What I could not,-look with prayer! Birds. THE CUCKOO. Why art thou always welcome, lonely bird? But in the fields, the woods, the streams and skies. THE SPARROW. Sparrow, the gun is levell'd, quit that wall. THE CHAFFINCH. Stand still a moment! -Spare your idle words, I'm the perpetual mobile of birds; My days are running, rippling, twittering streams, When fast asleep I'm all afloat in dreams. THE COCK. Who taught thee, chanticleer, to count the clock ? -Nay, who taught man that lesson but the cock ? Long before wheels and bells had learn'd to chime, I told the steps unseen, unheard, of time. THE JACK-DAW. Canst thou remember that unlucky day, With right good cause, for I was then a man! And for my folly, by a wise old law, Stript, whipt, tarr'd, feathered, turn'd into a daw: -Pray, how d'ye like my answer? Caw, caw, caw! THE BAT. What shall I call thee,-bird, or beast, or neither? ROOKS. What means that riot in your citadel ? THE PEACOCK. Peacock! of idle beauty, why so vain? To shew, by me, the cunning of her art. THE PHEASANT. Pheasant, forsake the country, come to town; THE MAGPIE. Magpie, and thou hast learn'd by rote to speak Words without meaning through thy uncooth beak. -Words have I learn'd? and without meaning too? No wonder, sir, for I was taught by you. THE STORK. Stork, why were human virtues given to thee? THE EAGLE. Art thou the king of birds, proud eagle, say? VULTURES. Abominable harpies, spare the dead. -We only clear the field which man has spread; On which should heaven its hottest vengeance rain? You slay the living, we but strip the slain. THE BIRD OF PARADISE. The bird of paradise! -That name I bear, Though I am nothing but a bird of air: Oh! that such glory were reserved for me! THE OSTRICH. Hast thou expell'd the mother from thy breast, |