The dear God hears and pities all;
      He knoweth all our wants;
    And what we blindly ask of Him
      His love withholds or grants.

    And so I sometimes think our prayers
      Might well be merged in one;
    And nest and perch and hearth and church
      Repeat, “Thy will be done.”

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

* * * * *

WHY NOT DO IT, SIR, TO-DAY?

        “Why, so I will, you noisy bird,
        This very day I’ll advertise you,
        Perhaps some busy ones may prize you. 
      A fine-tongued parrot as was ever heard,
    I’ll word it thus—­set forth all charms about you,
    And say no family should be without you.”

      Thus far a gentleman addressed a bird;
    Then to his friend:  “An old procrastinator,
    Sir, I am:  do you wonder that I hate her? 
        Though she but seven words can say,
        Twenty and twenty times a day
    She interferes with all my dreams,
    My projects, plans, and airy schemes,
    Mocking my foible to my sorrow: 
    I’ll advertise this bird to-morrow.”

    To this the bird seven words did say: 
    “Why not do it, sir, to-day?”

CHARLES AND MARY LAMB.

* * * * *

TO A REDBREAST.

    Little bird, with bosom red,
    Welcome to my humble shed! 
    Courtly domes of high degree
    Have no room for thee and me;
    Pride and pleasure’s fickle throng
    Nothing mind an idle song. 
      Daily near my table steal,
    While I pick my scanty meal:—­
    Doubt not, little though there be,
    But I’ll cast a crumb to thee;
    Well rewarded, if I spy
    Pleasure in thy glancing eye;
    See thee, when thou’st eat thy fill,
    Plume thy breast and wipe thy bill. 
      Come, my feathered friend, again? 
    Well thou know’st the broken pane:—­
    Ask of me thy daily store.

J. LANGHORNE.

* * * * *

PHOEBE.

    Ere pales in heaven the morning star,
    A bird, the loneliest of its kind,
    Hears dawn’s faint footfall from afar,
    While all its mates are dumb and blind.

    It is a wee, sad-colored thing,
    As shy and secret as a maid,
    That, ere in choir the robins ring,
    Pipes its own name like one afraid.

    It seems pain-prompted to repeat
    The story of some ancient ill,
    But Phoebe!  Phoebe! sadly sweet,
    Is all it says, and then is still.

    It calls and listens:  earth and sky,
    Hushed by the pathos of its fate,
    Listen:  no whisper of reply
    Comes from the doom-dissevered mate.

Phoebe! it calls and calls again,
And Ovid, could he but have heard,
Had hung a legendary pain
About the memory of the bird;