PRETTY BIRDS.

    Among the orchards and the groves,
    While summer days are fair and long,
    You brighten every tree and bush,
    You fill the air with loving song.

NURSERY.

* * * * *

THE LITTLE BIRD SITS.

    And what is so rare as a day in June? 
      Then, if ever, come perfect days;
    Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
      And over it softly her warm ear lays: 
    Whether we look, or whether we listen,
    We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
    Every clod feels a stir of might,
      An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
    And, groping blindly above it for light,
      Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
    The flush of life may well be seen
      Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
    The cowslip startles in meadows green,
      The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
    And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean
      To be some happy creature’s palace: 
    The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
      Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
    And lets his illumined being o’errun
      With the deluge of summer it receives;
    His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
    And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
    He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,—­
    In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

* * * * *

THE LIVING SWAN.

      Then some one came who said, “My Prince had shot
    A swan, which fell among the roses here,
    He bids me pray you send it.  Will you send?”
    “Nay,” quoth Siddartha, “if the bird were dead
    To send it to the slayer might be well,
    But the swan lives; my cousin hath but killed
    The god-like speed which throbbed in this white wing.” 
    And Devadatta answered, “The wild thing,
    Living or dead, is his who fetched it down;
    ’Twas no man’s in the clouds, but fall’n ’tis mine,
    Give me my prize, fair Cousin.”  Then our Lord
    Laid the swan’s neck beside his own smooth cheek
    And gravely spake, “Say no! the bird is mine,
    The first of myriad things which shall be mine
    By right of mercy and love’s lordliness. 
    For now I know, by what within me stirs,
    That I shall teach compassion unto men
    And be a speechless world’s interpreter,
    Abating this accursed flood of woe,
    Not man’s alone; but, if the Prince disputes,
    Let him submit this matter to the wise
    And we will wait their word.”  So was it done;
    In full divan the business had debate,
    And many thought this thing and many that,
    Till there arose an unknown priest who said,
    “If life be aught, the savior of a life
    Owns more the living thing than he can own
    Who sought to slay—­the slayer spoils and wastes,
    The cherisher sustains, give him the bird:” 
    Which judgment all found just.