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A WREN'S NEST.

WORDSWORTH.

AMONG the dwellings framed by birds
In field or forest with nice care,
Is none that with the little Wren's
In snugness may compare.

No door the tenement requires,

And seldom needs a laboured roof;

Yet is it to the fiercest sun

Impervious and storm-proof.

So warm, so beautiful withal,
In perfect fitness for its aim,
That to the kind by special grace
Their instinct surely came.

And when for their abodes they seek

An opportune recess,
The Hermit has no finer eye

For shadowy quietness.

These find, 'mid ivied Abbey walls,
A canopy in some still nook;
Others are pent-housed by a brae
That overhangs a brook.

There to the brooding Bird her Mate Warbles by fits his low, clear song;

And by the busy streamlet both
Are sung to all day long.

Or in sequester'd lanes they build,
Where till the flitting Bird's return,
Her eggs within the nest repose,
Like relics in an urn.

But still, where general choice is good,
There is a better and a best;
And, among fairest objects, some
Are fairer than the rest;

This, one of those small Builders proved In a green covert, where, from out The forehead of a pollard oak,

The leafy antlers sprout;

For she who planned the mossy lodge,
Mistrusting her evasive skill,

Had to a Primrose looked for aid

Her wishes to fulfil.

High on the trunk's projecting brow,
And fixed an infant's span above
The budding flowers, peeped forth the nest,
The prettiest of the grove!

The treasure proudly did I show

To some whose minds without disdain Can turn to little things, but once

Looked up for it in vain :

'Tis gone-a ruthless spoiler's prey, Who heeds not beauty, love, or song, 'Tis gone! (so seemed it) and we grieved Indignant at the wrong.

Just three days after, passing by
In clearer light the moss-built cell,
I saw, espied its shaded mouth,
And felt that all was well.

The Primrose for a veil had spread
The largest of her upright leaves;
And thus, for purposes benign,
A simple flower deceives.

Concealed from friends who might disturb
Thy quiet with no ill intent,

Secure from evil eyes and hands
On barbarous plunder bent.

Rest, mother-bird! and when thy young Take flight, and thou art free to roam, When withered is the guardian flower, And empty thy late home,

Think how ye prospered, thou and thine,
Amid the unviolated grove,

Housed near the growing primrose tuft
In foresight, or in love.

ADDRESS TO A WILD DEER.

WILSON.

MAGNIFICENT Creature! so stately and bright
In the pride of thy spirit pursuing thy flight;
For what hath the child of the desert to dread,
Wafting up his own moxntains that far-beaming head;
Or borne like a whirlwind down on the vale?-
-Hail! King of the wild and the beautiful!—hail!
Hail! Idol divine! whom Nature hath borne

O'er a hundred hill-tops since the mists of the morn, Whom the pilgrim lone wandering on mountain and moor,

As the vision glides by him, may blameless adore;
For the joy of the happy, the strength of the free,
Are spread in a garment of glory o'er thee.

Up! up to yon cliff! like a king to his throne!
O'er the black silent forest piled lofty and lone-
A throne which the eagle is glad to resign

Unto footsteps so fleet and so fearless as thine,

There the bright heather springs up in love of thy

breast

Lo! the clouds in the depth of the sky are at rest;
And the race of the wild winds is o'er on the hill!
In the hush of the mountains, ye antlers, lie still-
Though your branches now toss in the storm of delight,
Like the arms of the pine on your shelterless height.
One moment-thou bright Apparition !-delay!
Then melt o'er the crags, like the sun from the day,

Aloft on the weather-gleam, scorning the earth,
The wild spirit hung in majestical mirth :

In dalliance with danger, he bounded in bliss,
O'er the fathomless gloom of each moaning abyss;
O'er the grim rocks careering with prosperous motion,
Like a ship by herself in full sail o'er the ocean!
Then proudly he turn'd ere he sank to the dell,
And shook from his forehead a haughty farewell,
While his horns in a crescent of radiance shone,
Like a flag burning bright when the vessel is gone.

The ship of the desert hath pass'd on the wind,
And left the dark ocean of mountains behind!
But my spirit will travel wherever she flee,
And behold her in pomp o'er the rim of the sea-
Her voyage pursue-till her anchor be cast
In some cliff-girdled haven of beauty at last.

What lonely magnificence stretches around!
Each sight how sublime! and how awful each sound!
All hush'd and serene, as a region of dreams,
The mountains repose 'mid the roar of the streams,
Their glens of black umbrage by cataracts riven,
But calm their blue tops in the beauty of Heaven.

Here the glory of nature hath nothing to fear-
-Ay! Time the destroyer in power hath been here;
And the forest that hung on yon mountain so high,
Like a black thunder-cloud on the arch of the sky,
Hath gone, like that cloud, when the tempest came by.
Deep sunk in the black moor, all worn and decay'd,
Where the floods have been raging the limbs are
display'd

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