Beautiful birds! we've encircled thy names With the fairest of fruits and the fiercest of flames; We paint war with his eagle, and peace with her dove, With the red bolt of death and the olive of love : The fountain of friendship is never complete Till ye coo o'er its waters so sparkling and sweet; And where is the hand that would dare to divide Ev'n Wisdom's grave self from the owl at her side? Beautiful creatures of freedom and light, Oh! where is the eye that groweth not bright As it watches you trimming your soft glossy coats, Swelling your bosoms and ruffling your throats? Oh, I would not ask, as the old ditties sing, To be happy as sand-boy' or 'happy as king': For the joy is more blissful that bids me declare 'I'm as happy as all the wild birds in the air.' I will tell them to find me a grave when I die, Where no marble will shut out the glorious sky; Let them give me a tomb where the daisy will bloom, Where the moon will shine down, and the leveret pass by ; But be sure there's a tree stretching out high and wide, Where the linnet, the thrush, and the woodlark may hide; For the truest and purest of requiems heard, Is the eloquent hymn of the beautiful bird. OCEAN. Byron. THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods, Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain : Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore:-upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, The armaments which thunder-strike the walls Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage-what are they? Thy waters washed them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since: their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage: their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: -not so thou; Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' playTime writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow, Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark heaving:-boundless, endless, and sub lime The image of Eternity-the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime, And I have loved thee, ocean! and my joy My task is done-my song hath ceased-my theme Has died into an echo; it is fit The spell should break of this protracted dream, EXTRACT. YES! nature is a splendid show, In waving grass, or whispering rill; |