THE POET AND THE BIRD.

A FABLE.

SAID a people to a poet—“Go out from among us straightway!

While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of

divine :

There's a little fair brown nightingale who, sitting in the gateway,

Makes fitter music to our ear than any song of thine!"

The poet went out weeping; the nightingale ceased chanting:

"Now, wherefore, O thou nightingale, is all thy sweetness done?"

"I cannot sing my earthly things, the heavenly poet wanting,

Whose highest harmony includes the lowest under sun."

The poet went out weeping, and died abroad, bereft

there;

The bird flew to his grave and died amid a thousand

wails :

And when I last came by the place, I swear the music

left there

Was only of the poet's song, and not the nightingale's.

THE DESERTED GARDEN.

I MIND me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden long deserted.

The beds and walks were vanished quite ;
And, wheresoe'er had struck the spade,
The greenest grasses Nature laid
To sanctify her right.

I called the place my wilderness,
For no one entered there but I ;
The sheep looked in, the grass to espy,
And passed it ne'ertheless.

The trees were interwoven wild,
And spread their boughs enough about
To keep both sheep and shepherd out,
But not a happy child.

Adventurous joy it was for me!

I crept beneath the boughs, and found
A circle smooth of mossy ground
Beneath a poplar tree.

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in,
Bedropt with roses waxen-white
Well satisfied with dew and light
And careless to be seen.

Long years ago it might befall,
When all the garden flowers were trim,
The grave old gardener prided hin,

On these the most of all.

Some lady, stately overmuch,

Here moving with a silken noise,

Has blushed beside them at the voice
That likened her to such.

And these, to make a diadem,

She often may have plucked and twined,
Half-smiling as it came to mind
That few would look at them.

Oh, little thought that lady proud,
A child would watch her fair white rose,
When buried lay her whiter brows,

And silk was changed for shroud :—

Nor thought that gardener, (full of scorns
For men unlearned and simple phrase,)
A child would bring it all its praise
By creeping through the thorns!

To me upon my low moss seat,
Though never a dream the roses sent
Of science or love's compliment,

I ween they smelt as sweet.

It did not move my grief to see
The trace of human step departed:
Because the garden was deserted,
The blither place for me!

Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken,

Has childhood 'twixt the sun and sward; We draw the moral afterward,

We feel the gladness then.

And gladdest hours for me did glide
In silence at the rose-tree wall:

A thrush made gladness musical
Upon the other side.

Nor he nor I did e'er incline

To peck or pluck the blossoms white; How should I know but roses might Lead lives as glad as mine?

To make my hermit-home complete,
I brought clear water from the spring
Praised in its own low murmuring,
And cresses glossy wet.

And so, I thought, my likeness grew
(Without the melancholy tale)
To "gentle hermit of the dale,"
And Angelina too.

For oft I read within my nook

Such minstrel stories; till the breeze
Made sounds poetic in the trees,

And then I shut the book.

If I shut this wherein I write

I hear no more the wind athwart

Those trees, nor feel that childish heart

Delighting in delight.

My childhood from my life is parted, My footstep from the moss which drew Its fairy circle round: anew

The garden is deserted.

Another thrush may there rehearse
The madrigals which sweetest are;

No more for me! myself afar

Do sing a sadder verse.