She hath cross'd, and without heed
All are following at full speed,

When, lo! the ice, so thinly spread,

Breaks-and the greyhound, Dart, is overhead!

Better fate have Prince and Swallow

See them cleaving to the sport!

Music has no heart to follow,

Little Music, she stops short.

She hath neither wish nor heart,

Hers is now another part:

A loving creature she, and brave!

And fondly strives her struggling friend to save.

From the brink her paws she stretches,

Very hands as you would say!

And afflicting moans she fetches,
As he breaks the ice away.

For herself she hath no fears,

Him alone she sees and hears,

Makes efforts with complainings; nor gives o'er

Until her fellow sinks to reappear no more.

W. Wordsworth.

WATER-FOWL.

MARK how the feathered tenants of the flood,

With grace of motion that might scarcely seem

Inferior to angelical, prolong

Their curious pastime! shaping in mid air

(And sometimes with ambitious wing that soars
High as the level of the mountain tops)
A circuit ampler than the lake beneath―
Their own domain; but ever, while intent
On tracing and retracing that large round,
Their jubilant activity evolves

Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro,
Upward and downward, progress intricate
Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed
Their indefatigable flight. "Tis done-
Ten times, or more, I fancied it had ceased;
But lo! the vanished company again

Ascending; they approach-I hear their wings,

Faint, faint at first; and then an eager sound,
Pass'd in a moment-and as faint again!
They tempt the sun to sport amid their plumes;
They tempt the water, or the gleaming ice,

To show them a fair image; 'tis themselves,
Their own fair forms, upon the glimmering plain,
Painted more soft and fair as they descend
Almost to touch;-then up again aloft,
Up with a sally and a flash of speed,

As if they scorned both resting-place and rest!

W. Wordsworth.

THE WILD FOWL'S VOICE.

IT chanced upon the merry merry Christmas eve,

I went sighing past the church across the moorlands dreary—

O! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave,

And the bells but mock the wailing sound, they sing so cheery.

How long, O Lord! how long, before Thou come again?

Still in cellar, and in garret, and on mountain dreary,

The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain,
Till earth is sick of hope deferr'd, though Christmas bells be cheery.

Then arose a joyous clamour, from the wild fowl on the mere,
Beneath the stars, across the snow, like clear bells ringing,
And a voice within cried-"Listen! Christmas carols even here,
Though thou be dumb, yet o'er their work, the stars and snows are
singing.

Blind!—I live, I love, I reign; and all the nations through,

With the thunder of My judgments even now are ringing;

Do thou fulfil thy work, but as yon wild fowl do,

Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it angels singing."

C. Kingsley.

THE BIRDS IN WINTER.

Now from the roost, or from the neighbouring pale,
Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam
Of smiling day, they gossiped side by side,
Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call
The feather'd tribes domestic. Half on wing,
And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood,