The bow is gone, the hawk is thrown For ever from the hand; And now we live a bookish race, All in a cultured land. The keepers with their dogs in leash; The falconers before, The hooded tercel bore. By stream or sedgy mere, The laugh, the shout, the cries of dogs And men, came to thine ear. And starting from thy reverie, And springing from the bent, Into the air, from joyous hearts, Another shout was sent. Up, up, into the azure skies On circling pinions strong, While the falcon sped along. Thy strenuous pinions go, While shouts and cries, and wondering eyes, Still reach thee from below; But higher, and higher, like a spirit of fire, Sill o'er thee hangs thy foe; Thy cruel foe, still seeking With one down-plunging aim, For ever from thy frame ! Swift as the rushing wind, To leave his own behind. Yet here and there some remnant Of those old woodland times ; Some waste lies brown; some forest spreads ; Some rocky streamlet chimes. And there, beside the waters, On moorland and on wold, I find thee watching still, Thou fisherman of old. Oh fair, fair is the forest, When summer is in prime! And I love to lie by mountain lake, On its slopes of heath and thyme! In the thyme so richly fragrant, In the heath that blooms so fair, And list the quaint bird-voices From the moorland and the air. All those that lead their sweetest lives Far from the haunt of men, Are sending forth their gladness In many a wild cry then. The curlew and the plover, The gor-cock on the brae, Their voices far away! Or where the waters run O'er the pebbles in the sun. And from the air, in circling flight, Comes suddenly the crowd Of all the wild-duck army, With pinions rustling loud ; And, dashing down into the lake, The splashing waters bound In drops and showers of silver, And in snow-flakes all around. Such is the joy that wakens, That clamours, and that lives, In all the winged creatures, Where nature still survives; Where nature still survives In her regions wild and free ; So lives in all her creatures, Old fisherman, but thee! By river broad and deep, Or ponded waters sleep; In stony regions grey, Old Heron, all those times are past, Those jocund troops are fled ; The king, the queen, the keepers green, The dogs, the hawks are dead ! In many a minster's solemn gloom, In shattered abbeys lone, Lie all thy crowned enemies, In midnight vaults of stone! The towers are torn, the gates outworn, Portcullis, moat, and mound Are vanished all, or faintly mark Sorne rarely-trodden ground. O'er all those abbeys, convents, all Those chantries and crosses, Where thou didst glide past in thy pride, Grow tawny serns and mosses. Where banners waved, the ivy grows; Baronial times are o'er! Green is the lakelet's shore. Where grew the furze, now runs the fence; Where waved the wild-rush free, And whistled moorland-grasses sere, Fat cattle roam the lea. The rose of May its pride display'd Whene'er I see thee, Heron, Thy cheer is silent still; Solemnly watching by the wave, Or o'er the dusky hill, Waving thy shadowy wings In motion grave and slow, Like a spirit of the solemn past That museth on its woe! Finds no congenial tone, And seeketh that alone! Flit on from dream to dream; The spirit of the stream; The storied times of old ; The sturdy bowmen bold. Or 'mid the human throng, The harper and his song. And it is pleasant thus to dream In this kingdom of the free, Now laws are strong and roads are good, Of outlaw 'neath his tree. Now knowledge falls like sunshine, And peace walks in our towns — Oh pleasant are the feudal days And the bloody strise of crowns ! Then hail to thee, old Heron! Flit on to lakes and streams ; And by their waters dreaming, Siill prompt these pleasant dreams! Long have been dead those ladies gay The memory of an ancient race! What exact species of rose this is I do not know; it appears not to be approved of in modem gardens, -at least if it be, it is so much altered by cultivation as to have lost much of its primitive character. I saw it in three different situations in Nottinghamshire. In the small remains of gardens and old laby. rinthine shrubbery at Awthorpe Hall,—which, when we were there, had just been taken down, the resi. dence of the good Colonel John Hutchinson and his sweet wife Lucy ;-in the very gardens which, as she relates in his life, he laid out and took so much pleasure in. It was growing also, with tall shoots and abundance of flowers, in the most forlorn of gardens at an old place called Burton Grange, a house so desolate and deserted as to have gained from a poetical friend of ours the appropriate name of The Dead House. It was a dreary and most lonesome place; the very bricks of which it was built were bleached by long exposure to wind and weather; there seemed no life within or about it. Every trace of furniture and wainscot was gone from its interior, and its principal rooms were the depositories of old ploughs and disused ladders; yet still its roof, floors, and windows were in decent repair. It had once upon a time been a well-conditioned house ; had been moated, and its garden-wall had been terminated by stately stone pillars surmounted by well-cut urns, one of which, at the time we were there, lay overgrown with grass in the ground beneath ; the other, after a similar fall, had been replaced, but with the wrong end uppermost. To add still more to its lonesome ness, thick, wild woods encompassed it on three sides, whence of an evening, and often too in the course of the day, came the voices of owls and other gloomy wood-creatures. “ There's not a flower in the garden,” said a wo man who, with her husband and child, we found, to our astonishment, inhabiting what had once been the scullery,—"not a flower but fever-few and the rose of May, and you 'll not think it worth getting." She was mistaken ; I was delighted to find this sweet and favourite rose in so ruinous a situation. Again, we found it in the gardens of Annesley Hall, THE ROSE OF MAY. Au there's the lily, marble pale, The bonny broom, the cistus frail, The rich sweet-pea, the iris blue, The larkspur with its peacock hue;Each one is fair, yet hold I will That the rose of May is fairer still. "Tis grand 'neath palace-walls to grow; To blaze where lords and ladies go; To hang o'er marble founts, and shine In modern gardens trim and fine; But the rose of May is only seen Where the great of other days have been. The house is mouldering stone by stone ; The garden-walks are overgrown; The flowers are low, the weeds are high; The fountain-stream is choked and dry; The dial-stone with moss is green, Where'er the rose of May is seen. that most poetical of old mansions; and the ancient of relations also in America: the Whip-poor-Will, housekeeper, at that time its sole inhabitant, pointed the Willy-come-go, the Work-away, and the Who out this flower with a particular emphasis. “And are-you? being all of the same family. In Africa here's the rose of May," said she, drawing out a and among the American Indians these birds are slender spray from a tangle of jessamine that hung looked upon with reverence or fear; for, by some about the stone-work of the terrace; “ a main pretty they are supposed to be haunted by the dead, and by thing, though there's little store set by it now-a- others to be obedient to gloomy or evil spirits. The days!" Dor-Hawk of our own country has been subject to slander, as his name of the goal-sucker shows. This name originated of course in districts where goats THE DOR-HAWK. were used for milking, and furnished, no doubt, an excuse for the false herd, who stole the milk and FERN-OWL, Churn-owl, or Goat-sucker, blamed the bird. Night-jar, Dor-hawk, or whate'er The Dor-Hawk, like the owl, is not seen in the Be thy name among a dozen, day; and like it also, is an inhabitant of wild and Whip-poor-Will's and Who-are-you's cousin, gloomy scenes; heathy tracks atounding in fern; Chuck-Will's-widow's near relation, moors, and old woods. It is so regular in the time Thou art at thy night vocation, of beginning its nightly cry, that good old Gilbert Thrilling the still evening air ! White declares, it appeared to him to strike up exIn the dark brown wood beyond us, actly when the report of the Portsmouth evening gun Where the night lies dusk and deep; was heard. He says also, that its voice, which reWhere the fox his furrow maketh, sembles the loud purring of a cat, occasions a singu. Where the tawny owl awaketh lar vibration even in solid buildings; for that, as he Nightly from his day-long sleep; and some of his neighbours sate in a hermitage on a steep hill-side, where they had been taking tea, a There Dor-hawk is thy abiding, Dor-Ilawk alighted on the little cross at the top, and Meadow green is not for thee; uttered his cry, making the walls of the building While the aspen branches shiver, sensibly vibrate, to the wonder of all the company. 'Mid the roaring of the river, I can give no anecdotes of the bird from my own Comes thy chirring voice to me. experience. I know him best by his voice, heard Bird, thy form I never looked on, mostly from scenes of a wild and picturesque charAnd to see it do not care ; acter, in the gloom and shadow of evening, or in the Thou hast been, and thou art only deep calm of summer moonlight. I heard him first As a voice of forests lonely, in a black, solemn-looking wood, between Houghton Heard and dwelling only there. Tower, and Pleasington Priory, in Lancashire. Since then I have become familiar with his voice in the Bringing thoughts of dusk and shadow; pleasant woods of Winter-down, and Claremont, in Trees huge-branched in ceaseless change; Surrey. THE OAK-TREE. Sing for the Oak-Tree, The monarch of the wood; Sing for the Oak-tree, That groweth green and good; That groweth broad and branching Within the forest shade; That groweth now, and yet shall grow When we are lowly laid ! The Oak Tree was an acorn once, And fell upon the earth; And sun and showers nourished it, And gave the Oak-tree birth. The little sprouting Oak-Tree! Two leaves it had at first, Till sun and showers had nourished it, Then out the branches burst. The little sapling Oak-Tree! of the old world, as well in the cold regions of Sibe Its root was like a thread, rin, as in the hot jungles of India, and the lion-haunted Till the kindly earth had nourished it, forests of Africa, has, as we have said, a large class Then out it freely spread : I say ; On this side and on that side Thou art some pixy, quaint and queer ; Thou art not canny, Poll, I fear! Look at that impish leer of thine; List to thy scream, thy shout, thy whine, And none will doubt but thou must be A creature of the faëry. Or tell me, Poll, art thou not kin To Jack o' lanthern? Come, begin! Answer me, Poll, was 't 'mong the fairies Thou learnt thy many strange vagaries ? Speak, pretty Poll! POLL. Well, I don't care if I tell you all. Nor doth its verdure fail ; You've got some company, I see; a short gentleman Its heart is like the iron-wood, and a tall; Its bark like plated mail. Many ladies, too, altogether two or three dozens, Now, cut us down the Oak-Tree, I should not wonder if they are some of your uncles and cousins! Pray am not l' a very fine bird, Green, and yellow, and scarlet? — Upon my word! The Oak-Tree of the forest That man has a coat on like our Captain! CAPTAIN. Poll, how do you do, my dear! You look well; it's fine living here! POLL Ha, Captain, how do you do?-Captain, your health, Then sing for the Oak-Tree, Captain, I'll have the pleasure of drinking your The monarch of the wood; health today! ha! ha ! ha! Sing for the Oak-Tree, I'm very glad to see you!-You remember, perhaps, That groweth green and good ; That wood in Carolina, the guns and all the traps ;That groweth broad and branching To be sure you do!-Ladies, I'm a Carolina bird, Within the forest shade; Some come from the East Indies, from the Cape, too, That groweth now, and yet shall grow, I have heard ; But I'm of Carolina – to the Big-bone lick I've been, - Our Captain knows that ! Ay, Caplain, I say, Do you remember crossing the Cedar Swamp one particular day, Parrots, with all their cleverness, are not capa. When I got out of your pocket and flew away? ble of keeping up a dialogue ; otherwise we might Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! How it inakes me laugh! suppose something like the following to be in charac- You'd a pretty chase after me!-ha! ha! a pretty ter with their humour and experience. chase! Poll's MISTRESS. And I sat in the hiccory trees, laughing in your face! Ha! ha! ha! how I did laugh. I've heard of imp, I've heard of sprite'; Of fays and fairies of the night; What cypross-berries, cockle-burrs, and beech-nuts Of that renowned fiend Hobgoblin, Running, racing, jumping, hobbling; You may look all this country over, and find nono Of Puck, brimful of fun; also anywhere. And what fun it was-me, and a thousand beside, Of roguish Robin Goodfellow. I've seen a hearth where, as is told, To fly in the merry sunshine through those forests wide, Came Hobthrush in the days of old, And build our nests -Oh, what nests we had! Did you ever see one of our nests, Captain? Eh, my Jad?" Captain. I've heard of nests of cinnamon, With the great Phænix set thereon; grew there! And swallows' nests, so rich and sweet, There, now, I am better! but my throat is quite hot; Of which the Chinese people eat; Can't I have a glass of water ?-(She coughs.) Bless But of your nests I never heard, me, what a cold I've got! What kind are they, I pray thee, bird ! Do, shut that window, Jenny, or we shall all die of cold; Parrot. And mend the fire, can't you, as you already have Nests! ha! ha! ha! what sort of nests should they be? been told ! You may fancy if you please, but you 'll never know And let's have a cup of tea, for I'm just tired to from me! death. I never blab, not I! What sort of nest is built? What a shocking cold it is! and I'm so short of Ha! ha! ha! with sheets and blankets and a fine breath!-(She coughs again.) Marseilles quilt! ha! ha! ha! (She speaks in another voice.) Put it down in your little book, – a four-post bed, 1 Tea 's ready, if you please. Ready is it? say, With the water in the pot ? With damask moreen hangings, and made every day! Yes, ma'am! Well, then, I'll go and have my tea, ha! ha! ha! while the muffin 's hot! Oh, how it makes me laugh! ha! ha! ha! Exil POLL. I shall split my sides with laughing some of these days! ha! ha! ha! The Parrot of which we have been reading, may be supposed to have been the one of which so inter. CAPTAIN. esting an account is given by Wilson in his American Come, now, you silly prate-a-pace Ornithology. It was taken at the Big-bone lick, Tell us about that Big-bone place, where he witnessed the extreme affection and strong Where our acquaintance first begon; sympathy which the parrots have for each other, and And of those swamps, untrode by man, of which we have imagined our bird to speak. Jis Where you came, impudent and merry, merriment, too, respecting the nests of the tribe, may For cockle-burr and hackle-berry. pass as natural, considering the little light Wilson could obtain on the subject, and the vivacious mockPARROT. ery of the bird's disposition, even if it had had the of the Big-bone lick, did you say ?-Ay, we used to power of giving him the requisite information. go there, The parrot has been made to speak of her travels A Parrot 's very fond of salt! I really declare with “ the Captain" through the morasses and cedarI've seen ten thousand of us there altogether, swamps, and of the trouble she gave him, “ when A beautiful sight it was, in fine summer weather, many a time," says he, (Wilson) “I was tempted to “ And in this manner,” he goes on to Like a grand velvet carpet, of orange, green, and abandon it.” yellow, say, “I carried it upwards of a thousand miles in my Covering the ground! Ah, Captain ! my good fellow, pocket , where it was exposed all day to the jolting I had reason to rue the day you came there with your of the horse, but regularly liberated at meal-times and in the evening, at which it always expressed gun! I would laogh if I could, but to me it was no fun- great satisfaction.” The Chiekasaw and the Chacheigh-ho! taw Indians, among whom he was travelling, collectNo sun at all, Captain, heigh-ho! ed about him whenever he stopped, men, women, and children, laughing greatly at his novel compaCaptais. nion. Kelinky was the name the Chickasaws called the parrot ; but hearing the name of Poll, they imNay, Poll, cheer up, you 're better here mediately adopted it, and through Poll's medium, he Than at the Big-bone lick, my dear! and the Indians always became very sociable. “On PARROT. arriving,” says Wilson, “at Mr. Dunbar's, below Natchez, I procured a cage, and placed it under the Captain, how you talk! we Parrots love each other, piazza, where, by its call, it soon attracted the passThere you shot dozens of us,-my father and my mo- ing flocks, such is the attachment they have for each ther, other. Numerous parties frequently alighted on the I shall not forget it in a hurry,—what wailing and trees immediately above, keeping up a continual concrying, versation with the prisoner. One of these I woundWhat aying round and round there was ! hat com- ed slightly in the wing, and the pleasure Poll expressforting the dying ! ed on meeting with this new companion, was really You, yourself, laid down your gun, overcome by the amusing. She crept close up to it, as it hung on the sight, side of the cage; chattered to it in a loud tone of And said you would not shoot again, at least that voice, as if sympathising in its misfortunes; scratched night! about its head and neck with her bill; and both, at Heigh-ho! I am just ready to cry! night, nestled as close as possible to each other, someAnd I think I shall cry before I have done! (She times Poll's head being thrust among the plumage of cries like a child.) the other. On the death of this companion, she apa |