sprig-with such unconscious earnestness-gushing out strains that are to chime the solemn dance of systems! Mystery is all around us. Who knows but that these things be? Whether or no, it is a marvellous reality to hear birds singing. If you look at them while they do it, with their upturned bills, their rapt, softened, half-closed eyes, their bodies quivering in the ecstatic travail-you cannot but feel in reverential mood, and hear your own rebuked heart whispering "let us pray!" What! When their shrill, melodious clamorings go up with the mists before the sun, and make his coming over earth to be with light in music, are they not chaunting matins to the God of all? When he hastens to decline, and from the spires of treetops everywhere the Thrush and Robin sing a low-voiced hymn-is it not a vesper-symphonie of thanks? And when, in the deep night, the Oriole, in dreamy twitterings, and the Mocking-bird, in clear, triumphing notes, stir the dark shadows of the cold, gray moon to the wild pulsing of unmeasured chords-is it not a worship fitting to that mystic time? Verily, they symbol to us a spiritual and a holier life! The purpose of their being is in prayer and praise, just as they say it is with Angels. They do not taste the fruits of earth, and revel in the warm kisses of the day unthankfully; but when their little hearts-forever drinking love-fill up to the brim, they let their cadent fulness go towards heaven. They sing when they have eaten they sing when they have drunk-while they are waking, music always trembles at their breasts-they pay back the caressing sun in sweetness-and when they sleep, and the shining beams are showered silently and pale, down from the bosom of the darkness over them, their dreams break out in momentary song. They take the berry, flushing underneath green leaves, and the sense of hunger is relieved. So when they snatch the earth-worm-stirring unusually the grass blades of the sward beneath them-from its slimy hole, the bare appetite is soothed. Theirs is no sodden gormandie, such as we human brutes indulge, that would doze and snooze away the precious hours. No; this food with them is but the "provender of praise;" and for every mite and fragment of the manna of the "great Dispenser" they do obeisance in thanksgiving. Beautiful lesson, is it not, to us a stiff-necked and ungrate ful generation? We eat to live, that we may eat again. They eat that they may make merry before the Lord, and fill his outer temple with the sounds of love! One of the most touching-and what certainly should be one of the most significant objects known to us, is afforded in the habitual gesture of these little creatures while they drink. Think of a thin rivulet by the meadow-side playing at bopeep with the sun beneath the thickets-and so clear withal, that every stem, jagged limb, or crooked, leaf-weighed bough, lies boldly shadowed on its pale sand, or over its white pebbles, like moon-shades on the snow-except that these are tremulous. Then think of the singing throng who have been anticking and carrolling all the morning upon the weed and clovertops, out under the sun-coming into that shady place about "the sweltering time o' day," to cool their pipes. How eagerly they come flitting in, with panting, open throats! How quietly, through those cool, chequered glooms, they drop beside that sliding crystal. Here a scarlet Grosbeak flames partly in the sunlight, while his ebony-set eyes gleam sharper in the shade; the Jay sits yonder behind a plumb-tree shadow, with lowered crest and gaping bill-the Meadow Lark wades in and stoops until the wavelets curl up against its yellow breast and kiss the dark blotch on its throat; the Wren comes creeping down with wagging tail among the mossy roots; the Orchard Oriole, reckless to the last, comes garrulous, chattering down, and dips upon an island pebble; and Bobby Linkum, with his amorous song shivered into silvery quavers, comes eagerly hurrying after, and dashes up the spray, like as not, amidstream; the Indigo Bird darts in, and the Sparrows skip chirpingly over the curled last-winter leaves; the yelloweyed Thrush, with long bounds and drooping wings, splashes plump into the water; the Cat Bird, with faint purr, glides meekly down; the Elfin Mocker, even, silent now and panting, half-spreading its white-barred wings with every hop, follows the rest; with low chirrup and quick pattering feet, the dusky-dotted Partridge hurries in; now see them one and all dip their thirsty bills into the cool ripples—a single drop, then each is upturned towards heaven, and softest eyes look the mute eloquence of thanks. Down they all go again—another drop-up they rise together, pointing toward the home of God, gesticulating praises while they take his gifts. Beautiful worshippers! Lovely and fitting temple of the Most High! your shady places have been hallowed by those simple prayers. That inarticulate incense, like the invisible aroma of hill-side violets, has ascended gratefully to heaven! Ye human Formalists, who, to the alarm of chimes, go on your knees to mumble the set forms of praise! what is your faith compared to these? Would that ye would read this Elder Bible more-its wide, miraculous pages have many a sentient chapter such as this, where all the breathing is of love! Turn aside to look upon them with a calm regard; who knows but that the light abiding with these gentle things, may find its way through the hard crust of cant, and wake to flowering some genial place beside thy heart. Ye are not all ossified-brain, sense and heart-even down to that altar of the belly gods within you! Be of good cheer, and not affrighted because of great black-letter Tomes, God's Commentary on his written Revelation was given first -was handed down from a thousand Sinais, and strewed in green and golden shadowy lines through all the plains. It yet lives, and is, from under his own hand, above, around, beneath thee; and by it too ye may understand that holy mystery-how God is Love, and Love is God-like. These are not all the mysteries symbolized by Birds. How came old Genius to give wings to its embodied. visions of the Spirit-Land? but that it had looked upon some plumed and beamy singers of the clouds, "With wings that might have had a soul within them, They bore their owners by such sweet enchantment." Can you not know that never again to it, from out the umbrage, could "ministers of grace" or glad ideals come other than "by such sweet enchantment?" "The wings! the wings!" Ah! ever they must grow upon The Beautiful, ere it can rise to Heaven! To us on wings The Beautiful must come down from thence! It is with longing for these wings, this "Immortality" doth struggle in us! To the music of their mellow whirr we feel exultings, and our bare arms beat vainly, reaching toward the stars. Ah! "whence this longing?"—we poor unfledged earth-prone things! Is it not a memory dimly recalled of some mysterious whilome when our free vans made sudden melody, cleaving past the worlds, through space, where now our thoughts go haunting ghost-like ?-or is it that "the shadow of the coming time" falls over us in wings? "The wings!"-no fair Ideal can come to us but with their light aerial movement-no dream of Love but with the low murmur of their softest beat-no gleam of Joy but as they glance the sunlight off in gambolling-no Hope but as they climb the dark craigs of the piled-up storm and reach the serene sky above-no Ambition "But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on!”— no Freedom but wheels and rushes tameless through the unbounded fields of air-no ecstasy of Faith, but like "The lark whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven, so high above our heads,' 'singeth at Heaven's gate !"—no spiritual Warning but comes and goes, inexplicably, quick as the shadow of some "full-winged bird," glides across our path upon a summer's day-no Visitation but comes like a fierce swooper of the sky, the moan of arrowy wings and stroke at once-no Shudder from the charnel but the frowsy flap of owlet and of bat, "chasing the lagging night-shades," or the clouddropped croak of "sad presaging Raven" going by must bring it no dash of "mirthful Phantasie" but that sparkles from the jewelled wings of restless Hummers, light it amidst the flowers. All the mysteries of hope, of joy, of hate, of love, are winged, and to the tameless pulsing of this winnowed air our life must beat! Winging and singing through the spring-time with the birds our Childhood goes-and ever, while that "Infantine Familiar clasp of things divine," lingers in freshness with the years-keeping the wise youth of our hearts unhackneyed-shall living be a joyful thing, and the cycling moons wheel blithely with us! Ah, those times!—with the yellow-haired, blue-eyed, blooming maidens, in their white pinafores and pantalettes!— were we! "Lightsome, then, as April shadows, Bounding and carrolling through the flower-starred, odorous grass-scaring the fire-flies back to the moon, whence their |