ong the long grass,
Till good Mr. Blackbird, who watched the whole thing,
For pity could scarcely a single note sing,
And in the May sunset he hardly could bear
To hear the returning Rooks' caw of despair.

"O, dear Mrs. Blackbird," at last warbled he,
"How happy we are in our humble thorn-tree;
How gaily we live, living honest and poor,
How sweet are the may-blossoms over our door."
"And then our dear children," the mother replied,
And she nested them close to her warm feathered side,
And with a soft twitter of drowsy content,
In the quiet May moonlight to sleep they all went.

THE SHAKING OF THE PEAR-TREE

OF all days I remember,
In summers passed away,
Was "the shaking of the pear-tree,"
In grandma's orchard gay.

A large old-fashioned orchard,
With long grass under foot,
And blackberry-brambles crawling
In many a tangled shoot.

From cherry time, till damsons
Dropped from the branches sere,
That wonderful old orchard
Was full of fruit all year;

We pick'd it up in baskets,
Or pluck'd it from the wall;
But the shaking of the pear-tree
Was the grandest treat of all.

Long, long the days we counted
Until that day drew nigh;
Then, how we watched the sun set,
And criticised the sky!

If rain--"'Twill clear at midnight;"
If dawn broke chill and gray,
"O many a cloudy morning
Turns out a lovely day."

So off we started gaily,
Heedless of jolt or jar;
Through town and lane, and hamlet,
In old Llewellyn's car.

He's dead and gone--Llewellyn,
These twenty years, I doubt:
If I put him in this poem,
He'll never find it out,

The patient, kind Llewellyn--
Whose broad face smiled all o'er,
As he lifted out us children
At grandma's very door.

And there stood Grandma's Betty,
With cheeks like apples red;
And Dash, the spaniel, waddled
Out of his cosy bed.

With silky ears down