day,
The little orphan, Alice Fell!

_W. Wordsworth_

CLVII

_THE FIRST SWALLOW_

The gorse is yellow on the heath,
The banks with speedwell flowers are gay,
The oaks are budding, and, beneath,
The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath,
The silver wreath, of May.

The welcome guest of settled Spring,
The swallow, too, has come at last;
Just at sunset, when thrushes sing,
I saw her dash with rapid wing,
And hail'd her as she past.

Come, summer visitant, attach
To my reed roof your nest of clay,
And let my ear your music catch,
Low twittering underneath the thatch
At the grey dawn of day.

_C. Smith_

CLVIII

_THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD_

They grew in beauty side by side,
They fill'd one home with glee;--
Their graves are sever'd far and wide,--
By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeping brow:
She had each folded flower in sight,--
Where are those dreamers now?

One, midst the forests of the West,
By a dark stream is laid--
The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one--
He lies where pearls lie deep;
He was the loved of all, yet none
O'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where Southern vines are drest
Above the noble slain:
He wrapt his colours round his breast,
On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one--o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fann'd;
She faded midst Italian flowers,
The last of that bright band.

And parted thus they rest who play'd
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they pray'd
Around one parent knee;

They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheer'd with song the hearth!--
Alas for love! if _thou_ wert all,
And naught beyond, O, Earth!

_F. Hemans_

CLIX

_THE THRUSH'S NEST_

Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush,
That overhung a mole-hill large and round,
I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush
Sing hymns of rapture, while I drank the sound
With joy; and oft, an unintruding guest,
I watch'd her secret toils from day to day,
How true she warp'd the moss to form her nest,
And modell'd