eam in distance dim,
Tears rouse me with a sudden shock;
Lo! at my door, erect and trim,
The postman gives his double knock.

And a great city's lumbering noise
Arises with confusing hum,
And whistling shrill of butchers' boys;
My day begins, my bird is dumb.

_Temple Bar._

* * * * *

KEATS'S NIGHTINGALE.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down:
The voice I heard this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! Adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side: and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:--do I wake or sleep?

J. KEATS.

* * * * *

LARK AND NIGHTINGALE.

Color and form may be conveyed by words,
But words are weak to tell the heavenly strains
That from the throats of these celestial birds
Rang through the woods and o'er the echoing plains;
There was the meadow-lark with voice as sweet,
But robed in richer raiment than our own;
And as the moon smiled on his green retreat,
The painted nightingale sang out alone.

Words cannot echo music's winged note,
One voice alone exhausts their utmost power;
'Tis that strange bird, whose many-voiced throat
Mocks all his brethren of the woodlawn bower,
To whom, indeed, the gift of tongues is given,
The musical, rich tongues that fill the grove;
Now, like the lark, dropping his notes from heaven,
Now cooing the soft notes of the dove.

Oft have I seen him, scorning all control,
Winging his arrowy flight, rapid and strong,
As if in search of his evanished soul,
Lost in the gushing ecstasy of song;
And as I wandered on and upward gazed,