es speak,
And forests fly as though of straw;
Or on some lightning-splintered peak,
Sceptred with desolation's law,
The shrubless mountain in his beak,
The barren desert in his claw.

ALGER'S _Oriental Poetry_.

* * * * *

SHADOWS OF BIRDS.

In darkened air, alone with pain,
I lay. Like links of heavy chain
The minutes sounded, measuring day,
And slipping lifelessly away.
Sudden across my silent room
A shadow darker than its gloom
Swept swift; a shadow slim and small,
Which poised and darted on the wall,
And vanished quickly as it came.
A shadow, yet it lit like flame;
A shadow, yet I heard it sing,
And heard the rustle of its wing,
Till every pulse with joy was stirred;
It was the shadow of a bird!

Only the shadow! Yet it made
Full summer everywhere it strayed;
And every bird I ever knew
Back and forth in the summer flew,
And breezes wafted over me
The scent of every flower and tree;
Till I forgot the pain and gloom
And silence of my darkened room.
Now, in the glorious open air
I watch the birds fly here and there;
And wonder, as each swift wing cleaves
The sky, if some poor soul that grieves
In lonely, darkened, silent walls,
Will catch the shadow as it falls!

H. H.

* * * * *

THE BIRD AND THE SHIP.

"The rivers rush into the sea,
By castle and town they go;
The winds behind them merrily
Their noisy trumpets blow.

"The clouds are passing far and high,
We little birds in them play;
And everything, that can sing and fly,
Goes with us, and far away.

"I greet thee, bonny boat! Whither or whence,
With thy fluttering golden band?"
"I greet thee, little bird! To the wide sea,
I haste from the narrow land.

"Full and swollen is every sail;
I see no longer a hill,
I have trusted all to the sounding gale,
And it will not let me stand still.

"And wilt thou, little bird, go with us?
Thou mayest stand on the mainmast tall,
For full to sinking is my house
With merry companions all."

"I need not and seek not company,
Bonny boat, I can sing all alone;
For the mainmast tall too heavy am I,
Bonny boat, I have wings of my own.

"High over the sails, high over the mast,