wood;

The oriole in the elm; the noisy jay,

Jargoning like a foreigner at his food; The blue-bird balanced on some topmost spray

Flooding with melody the neighbourhood;

Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng

That dwell in nests, and have the gift of song.

"You slay them all! and wherefore? for the gain

Of a scant handful more or less of wheat,

Or rye, or barley, or some other grain, Scratched up at random by industrious feet,

Searching for worm or weevil after rain! Or a few cherries that are not so sweet

Of insects in the windrows of the hay,

And hear the locust and the grasshopper

Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play! Is this more pleasant to you than the whirr

Of meadow-lark, and its sweet roundelay,

Or twitter of little fieldfares, as you take

Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake?

"You call them thieves and pillagers; but know

They are the winged wardens of your farms,

Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe,

And from your harvests keep a hundred harms;

Even the blackest of them all, the crow, Renders good service as your man

at-arms,

Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, And crying havoc on the slug and snail.

"How can I teach your children gentleness,

And mercy to the weak, and reve

rence

For Life, which, in its weakness or

excess,

Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence,

and beams

no less

The self-same light, although averted

hence,

When by your laws, your actions, and your speech,

You contradict the very things I teach?" With this he closed; and through the audience went

A murmur, like the rustle of dead leaves;

The farmers laughed and nodded, and some bent

Their yellow heads together like their sheaves;

408

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. BETWEEN the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's

Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,

Descending the broad hall-stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence :
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret

O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape they surround me ; They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,

Their arms about me entwine, Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine! Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, Because you have scaled the wall, Such an old moustache as I am Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,

Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

ENCELADUS.

UNDER Mount Etna he lies,

It is slumber, it is not death; For he struggles at times to arise, And above him the lurid skies

Are hot with his fiery breath. The crags are piled on his breast,

The earth is heaped on his head ; But the groans of his wild unrest, Though smothered and half-suppressed, Are heard, and he is not dead.

And the nations far away

Are watching with eager eyes;
They talk together and say,
"To-morrow, perhaps to-day,
Enceladus will arise!"

And the old gods, the austere

Oppressors in their strength,
Stand aghast and white with fear
At the ominous sounds they hear,
And tremble, and mutter, "At
length !"

Ah me! for the land that is sown
With the harvest of despair!
Where the burning cinders, blown
From the lips of the overthrown
Enceladus, fill the air.