66 BIRDIE, Birdie, will you, pet? Summer is far and far away yet. You'll have silken quilts and a velvet bed,

And a pillow of satin for your head."

"I'd rather sleep in the ivy wall: No rain comes through, though I hear it fall;

The sun peeps gay at dawn of day, And I sing, and wing away, away!"

"O Birdie, Birdie, will you, pet? Diamond stones and amber and jet We'll string on a necklace fair and fine, To please this pretty bird of mine."

"Oh! thanks for diamonds, and thanks for jet;

But here is something daintier yet,
A feather necklace, round and round,
That I would not sell for a thousand

I MUST go furnish up

A nest I have begun,

And will return and bring ye meat, As soon as it is done.

Then up she clambe the clouds
With such a lusty lay,

That it rejoiced her younglings' heart,
As in their nest they lay.

ARTHUR BOAR

FLIGHT OF THE WILD GEESE.

RAMBLING along the marshes,
On the bank of the Assabet,
Sounding myself as to how it went,
Praying that I might not forget,
And all uncertain

Whether I was in the right,
Toiling to lift Time's curtain,

And if I burnt the strongest light;
Suddenly,

High in the air,

I heard the travelled geese

Their overture prepare.

Stirred above the patent ball,
The wild geese flew,

Nor near so wild as that doth me befall,

Or, swollen Wisdom, you.

In the front there fetched a leader, Him behind the line spread out, And waved about,

As it was near night,

When these air-pilots stop their flight.

Cruising off the shoal dominion
Where we sit,

Depending not on their opinion,
Nor hiving sops of wit;
Geographical in tact,

Naming not a pond or river,

Pulled with twilight down in fact,
In the reeds to quack and quiver,
There they go,

Spectators at the play below,
Southward in a row.

Cannot land and map the stars
The indifferent geese,

Nor taste the sweetmeats in odd jars,
Nor speculate and freeze;
Rancid weasands need be well,
Feathers glossy, quills in order,
Starts this train, yet rings no bell;
Steam is raised without recorder.

"Up, my feathered fowl, all,"
Saith the goose commander,
"Brighten your bills, and flirt your
pinions,

My toes are nipped, let us render
Ourselves in soft Guatemala,
Or suck puddles in Campeachy,
Spitzbergen-cake cuts very frosty,
And the tipple is not leechy.