Passing at home a patient life,

Broods in the grass while her husband sings"Bob-o-link, bob-o-link, spink, spank, spink: Brood, kind creature; you need not fear

Thieves and robbers while I am here

Chee, chee, chee."

Modest and shy as a nun is she;

One weak chirp is her only note.
Braggart, and prince of braggarts is he,
Pouring boasts from his little throat :

"Bob-o-link, bob-o-link, spink, spank, spink:
Never was I afraid of man;

Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can

*

Chee, chee, chee."

The Prairies:

These are the gardens of the Desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,

For which the speech of England has no name—
The Prairies. I behold them for the first,

And my heart swells, while the dilated sight
Takes in the encircling vastness.

In airy undulations, far away,

Lo! they stretch

As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,

Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,

And motionless forever. Motionless?

No- they are all unchained again. The clouds
Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath,

The surface rolls and fluctuates to the

eye;
Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase
The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South!
Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,

And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,

Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not-ye have played
Among the palms of Mexico and vines.

Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks

That from the fountains of Sonora glide
Into the calm Pacific-have ye fanned

A nobler or a lovelier scene than this?

The following stanzas form part of his poem, entitled, The

Battle-field:

Soon rested those who fought; but thou,

Who minglest in the harder strife
For truths which men receive not now,
Thy warfare only ends with life.
A friendless warfare! lingering long
Through weary day and weary year.
A wild, and many-weaponed throng
Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear.

Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,

And blench not at thy chosen lot.

The timid good may stand aloof,

The sage may frown-yet faint thou not.

Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,

The foul and hissing bolt of scorn;
For with thy side shall dwell, at last,
The victory of endurance born.

Then follows the oft-cited, magnificent verse,—

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;

But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers!

The Hunter of the Prairies is another fine poem :

Ay, this is freedom!-these pure skies

Were never stained with village smoke :
The fragrant wind, that through them flies,
Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.

Here, with my rifle and my steed,

And her who left the world for me,
I plant me, where the red deer feed
In the green desert-and am free.
For here the fair savannas know

No barriers in the bloomy grass;
Wherever breeze of heaven may blow,
Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.

In pastures, measureless as air,
The bison is my noble game;

The bounding elk, whose antlers tear
The branches, falls before my aim.
Mine are the river-fowl that scream

From the long stripe of waving sedge;
The bear, that marks my weapon's gleam,
Hides vainly in the forest's edge;
In vain the she-wolf stands at bay;

The brinded catamount, that lies
High in the boughs to watch his prey,
Even in the act of springing, dies.
With what free growth the elm and plane
Fling their huge arms across my way,
Gray, old, and cumbered with a train
Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray!

Another of Mr. Bryant's most admired productions is his Forest Hymn, commencing:

The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned

To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,

And spread the roof above them,-ere he framed

The lofty vault, to gather and roll back

The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,

Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down,

And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences

Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,

And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven

Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once

All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why
Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore

Only among the crowd, and under roofs

That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,

Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,

Offer one hymn-thrice happy, if it find
Acceptance in His ear.

"The name of LEIGH HUNT," says Smiles, "is associated in our minds with all manner of kindness, love, beauty, and gentleness. He has given us a fresh insight into nature, made the flowers seem gayer, the earth greener, the skies more bright, and all things more full of happiness and blessing." He has given us some fine poems. Here is one about the Flowers, with a touch of the quaintness of the elder poets :

We are the sweet flowers, born of sunny showers,

(Think, whene'er you see us, what our beauty saith);
Utterance mute and bright, of some unknown delight,
We fill the air with pleasure by our simple breath :
All who see us, love us-we befit all places;
Unto sorrow we give smiles,—and to graces, graces.
Mark our ways, how noiseless all, and sweetly voiceless,

Though the March winds pipe to make our passage clear;

Not a whisper tells where our small seed dwells,

Nor is known the moment green when our tips appear.

We thread the earth in silence, in silence build our bowers,

And leaf by leaf in silence show, till we laugh a-top, sweet flowers'