LXIV.

INSECT JOY.

ABOVE the streamlet's bend, in this warm nook,
How vast the sum of gladness at its height!-
Yea, overflowing!-gladness that cannot brook
A moment's stillness!-but impels to flight
Whose twinkling evolutions baffle sight,
And to the eye most fixed and searching look
As weaving but confusion exquisite ;
While yet each wing moves freely, as it took
A lonely way, fanning the evening breeze,
In place of beams instinct with life as these!
And is this joy, so rapturously high,

A drop-a point immeasurably small

Of that which fills the earth, the air, the sky ?Oh, who shall speak thy praise, Great, Bounteous God of all!

LXV.

TO A CAGED THRUSH.

(IN A CROWDED STREET.)

I.

Thou mayst be light of heart, sweet bird,

Though reft of liberty;

And blither notes I never heard

From sunniest bush or tree.

II.

And yet, though I could listen long,

Wert thou unprisoned nigh,

And thank thee for that well-known song,

It now but wakes a sigh:

III.

A sigh for far-off meadows green,

Or more for sheltering grove,

Where thou didst learn those notes, I ween, And I should joy to rove.

IV.

I scarce can think thou art so gay
As thou wouldst fondly seem;

But rather thus wouldst chase away
An ever returning dream :

V.

A dream that o'er thee from a cloud,
Or passing breeze might creep:

Thou singest as one might laugh aloud
That else were forced to weep.

VI.

Or is it, thou wouldst sweetly teach

A lesson of content

With any lot that comes, to each

Who sees thy banishment?

U

VII.

Art thou a little winged spright
Within these busy haunts,

To show how men may put to flight
Their sorrows and their wants?

VIII.

Oh, I will deem it thus may be,
And so to thee will listen,

Till I can praise for liberty,

As thou dost for thy prison.

IX.

I will not sigh for the green fields,
Or woodlands, far away;
But take what even a city yields

Of gladness for to-day.

X.

As thou wouldst vainly beat thy wing

Against the wires about thee;

And so contentedly dost sing

Where all were gloom without thee,

XI.

So I, with happier lot than thine,
Will chafe or struggle never;

But make like thine my home a shrine
Of songs and gladness ever.