Tells that one larder's space is filled,
And tilts upon a towering tree;
And, valiant, quick, and keenly thrilled,
Upstarts the tiny chickadee;

When the sun's still shortening arc

Too soon night's shadows dun and gray
Brings on, and fields are drear and dark,
And summer birds have flown away,-

I feel the year's slow-beating heart,
The sky's chill prophecy I know;
And welcome the consummate art

Which weaves this spotless shroud of snow!

IN JUNE

By Nora Perry

O sweet, so sweet the roses in their blowing,

So sweet the daffodils, so fair

to see;

So blithe and gay the hummingbird a-going

From flower to flower, a-hunt-
ing with the bee.

So sweet, so sweet the calling of the thrushes,
The calling, cooing, wooing, everywhere;
So sweet the water's song through reeds and rushes,
The plover's piping note, now here, now there.

So sweet, so sweet from off the fields of clover
The west wind blowing, blowing up the hill;
So sweet, so sweet with news of some one's lover,
Fleet footsteps, ringing nearer, nearer still.

So near, so near, now listen, listen thrushes;

Now plover, blackbird, cease, and let me hear; And water, hush your song through reeds and rushes

That I may know whose lover cometh near.

So loud, so loud the thrushes kept their calling,
Plover or blackbird never heeding me;
So loud the mill-stream too kept fretting, falling,
O'er bar and bank, in brawling, boisterous
glee.

So loud, so loud; yet blackbird, thrush, nor plover,

Nor noisy mill-stream, in its fret and fall,

Could drown the voice, the low voice of my lover,

My lover calling through the thrushes' call.

"Come down, come down!" he called, and straight

The blackbird chirped, the plover piped, "Come down!"

Then down and off, and through the fields of clover,

I followed, followed, at my lover's call; Listening no more to blackbird, thrush, or plover, The water's laugh, the mill-stream's fret and fall.

AUGUST

By William Davis Gallagher

UST on my mantle! dust,
Bright Summer, on thy livery of
green!

A tarnish, as of rust,

Dims thy late-brilliant sheen: And thy young glories-leaf,

and bud, and flower

Change cometh over them with every hour.

Thee hath the August sun

Looked on with hot, and fierce, and brassy face:
And still and lazily run,

Scarce whispering in their pace,
The half-dried rivulets, that lately sent
A shout of gladness up, as on they went.

Flame-like, the long mid-day

With not so much of sweet air as hath stirr'd
The down upon the spray,

Where rests the panting bird,

Dozing away the hot and tedious noon,
With fitful twitter, sadly out of tune.

Seeds in the sultry air,

And gossamer web-work on the sleeping trees!
E'en the tall pines, that rear

Their plumes to catch the breeze,

The slightest breeze from the unrefreshing west, Partake the general languor, and deep rest.

Happy, as man can be,

Stretch'd on his back, in homely bean-vine bower, While the voluptuous bee

Robs each surrounding flower,

And prattling childhood clambers o'er his breast, The husbandman enjoys his noon-day rest.

Against the hazy sky

The thin and fleecy clouds, unmoving, rest.
Beneath them far, yet high

In the dim, distant west,

The vulture, scenting thence its carrion-fare,
Sails, slowly circling in the sunny air.

Soberly, in the shade,

Repose the patient cow, and toil-worn ox;
Or in the shoal stream wade,

Sheltered by jutting rocks:

The fleecy flock, fly-scourg'd and restless, rush
Madly from fence to fence, from bush to bush.

Tediously pass the hours,

And vegetation wilts, with blistered root-
And droop the thirsting flow'rs,

Where the slant sunbeams shoot:

But of each tall old tree, the lengthening line, Slow-creeping eastward, marks the day's decline.

Faster, along the plain,

Moves now the shade, and on the meadow's edge: The kine are forth again,

The bird flits in the hedge.

Now in the molten west sinks the hot sun.
Welcome, mild eve! — the sultry day is done.

Pleasantly comest thou,

Dew of the evening, to the crisp'd-up grass;
And the curl'd corn-blades bow,

As the light breezes pass,

That their parch'd lips may feel thee, and expand, Thou sweet reviver of the fevered land.

So, to the thirsting soul,

Cometh the dew of the Almighty's love;
And the scathed heart, made whole,
Turneth in joy above,

To where the spirit freely may expand,
And rove, untrammel'd, in that "better land."

A

THE CARDINAL BIRD

By William Davis Gallagher

DAY and then a week passed by:

The redbird hanging from the sill
Sang not; and all were wondering why
It was so still

When one bright morning, loud and clear,
Its whistle smote my drowsy ear,