1. When does the swallow arrive in our country? 2. How long does she remain with us? 6. Why do we hear her twittering with gladness? 7. Repeat the kind wishes in verse 3d. 8. Illustrate the two last lines of verse 4th. 9. Does the swallow not come here to build a nest, and rear its young? 10. What silent power brings the swallow back to its former nest? 11. Why are we sure that summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, shall always be? LESSONS TO BE DERIVED FROM BIRDS. G. W. DOANE. The Swan which is domesticated is termed the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor); yet it is respecting this bird that the fable became current, that it foretold its own death, and sung with peculiar sweetness at its approach. Thus Shakspeare: I will play the swan, But, although the voice of the Swan is but little noticed, the bird is not really mute, as its name would imply; the notes are soft and low, and are described by Yarrell as "plaintive, and with little variety, but not disagreeable." WHAT is that, mother? The lark, my child! The morn has but just look'd out, and smiled, Ever, my child! be thy morn's first lays What is that, mother? The dove, my son! And that low, sweet voice, like a widow's moan, As the wave is pour'd from some crystal urn, In friendship as faithful, as constant in love. What is that, mother? The eagle, boy! Proudly careering his course of joy, Firm on his own mountain vigour relying, No loved one now, no nestling nigh, Live so, my love, that when death shall come, 1. What does the lark do the moment he leaves his nest? 2. In what way should each of you imitate the lark? 3. As what has the dove been ever regarded by mankind? 4. Who will quote me Matt. x. 16? 5. What does the low sweet voice of the dove resemble? 6. For whom is she ever calling? 7. What lesson should you all learn from the dove? 8. Name to me the king of birds. 10. What lesson does the eagle give you all? 11. What bird is said to sing for the first time just before its death? 12. What does Mr Yarrell say about the swan singing? 13. What do you understand by "dying like the swan? 14. Who can only use the triumphant words of 1 Cor. xv. 55, at their death? TO A WATERFOWL. C. BRYANT. Let us paint a summer in the Arctic regions. It is very short-but short as it is, it sees the birth of thousands of most interesting beings, and every islet and every promontory is thronged by a dense population. As if by magic, the snows of winter have dissolved, and coarse herbage has covered the land. Every small pool, every lake, every inlet, is garlanded with vegetation. Driving onwards from the south (our temperate latitudes), arrive myriads of wild-fowl, water birds of various species, scoter ducks, widgeons, eider ducks, king ducks, pochards, &c., and also several species of wading birds. The work of incubation now commences. The ground is converted into a city of nests, rarely intruded upon by the foot of man. Here myriads of wild-fowl are reared. The water supplies them with food, and the reeds bend over their nests. But the summer is, as we have said, short. It passes not into winter by the transition of a mellowed autumn. As it sprang almost of a sudden out of winter, so it retires; but the wild birds, instinct-taught, anticipate the time when river and lake, pond and inlet, will be locked up with ice. Their young are fledged, strong on the wing, and now they commence their southern journey-not to seek a breeding home, but open lakes, open creeks, and seas wherein the ice-floe is never witnessed, and from which they may derive their sustenance.-Tract Society's Monthly Volume. WHITHER, 'midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, Seek'st thou the plashy brink There is a power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast- Lone-wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fann'd At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere; And soon that toil shall end: Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven He, who from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 1. At what time in the day did the poet see this waterfowl? 2. The rosy depths of what? 3. Could a fowler injure it? Why not? 4. Name the places it might be seeking for its nest. 5. What call you the principle which guides the actions of irrational creatures? 6. What does the adjective weary agree with? 7. Where would the waterfowl find rest? 8. Explain these words: "the abyss of heaven hath swallowed up thy form. 9. What important lesson had the poet learned from the wild fowl? A PSALM OF LIFE. LONGFELLOW. No poet (says the Rev. G. Gilfillan) has more beautifully expressed the depth of his conviction that life is an earnest reality, a something with eternal issues and dependencies; that this earth is no scene of revelry, or market of sale, but an arena of contest, and a hall of doom. This is the inspiration of his "Psalm of Life," than which we have few things finer, in moral tone, since those odes by which the millions of Israel tuned their march across the wilderness, and to which the fiery pillar seemed to listen with complacency, and to glow out a deeper crimson in silent praise. To man's now wilder, more straggling, but still God-guided and hopeful progress towards a land of fairer promise, Longfellow's Psalm is a noble accompaniment. TELL me not, in mournful numbers, Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, In the world's broad field of battle, Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant; 1. Are the events of life really what they appear at first sight to be? 2. What are afflictions designed to accomplish, if we will only learn? 3. Of what two parts does man consist? 4. Which part was formed of the dust of the ground, and must return to it? 5. What is not the end or design of life? 6. For what purpose, then, are we placed on the footstool? 7. Farther daily on what way? 8. To what does every beat of the heart bring us nearer ? 9. What must we be in the battle of life? 10. Name the enemies we meet with in this conflict. 11. Repeat the noble resolution expressed in the last verse. BERNARDO AND ALPHONSO. LOCKHART. Bernard Del Carpio, son of Donna Ximena, (the sister of Alonzo or Alphonso the Chaste), and of Don Sancho Count Saldana, is supposed to have the interview here described in the ballad with the king, after the treacherous execution, or rather murder, of Bernardo's father by Alphonso. The period is contemporaneous with that of Charlemagne, A.D. 768. WITH Some good ten of his chosen men, Bernardo hath appear'd 66 'A curse upon thee," cries the King, "who com'st unbid to me; But what from traitor's blood should spring, save traitors like to thee? His sire, Lords, had a traitor's heart; perhaps our Champion brave Your words, Lord King, are recompense abundant for it all. "Your horse was down-your hope was flown-I saw the falchion shine, That soon had drank your royal blood, had I not ventured mine; And ye've thank'd the son, for life and crown, by the father's bloody fate. 66 Ye swore, upon your kingly faith, to set Don Sancho free, But, shame upon your paltering breath, the light he ne'er did see; He died in dungeon cold and dim, by Alphonso's base decree, And visage blind, and stiffen'd limb, were all they gave to me. 66 The king that swerveth from his word hath stain'd his purple black, No Spanish Lord will draw the sword behind a liar's back: But noble vengeance shall be mine, an open hate I'll show— "Seize-seize him!"-loud the King doth scream-" There are a thousand here Let his foul blood this instant stream-What, caitiffs, do you fear? "Ha! Bernard," quoth Alphonso, "what means this warlike guise? * Roncesvalles (French Roncevaux), a frontier village of Spain, in a gorge of the Pyrenees. Here, it is traditionally said that the rear-guard of Charlemagne's army, under Roland or Orlando, was defeated and destroyed in 778, and that Roland himself fell by the hand of Bernardo del Carpio. |