Is it in type, since Nature's lyre
Vibrates to every note in man,
Of that insatiable desire

Meant to be so, since life began?

I, in strange lands at gray of dawn,
Wakeful, have heard that fruitless plaint
Through memory's chambers deep withdrawn
Renew its iterations faint.

So nigh! yet from remotest years
It seems to draw its magic, rife
With longings unappeased, and tears
Drawn from the very source of life.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: in Scribner.

TO THE STORK.

Welcome, O Stork! that dost wing
Thy flight from the far-away!
Thou hast brought us the signs of Spring,
Thou hast made our sad hearts gay.

Descend, O Stork! descend

Upon our roof to rest;
In our ash-tree, O my friend,
My darling, make thy nest.

To thee, O Stork, I complain,
O Stork, to thee I impart
The thousand sorrows, the pain
And aching of my heart.

When thou away didst go,

Away from this tree of ours,
The withering winds did blow,
And dried up all the flowers.

Dark grew

the brilliant sky,

Cloudy and dark and drear;

They were breaking the snow on high,
And winter was drawing near.

From Varaca's rocky wall,

From the rock of Varaca unrolled,
The snow came and covered all,

And the green meadow was cold.

O Stork, our garden with snow
Was hidden away and lost,
And the rose-trees that in it grow
Were withered by snow and frost.

H. W. LONG FELLOW.

THE STORKS OF DELFT.

The tradition of the storks at Delft (Holland), is, however, still alive, and no traveller writes about the city without remembering them.

The fact occurred at the time of the great fire which ruined almost all the city. There were in Delft innumerable storks' nests. It must be understood that the stork is the favorite bird of Holland; the bird of good fortune, like the swallow; welcome to all, because it makes war upon toads and frogs; that the peasants plant poles with circular floor of wood on top to attract them to make their nests, and that in some towns they

may be seen walking in the streets. At Delft they were in great numbers. When the fire broke out, which was on the 3d May, the young storks were fledged, but could not yet fly. Seeing the fire approach, the parent storks attempted to carry their young out of danger ; but they were too heavy; and, after having tried all sorts of desperate efforts, the poor birds were forced to give it up.

They might have saved themselves and have abandoned the little ones to their fate, as human creatures often do under similar circumstances. But they stayed upon their nests, gathered their little ones about them, covered them with their wings, as if to retard, as long as possible, the fatal moment, and so awaited death, in that loving and noble attitude.

And who shall say if, in the horrible dismay and flight from the flames, that example of self-sacrifice, that voluntary maternal martyrdom, may not have given strength and courage to some weak soul who was about to abandon those who had need of him.

DE AMICIS' Holland.

THE PHEASANT.

See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings.

Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.
Ah! what avail his glossy, varying dyes,

His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes,
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,

His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold!

POPE.

THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD.

Silent are all the sounds of day;

Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets,

And the cry of the herons winging their

way

O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets.

Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass

To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes, Sing him the song of the green morass,

And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.

Sing him the mystical song of the Hern,

And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking; For only a sound of lament we discern,

And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.

Sing of the air, and the wild delight

Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you, The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight

Through the drift of the floating mists that enfold you;

Of the landscape lying so far below,

With its towns and rivers and desert places; And the splendor of light above, and the glow Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces.

Ask him if songs of the Troubadours,
Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter,
Sound in his ears more sweet than yours,

And if yours are not sweeter and wilder and better.

H. W. LONGFellow.

WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID.

Vogelweid the Minnesinger,

When he left this world of ours, Laid his body in the cloister,

Under Würtzburg's minster towers.

And he gave the monks his treasures,
Gave them all with this behest :
They should feed the birds at noontide
Daily on his place of rest;

Saying, "From these wandering minstrels I have learned the art of song;

Let me now repay the lessons

They have taught so well and long."

Thus the bard of love departed;

And, fulfilling his desire,

On his tomb the birds were feasted
By the children of the choir.

Day by day, o'er tower and turret,
In foul weather and in fair,
Day by day, in vaster numbers,
Flocked the poets of the air.

On the tree whose heavy branches
Overshadowed all the place,

On the pavement, on the tombstone,
On the poet's sculptured face,

On the crossbars of each window,
On the lintel of each door,