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Nightingale.

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The Roman senate, when within
The city walls an owl was seen,
Did cause their clergy, with lustrations

The round-fac'd prodigy t' avert, From doing town or country hurt. BUTLER-Hudibras. Pt. II.

1.

Canto III. L. 709.

In the hollow tree, in the old gray tower,
The spectral Owl doth dwell;
Dull, hated, despised, in the sunshine hour,
But at dusk-he 's abroad and well!
Not a bird of the forest e'er mates with him-
All mock him outright, by day:

But at night, when the woods grow still and dim,

The boldest will shrink away!

O, when the night falls, and roosts the fowl, Then, then, is the reign of the Horned Owl! BARRY CORNWALL-The Owl.

m.

The startled bats flew out-bird after bird-
The screech owl overhead began to flutter,
And seem'd to mock the cry that she had
heard
Some dying victim utter.

n.

L. 574.

O honey-throated warbler of the grove!
That in the glooming woodland art so proud
Of answering thy sweet mates in soft or loud,
Thou dost not own a note we do not love.
h. CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER-
Sonnets and Fugitive Pieces.
To the Nightingale.

The rose looks out in the valley,

And thither will I go,

To the rosy vale, where the nightingale Sings his song of woe.

i. GIL VICENTE-The Nightingale.

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Bowring's trans.

q. Macbeth. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 3.

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Nimbly they seized and secreted their prey, Alive and wriggling in the elastic net, Which Nature hung beneath their grasping beaks;

Till, swoln with captures, the unwieldy burden

Clogg'd their slow flight, as heavily to land,
These mighty hunters of the deep return'd.
There on the cragged cliffs they perch'd at
ease,

Gorging their hapless victims one by one;
Then full and weary, side by side, they slept,
Till evening roused them to the chase again.
b. MONTGOMERY-Pelican Island.
Canto IV. L. 141.

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On fair Britannia's isle, bright bird,
A legend strange is told of thee,-
'Tis said thy blithesome song was hushed
While Christ toiled up Mount Calvary,
Bowed 'neath the sins of all mankind;
And humbled to the very dust
By the vile cross, while viler man

Mocked with a crown of thorns the Just. Pierced by our sorrows, and weighed down By our transgressions,-faint and weak, Crushed by an angry Judge's frown,

And agonies no word can speak,'Twas then, dear bird, the legend says That thou, from out His crown, didst tear The thorns, to lighten the distress,

And ease the pain that he must bear, While pendant from thy tiny beak

The gory points thy bosom pressed, And crimsoned with thy Saviour's blood The sober brownness of thy breast! Since which proud hour for thee and thine, As an especial sign of grace

God pours like sacramental wine

Red signs of favor o'er thy race!
n. DELLE W. NORTON-To the Robin

Redbreast.

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