THE NIGHTINGALE.

1. No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues.
Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge!

2.

All is still:

A balmy night! and though the stars be dim,
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

3. And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,
"Most musical, most melancholy" bird!
A melancholy bird! Oh! idle thought!
In nature there is nothing melancholy.
'Tis the merry nightingale

4.

That crowds and hurries and precipitates
With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chaunt and disburthen his full soul
Of all its music!

And I know a grove
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge
Which the great lord inhabits not; and so
This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
5. But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many nightingales; and far and near,
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove,
They answer and provoke each other's song
With skirmish and capricious passagings,
And murmurs musical and swift jugjug,

6.

And one low piping sound more sweet than all—
Stirring the air with such a harmony

That should you close your eyes, you might almost
Forget it was not day!

On moon-lit bushes,

Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed

You may perchance behold them on the twigs,

Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade Lights up her love-torch.

7.

A most gentle Maid,

Who dwelleth in her hospitable home
Hard by the castle, and at latest eve
(Even like a Lady vowed and dedicate

To something more than nature in the grove)
Glides through the pathways; she knows all their notes
That gentle Maid!

And oft a moment's space,

What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,

8.

Hath heard a pause of silence; till the moon
Emerging hath awakened earth and sky
With one sensation, and these wakeful birds
Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
As if one quick and sudden gale had swept
A hundred airy harps! And she hath watched
Many a nightingale perched giddily

On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze,

And to that motion tune his wanton song
Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head.
9. Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve;
And you, my friends, farewell, a short farewell!
We have been loitering long and pleasantly,
And now for our dear homes.-That strain again!
Full fain it would delay me!

10.

11.

12.

My dear babe, Who capable of no articulate sound

Mars all things with his imitative lisp,

How he would place his hand beside his ear,
His little hand, the small forefinger up,

And bid us listen!

And I deem it wise

To make him Nature's playmate. He knows well
The evening star; and once, when he awoke
In most distressful mood (some inward pain
Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream)
I hurried with him to our orchard plot

And he beheld the moon and hushed at once
Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,

While his fair eyes that swam with undropped tears
Did glitter in the yellow moonbeam!

Well!

It is a father's tale. But if that Heaven

Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
Familiar with these songs, that with the night
He may associate joy.—Once more, farewell,
Sweet Nightingale! Once more, my friends! farewell.

-S. T. Coleridge (1772–1834).

'Most musical:' this is a quotation from Milton's Il Penseroso: "'Less Philomel will deign a song,

Sweet-bird that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!"

VEGETABLE CELLS.

1. The microscope is the great revealer of the secrets of vegetable life to man. By its aid we know that the whole edifice of the vegetable world is built up from the cell, and that the organs of plants, however diverse from one another, all have cells as their primary elements.

2. Vegetable cells are extremely small, in some instances not exceeding the thousandth part of an inch in diameter. They are globular at first, but as they increase and press on one another their form is frequently changed. So minute as to be invisible to the naked eye they are nevertheless animated by a strange plastic force which causes them to increase with amazing rapidity. It is these living atoms which yearly cover our soil with verdure, and in spring awaken to life the vast forest or prairie after their winter sleep.

3. As they combine with one another, these wonderful elements become fibres or vessels, and when these again are grouped together, they form roots and twigs and leaves and flowers. So rapid in some cases is this process, that a body of cells, not a hundredth part of the size of a pin's head, sometimes produces in a single night a plant which reaches the size of a large cannon ball. This takes place in some kinds of Fungus.

In

4. Notwithstanding the extreme minuteness of the interiors of the cells they still contain bodies of various kinds which are of great importance to the plant. the leaves, for example, some of the cells are filled with small granules which impart to vegetation the beautiful green colour it everywhere displays. Fine crystals of many various shapes have been observed in the cells, as in those of the Rhubarb plant, while even minute animals,