350 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
His are resplendent eyes; 
His mien is kingliwise ; 
And down the March wind rides he like a king 
With more than royal purple on his wing. 
His palace is the brake 
Where the rushes shine and shake; 
His music is the murmur of the stream, 
And the leaf-rustle where the lilies dream. 
Such life as his would be 
A more than heaven to me; 
All sun, all bloom, all happy weather, 
All joys bound in a sheaf together. 
No wonder he laughs so loud ! 
No wonder he looks so proud ! 
There are great kings would give their royalty 
To have one day of his felicity ! 
— Maurice THOMPSON. 
“The very name of Phoebe calls us from the Redwing in 
The the marsh meadows and the Kingfisher by the 
ee waterways and brings us home again. Not only 
within the home acres, but close to the house, barns, and 
woodshed, for has she not been living in and about them 
quite as long as we have, or even longer? There was 
a Phoebe who always built her first nest on the deep 
sill of the dormer-window of the store-closet, and her 
second in the bracket that supports the hood of the 
north window in the guest-room. 
“‘She was not very tidy about her work of nest-building 
(it seems more natural to call the Phoebe she than he), but 
then, it must be very difficult to make a nest with a high 
