Bluebird. 



THE BLUEBIRD. 



WHEN Nature made the bluebird she wished to 

 propitiate both the sky and the earth, so she gave 

 him the color of the one on his back and the hue of 

 the other on his breast, and ordained that his appear- 

 ance in spring should denote that the strife and war 

 between these two elements was at an end. He is 

 the peace-harbinger ; in him the celestial and terres- 

 trial strike hands and are fast friends. He means 

 the furrow and he means the warmth ; he means all 

 the soft, wooing influences of the spring on the one 

 hand, and the retreating footsteps of winter on the 

 other. 



It is sure to be a bright March morning when you 

 first hear his note ; and it is as if the milder in- 

 fluences up above had found a voice and let a word 

 fall upon your ear, so tender is it and so prophetic, a 

 hope tinged with a regret 



