186 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



To shining flames she doth her life commend, 

 Dies to revive, and goes into her Grave 

 To rise againe more beautifull and brave. 

 With Incense, Cassia, Spiknard, Myrrh, and Balm, 

 By break of Day shee builds (in narrow room) 

 Her Urn, her Nest, her Cradle, and her Toomb ; 

 Where, while she sits all gladly-sad expecting 

 Some flame (against her fragrant heap reflecting) 

 To burn her sacred bones to seedfull cinders, 

 (Wherein, her age, but not her life, she renders.) 



And Sol himself, glancing his goulden eyes 



On th' odoriferous Couch wherein she lies, 



Kindles the spice, and by degrees consumes 



Th' immortall Phcenix, both her flesh and plumes. 



But instantly, out of her ashes springs 



A Worm, an Egg then, then a Bird with wings, 



Just like the first, (rather the same indeed) 



Which (re-ingendred of its selfly seed) 



By nobly dying, a new Date begins, 



And where she loseth, there her life she wins : 



Endless by'r End, eternall by her Toomb ; 



While, by a prosperous Death, she doth becom 



(Among the cinders of her sacred Fire) 



Her own selfs Heir, Nurse, Nurseling, Dam and Sire." 



THE SWALLOW. 



" And is the swallow gone ? 

 Who beheld it ? 

 Which way sailed it ? 

 Farewell bade it none ? " 



(W. Smith, Country book.) 



Olaus Magnus answered this question, according to his 

 lights, and when, discoursing on the Migration of Swal- 

 lows he says : " Though many Writers of Natural His- 

 tories have written that Swallows change their stations ; 

 that is, when cold Winter begins to come, they fly to 



