THE BOY-HUNTER. 89 
mon forms about me, I grew weary: they did not fill my 
longings for—I knew not what !—but when the wild-bird, 
gleaming past, told me of the beautiful, the vivid, and the 
free, I no longer tarried with dull sense! I wore no wings, 
but yet I followed it, beating the air with visionary plumes, 
to fling the sunshine off; mine were no mellow pipes, but yet 
I felt a carol in the blossoming tree, and sung by shady 
streamlets a low, rippling trill—wild among flowers and vines, 
darting through shadows in tameless shine, I went, with the 
swift thing, in riot through our joy! Ah, it filled me with 
the freshness of* untamable delight, and set my spirit free on 
its gem-dusted wings ! , 
As for that young squirrel, out from deep woods where 
some old oak had nursed it, rocking the soft sprite in his 
rigid arms, it won my very soul, with its dark glistening eyes 
and feathery brush! I felt the frosty patriarch of shades em- 
brace it gently and warm within his knotted bosom, when the 
battle-wind of winter had come forth; and saw its airy bound- 
ings lend a frolic grace to his grey poll, when gay spring 
breezes wooed him. Enchanted now, and eager of sweet 
mysteries, I entered where its leafy bed was rolled, and where 
the garnered stores lay fragrant in dim chambers of that 
oaken heart. 
And then I smiled in dreaming, for I saw it here with 
strange surroundings! It had troops of little friends, the 
leaf-winged elves, that came into its chambers when the moon 
went down, and were all a-shiver with the cold, raw morning ; 
and with puffy cheeks, straining at the load, they brought it 
round, fat nuts, an armful each, and threw them on the little 
heaps within its garner ;—some, rare acorns, too, and some, 
triangled beech-nuts, or purple wild grape, or a bursting bud 
—this was for love and—breakfast! Then they would creep 
in bed with folded wings, and I could plainly see them pulling 
its soft brush aside to get beneath the cover, and it would stir 
a bit as if in vision it saw the dainties they had brought, and 
