204 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



8. A neighboring gentleman one summer had lost most 

 of his chickens by a sparrow-hawk, that came gliding 

 down between a fagot-pile and the end of his house to the 

 place whore the coops stood. The owner, inwardly vexed 

 to see his flock thus diminished, hung a setting-net adroitly 

 between the pile and the house, into which the caitiff 

 dashed and was entangled. Resentment suggested the 

 law of retaliation ; he therefore clipped the hawk's wings, 

 cut off his talons, and, fixing a cork on his bill, threw 

 him down among the brood-hens. Imagination can not 

 paint the scene that ensued ; the expressions that fear, 

 rage, and revenge inspired were new, or at least such as 

 had been unnoticed before : the exasperated matrons up- 

 braided, they execrated, they insulted, they triumphed. 

 In a word, they never desisted from buffeting their adver- 

 sary till they had torn him into a hundred pieces. 



Wilde's Setborne. 



ODE TO THE SKY-LARK. 



1. Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 



Bird thou never wert, 

 That from heaven, or near it, 

 Pourest thy full heart 

 In profuse strains of unpremeditated art, 



2. Higher still and higher, 



From the earth thou springes! 

 Like a cloud of fire ; 



The blue deep thou wingest, 

 And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 



