THE LANGUAGE OF- BIRDS. 
41 
Now jewels cold, and now pervaded 
With heavenly fire ye thrill, 
And kindle into life, and bear 
Beauty and music through the air ; 
The embryos of a shell to-day ; 
To-morrow, and — away ! away ! 
Methinks, even as I gaze, there springs 
Life from each tinted cone ; 
And wandering thought has onward flown 
With speed -careering wings, 
To lands, to summer lands afar, 
To the mangrove, and the palm ; 
To the region of each stranger star 
Led by a blissful charm : 
Like toys in beauty here they lay — 
They are gone o'er the sounding ocean's spray ; 
They are gone to bowers and skies more fair. 
And have left us to our march of care. 
W. HowiTT. 
E 2 
