ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 
347 
THE BLUE-JAY. 
0 BLUE-JAY, up in the maple-tree, 
j Shaking your throat with such bursts of glee, 
How did you happen to be so blue ? 
Did you steal a bit of the lake for your crest, 
And fasten blue violets into your vest? 
Tell me, I pray you — tell me true ! 
Did you dip your wings in azure dye, 
When April began to paint the sky 
That was pale with the winter’s stay? 
Or were you hatched from a blue-bell bright, 
’Neath the warm, gold breast of a sunbeam light, 
By the river one blue spring day ? 
Susan Hartley Swett. 
I love the fair lilies and roses so gay, 
They are rich in their pride and their splendor; 
But still more do I love to wander away 
To the meadow so sweet, 
Where down at my feet, 
The harebell blooms modest and tender. 
Dora Read Goodale. 
And O ! and O ! 
The daisies blow, 
And the prirhroses are awaken’d ; 
And the violets white 
Let in silver light, 
And the green buds are long ; n tne spike end. 
Keats. 
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade 
To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, 
Than doth a rich embroider’d canopy 
To kings, that fear their subjects’ treachery? 
Shakespeare. 
The hawthorn whitens ; and the juicy groves 
Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees, 
Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed, 
In full luxuriance, to the sighing gales. 
Thomson. 
