bullocks and in beeves.The birds were doomed; and, as the record shows,
A bounty offered for the heads of crows.
There was another audience out of reach,
Who had no voice nor vote in making laws,
But in the papers read his little speech,
And crowned his modest temples with applause;
They made him conscious, each one more than each,
He still was victor, vanquished in their cause:
Sweetest of all the applause he won from thee,
O fair Almira at the Academy!
And so the dreadful massacre began;
O'er fields and orchards, and o'er woodland crests,
The ceaseless fusillade of terror ran.
Dead fell the birds, with blood-stains on their breasts,
Or wounded crept away from sight of man,
While the young died of famine in their nests:
A slaughter to be told in groans, not words,
The very St. Bartholomew of Birds!
The Summer came, and all the birds were dead;
The days were like hot coals; the very ground
Was burned to ashes; in the orchards fed
Myriads of caterpillars, and around
The cultivated fields and garden-beds
Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found
No foe to check their march, till they had made
The land a desert without leaf or shade.
Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town,
Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly
Slaughtered the Innocents. From the trees spun down
The canker-worms upon the passers-by,—
Upon each woman's bonnet, shawl, and gown,
Who shook them off with just a little cry;
They were the terror of each favorite walk,
The endless theme of all the village-talk.
The farmers grew impatient, but a few
Confessed their error, and would not complain;
For, after all, the best thing one can do,
When it is raining, is to let it rain.
Then they repealed the law, although they knew
It would not call the dead to life again;
As school-boys, finding their mistake too late,
Draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate.
That year in Killingworth the Autumn came
Without the light of his majestic look,
The wonder of the falling tongues of flame,
The illumined pages of his Doom's-Day Book.
A few lost leaves blushed crimson with their shame,
And drowned themselves despairing in the brook,
While the wild wind went moaning everywhere,
Lamenting the dead children of the air.
But the next Spring a stranger sight was seen,
A sight that never yet by bard was sung,—
As great a wonder as it would have been,
If some dumb animal had found a tongue:
A wagon, overarched with evergreen,
Upon whose boughs were wicker cages hung,
All full of singing-birds, came down the street,
Filling the air with music wild and sweet.
From all the country round these birds were brought,
By order of the town, with anxious quest,
And, loosened from their wicker prisons, sought
In woods and fields the places they loved best,
Singing loud canticles, which many thought
Were satires to the authorities addressed,
While others, listening in green lanes, averred
Such lovely music never had been heard.
But blither still and louder carolled they
Upon the morrow, for they seemed to know
It was the fair Almira's wedding-day,
And everywhere, around, above, below,
When the Preceptor bore his bride away,
Their songs burst forth in joyous overflow,
And a new heaven bent over a new earth
Amid the sunny farms of Killingworth.
LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS
THE GARRET.
Would you know something of the way in which men live in Paris? Would you penetrate a little beneath the brilliant, glossy epidermis of the French capital? Would you know other shadows and other sights than those you find in "Galignani's Messenger" under the rubric, "Stranger's Diary"? Listen to us. We hope to be brief. We hope to succeed in tangling your interest. We don't hope to make you merry,—oh, no, no, no! we don't hope that! Life isn't a merry thing anywhere,—least of all in Paris; for, look you, in modern Babylon there are so many calls for money, (which Southey called "a huge evil" everywhere,) there are so many temptations to expense, one has to keep a most cool head and a most silent heart to live in Paris and to avoid debt. Few are able successfully to achieve this charmed life. The Duke of Wellington, who was in debt but twice in his life,—first, when he became of age, and, like all young men, felt his name by indorsing it on negotiable paper, and placing it in a tradesman's book; secondly, when he lived in Paris, master of all France by consent of Europe,—the Duke of Wellington involved himself in debt in Paris to the amount of a million of dollars. Blücher actually ruined himself in the city he conquered. The last heir to the glorious name and princely estates of Von Kaunitz lost everything he possessed, even his dignity, in a few years of life in Paris. Judge of the resistless force and fury of the great maelström!
And I hope, after you have measured some degree of its force and of its fury by these illustrious examples, that you may be softened into something like pity and terror, when I tell you how a poor fellow, who had no name but that he made with his pen, who commanded no money save only that he obtained by transmuting ink and paper into gold, strove against it with various success, and often was vanquished. You will not judge him too harshly, will you? You will not be the first to throw a stone at him, neither will you add your stone, to those that may be thrown at him: hands enough are raised against him! We do not altogether absolve him for many a shortcoming; but we crave permission to keep our censure and our sighs for our study. Permit us to forbear
