ONE pleasant April Sabbath, the parish clerk of a church in Wiltshire,
England, stood at his reading-desk turning to the morning "lesson" in
the great Prayer-Book. The congregation waited to give the responses,
but he did not begin as soon as usual. Something curious had caught his
eye, partly hidden under the Bible-rack, a small, slanting ledge or
platform, slightly raised above the main desk. He looked more closely,
and there, directly beneath the great Bible, he saw a robin-redbreast's
nest, with two pretty blue eggs in it. Mrs. Redbreast and her mate
had found a hole left by a small missing pane in one of the quaint
old leaden windows, and entered the sacred house to make their little
home where the sparrow and the swallow did that the sons of Korah sing
of in the eighty-fourth Psalm. The clerk could not resent so pretty
an intrusion, and did not disturb the nest; and when one of the birds
flew in before the close of service, neither he nor any one of the
congregation thought of doing anything to frighten it. And there the
nest remained through the rest of April and nearly the whole of May,
the redbreasts becoming so tame that the gathering of the worshippers
and the voices and music of the service on Sundays or other days did
not alarm them away. The sitting bird would stay, quietly brooding her
eggs, while the clerk was reading, almost directly over her head. After
the young were hatched, the male robin would fly in with worms in his
bill to feed them, and his coming never disturbed the people's litany
or the rector's sermon. This pleasant sanctuary partnership lasted till
the full-fledged young were able to leave the church and trust to their
own wings. Everybody felt that the birds had brought a blessing with
them, and were sorry when they went away.--_Selected._
[Illustration: WHEN THE SPRING WAS YOUNG.]
Merry Jack Frost and his fairy elves
Came by for a raid one night
When the spring was young, and a rosebud fair,
In a sheltered nook, which the perfumed air
And the sunbeams, warm and bright,
Had wooed for a month, 'till its dainty brow
Was bright as the flush of dawn,
Shone fair 'neath the moon; "'Tis a goodly sight!
I'll cover it o'er with a veil of white,"
Quoth Jack; "ha! ha! and the morning light
Will shine on its glory, gone!"
He gathered his elves for the mischievous prank,
When lo! with a mournful sigh,
The south wind called to a pitying cloud,
"O look! they're weaving the rosebud's shroud."
She paused in the midnight sky,
And glanced at the rose. "Is her doom so near?
Poor bud!" and his tears fell fast.
Oh! the elves were caught in a mournful plight,
And the south wind laughed, and the frost-king's flight
Was a sight to see through the dusk of night,
For the cloud's soft tears overwhelmed him quite
As they fell on his vestments fine and white;
And the lovely Dawn, with her shafts of light,
Looked down on _his glory, past_!