Bright is this day of smiling June,
When nature's voice is all atune
In music's swelling flow, to sing
Sweet songs of praise to nature's king.
From azure heights the lark's loud song
Is borne the balmy breeze along;
The robin tunes his sweetest strain,
And blithely sings his glad refrain
Of summer days and summer joys;
The tawny thrush his voice employs,
In chorus with the warbling throng,
To fill his measure of the song.
The river, too, with rippling flow,
As it winds through its banks below,
And leaps and plays in merry glee,
O'er rocky bed, 'neath grassy lea,
Or silent glides through sylvan shade,
To laugh again in sunny glade,
Sends back its murm'ring voice to swell
The music of each lovely dell,
Where Flora decks with brilliant sheen
The virgin sward of velvet green.
--_From a forthcoming poem by Geo. H. Cooke, Chicago._
[Illustration: WESTERN YELLOW-THROAT WARBLER.
Life-size.
FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.
6-99
COPYRIGHT 1899,
NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.]