It was the season when through all the land

              The merle and mavis build, and building sing

      Those lovely lyrics written by His hand

              Whom Saxon Cædmon calls the Blithe-Heart King,—

      When on the boughs the purple buds expand,

              The banners of the vanguard of the Spring,

      And rivulets, rejoicing, rush and leap,

              And wave their fluttering signals from the steep.

      The robin and the bluebird, piping loud,

              Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee;

      The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud

              Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be;

      And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd,

              Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly,

      Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said,

              "Give us, O Lord, this day our daily bread!"

      Across the Sound the birds of passage sailed,

              Speaking some unknown language strange and sweet

      Of tropic isle remote, and passing hailed

              The village with the cheers of all their fleet,—

      Or, quarrelling together, laughed and railed

              Like foreign sailors landed in the street

      Of seaport town, and with outlandish noise

              Of oaths and gibberish frightening girls and boys.

      Thus came the jocund Spring in Killingworth,

              In fabulous days, some hundred years ago;

      And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth,

              Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow,

      That mingled with the universal mirth,

              Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe:

      They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words

              To swift destruction the whole race of birds.

      And a town-meeting was convened straightway

              To set a price upon the guilty heads

      Of these marauders, who, in lieu of pay,

              Levied black-mail upon the garden-beds

      And cornfields, and beheld without dismay

              The awful scarecrow, with his fluttering shreds,—

      The skeleton that waited at their feast,

              Whereby their sinful pleasure was increased.

      Then from his house, a temple painted white,

              With fluted columns, and a roof of red,

      The Squire came forth,—august and splendid sight!—

              Slowly descending, with majestic tread,

      Three flights of steps, nor looking left nor right;

              Down the long street he walked, as one who said,

      "A town that boasts inhabitants like me

              Can have no lack of good society!"

      The Parson, too, appeared, a man austere,

              The instinct of whose nature was to kill;

      The wrath of God he preached from year to year,

              And read with fervor Edwards on the Will;

      His favorite pastime was to slay the deer

              In Summer on some Adirondack hill;

      E'en now, while walking down the rural lane,

              He lopped the way-side lilies with his cane.

      From the Academy, whose belfry crowned

              The hill of Science with its vane of brass,

      Came the Preceptor, gazing idly round,

              Now at the clouds, and now at the green grass,

      And all absorbed in reveries profound

              Of fair Almira in the upper class,

      Who was, as in a sonnet he had said,

              As pure as water, and as good as bread.

      And next the Deacon issued from his door,

              In his voluminous neck-cloth, white as snow;

      A suit of sable bombazine he wore;

              His form was ponderous, and his step was slow;

      There never was so wise a man before;

              He seemed the incarnate "Well, I told you so!"

      And to perpetuate his great renown,

              There was a street named after him in town.

      These came together in the new town-hall,

              With sundry farmers from the region round;

      The Squire presided, dignified and tall,

              His air impressive and his reasoning sound.

      Ill fared it with the birds, both great and small;

              Hardly a friend in all that crowd they found,

      But enemies enough, who every one

              Charged them with all the crimes beneath the sun.

      When they had ended, from his place apart,

              Rose the Preceptor, to redress the wrong,

      And, trembling like a steed before the start,

              Looked round bewildered on the expectant throng;

      Then thought of fair Almira, and