OVID’S SPRING-TIME FROM THE TRISTIA. For once the zephyrs have removed the cold: One year is over, and a new begun. So short a winter, I am daily told, Never yet yielded to this northern sun. I see the children skipping o’er the green, Plucking the faint unodorous violet, A gentle stranger, rarely ever seen. With other flowers the mead is sparsely set— Brown birds are twittering with the joy of spring: The universal swallow, ne’er at rest, Aye chirping, glances past on purple wing, And builds beneath the humble eaves her nest. The plant, which yester-year the share o’erthrew, Looks up again from out the opening mould; And the poor vines, though here but weak and few, Some scantling buds, like ill-set gems, unfold. W. E. A. =Dies Boreales.= No. VII. CHRISTOPHER UNDER CANVASS. _Camp at Cladich._ SCENE—_The Wren’s Nest._ TIME—_Three o’clock_ A.M. NORTH—TALBOYS. NORTH. Perturbed Spirit! why won’t you rest? What brings thee here? TALBOYS. Seward snores. NORTH. Why select Seward? TALBOYS. I do not select him—he selects himself—singles himself out from the whole host; so that you hear his Snore loud over that of the Camp—say rather his Snore alone—like Lablache singing a Solo in a chorus. NORTH. It must be Buller. TALBOYS. Buller began it—— NORTH. List! How harmonious in the hush the blended Snore of Camp and Village! How tuned to unison—as if by pitch-pipe—with the dreamy din of our lapsing friend here, who by and by will awake into a positive Waterfall. TALBOYS. The Snore of either army stilly sounds. At this distance, the Snore disposes to sleep. Seward must have awakened himself—there goes Buller—— NORTH. Where? TALBOYS. Shriller than Seward—quite a childish treble—liker the Snore of a female— NORTH. Females never snore. TALBOYS. How do you know? I won’t answer for some of them. Lionesses do—not perhaps in their wild state—but in Zoological Gardens. NORTH. Not quite so loud, Chanticleer—you will disturb my people. TALBOYS. Disturb your people! Why, he has already stirred up the Solar System. “The Cock that is the Trumpet of the Morn, Doth, with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat, Awake the God of Day.”