See the gathered waters madly leaping, Plunging from the rocks in headlong chase, Boiling, eddying, whirling, downward sweeping All that meets them in their foaming race! From the broken waters riseth ever, Fresh and cool, a soft and cloud-like spray; And where through the boughs slant sunbeams quiver, On the mist the sudden rainbows play. On a branch high o'er the torrent swinging Sits a bird, with joyful-swelling throat;-- Only to the eye and heart he's singing; Through the roar below I hear no note. All the forest seems as if enchanted, Seems to lie in wondrous stillness bound; Hushed its voices, silenced and supplanted, Interwoven with this ceaseless sound. Gazing on the whirl of waters meeting, Dizzy with its rush, I stand and dream, Till it almost seems my own heart's beating, And no more the voice of mountain-stream. THE WINTER-BIRDS. We are prone to set an extraordinary value upon all sources of pleasure that arrive in a season when they are few and unexpected. Hence the peculiar charm of the early flowers of spring, and of those equally delightful flowers that come up to cheer the short and melancholy days of November. The winter-birds, though they do not sing, are, on the same account, particularly interesting. The Chicadees and the little speckled Woodpeckers, that tarry with us in midwinter, and make the still cold days lively and cheerful by their merry voices, are, in animated nature, what flowers would be in inanimate nature, if they were found blooming under the snow. Nature does not permit, at any season, an entire dearth of those sources of enjoyment that spring from observation of the external world; and as there are evergreen mosses and ferns that supply in winter the places of the absent flowers, in like manner there are chattering birds that linger in the wintry woods; and Nature has multiplied the echoes at this season, that their few and feeble voices may be repeated by their lively responses among the hills.