Well, ’tis difficult, and perhaps hopeless, to strive to interpret the songs of these little minstrels of God. After all, each heart will set them to words of its own. And, by leading others to do so, perhaps my musings may best fulfil their end. Many a one who would have appreciated them, misses the pictures in earth’s great gallery, and the music of earth’s great concert, for want of a finger to point him once to the one, and a hand on his shoulder to arrest his attention for the other. And it is worth regarding pictures at which God is working, and to listen to songs which yet remain in a saddened world, exactly as He first taught them. [Illustration] THE MAY-DAYS OF THE SOUL. [Illustration] “All things are new: the buds, the leaves, That gild the elm-tree’s nodding crest; And e’en the nest beneath the eaves: There are no birds in last year’s nest!” May has come; that time of year has passed the sweet April time, “When all the wood stands in a mist of green, And nothing perfect.” The sparsely-gemmed hedges have thickened now, so that you cannot see the gardens through their bare ribs; and little bunches of tight-clenched buds give abundant promise of the sweet-breathed, shell-petaled hawthorn flowers. The coy ash-trees have begun to fringe over with their feather foliage; the ruddy bushy growth that seemed comically like whiskers, at the base of the elms and the lindens, has changed into a surprise of glorified green; the low shoots from the stump of the old oak-tree in the hedge bring out their wealth of soft, crumpled, young red leaves; the elders on the banks have gotten a deep, full garment of green upon them now; above the ash-hued stem of the maples there is a numberless array of small maroon-tinged fists; the tender beech-leaves edge the low boughs that are spread out just above the grass. [Illustration] The birds are full of importance, and excitement, and enjoyment. The robin has his “fuller crimson”; the “livelier iris shines upon the burnished dove,” The black rook sails lazily with broad wing up in the blue sky: he, too, has his high nest to attend to; but life, on such a day as this, imperatively demands to be enjoyed. The copse rings with the laugh of the little willow-wren; the chiff-chaff ceaselessly announces his presence; the woodpecker cries as he leaves tree for tree; the blackcap, not singing just now, makes that “check, check,” like the striking of two marbles together; the cuckoo, besides telling his name to all the hills, has also a low, cooing, wooing voice for his mate; also another cry, as of a startled blackbird, but flute-like and liquid. “Flattered with promise of escape From every hurtful blast, Spring takes, O sprightly May, thy shape, Her loveliest and her last.” [Illustration]