Again in the heavens thy hymn is heard, Bird of the daring wing! When last ye sprang from the daisied sward, Making the welkin ring, Thy lay the dreaming buds awoke-- Thy voice the spell of winter broke-- The primrose, on the mossy brae, Burst beauteous into life and day, And smiled to hear thee sing! The children clapp'd their tiny hands; The shout rang through their little bands, Hailing the bird in spring! Thy lay made earth and air rejoice, And nature heard thee as an angel's voice. Again in the heavens thy hymn is heard, Bird of the mournful song! A lonely daisy yet decks the sward, The last of the summer throng. While here and there, upon the brae, Some primrose, _languid as the ray Of hope that vanisheth away Upon the cheek of death_, Untimely opes its golden wing, Mistaking, as it hears thee sing, That thou art come to tell of spring, And not of winter's wrath. But now thy strain is as one that grieves-- Thou singest the dirge of the falling leaves! Again in the heavens thy hymn I hear, Bird of the merry song! Thou art ringing a lay in old winter's ear-- Ye bid him farewell, and ye welcome him here-- Ye help the old man along! Ye are singing to look on the fruits of the year Gather'd in, and in ripeness, with plenty around; And ye pour o'er earth's fulness a rapturous sound. Ye are singing a strain that man should have sung-- Man with ingratitude seal'd on his tongue: At _seed-time_, thy joyous and _hope-breathing_ lay, To the ploughman was sung, as an anthem, all day, And now at his _harvest_ ye greet him again, And call him to join in thy _thanksgiving_ strain. Agnes wept as she perused the foreboding lines, which he had marked in what printers call Italics, in the second stanza, by drawing a line under them. She felt interested in the fate of Henry Cranstoun--deeply interested. We believe that, like the gentle Desdemona, she wished that "Heaven had made her such a man;" for, though the young writer to the signet spoke not "Of war, and broils, and battles," his tongue was the interpreter of nature--he dwelt as an enthusiast on its beauties, its mysteries, its benevolence, its glorious design; and, through all, he would point "Through nature up to nature's God!"