O vault of heaven, clear and bright!
All spangled o'er with stars to-night,
Canst say how many worlds of light
Adorn thy glorious firmament?
For here I long my voice to raise
To him who hath my heart always.
And fain would know how oft to praise
The sweet, All Holy Sacrament.
O shining sun! for every ray
That from thee beamed since Eden's day,
And shall, till this world pass away,
And all thy light and heat be spent:
For each bright ray my voice I'd raise
To him who hath my heart always,
And sing a canticle of praise
To this Most Holy Sacrament.
O trackless sea! could I but save
And count each short-lived glist'ning wave;
Their sum would tell how oft I crave
To praise the Blessed Sacrament.
O fields! for every grassy blade
Of which thy beauteous robe is made,
Let offerings sweet of praise be laid
Before the Blessed Sacrament.
O pleasant gardens! could I know
How many flowers within you grow:
So many flowers of praise I'd strew
Before the Blessed Sacrament.
O wide, wide world! canst tell to me
How many grains of dust in thee?
So many would my praises be
To this Most Holy Sacrament.
O earth! thy praises have an end;
To seraphs I the task commend.
Their tireless voices they must lend
To praise the Blessed Sacrament.
Eternity! duration long!
To thee alone it doth belong
To measure when should cease the song
That lauds the Blessed Sacrament!
From Chambers's Journal.
Architecture Of Birds.
If we desire to look upon something which the first inhabitants of our planet saw exactly as it is to-day, we have only to stand before a bird's nest. Your bird is no innovator: he laid down the plan of his dwelling at the creation of the world, and, while everything around him has been changing, assuming new forms, yielding to the influence of fashion, has remained content with his primitive architecture ever since. He calculates the number, and considers the necessities of his family, and with unerring sagacity provides for them all. He imitates none of his neighbors, and his neighbors, in their turn, display no inclination to imitate him. There is in our rural districts a tradition of a farmer's daughter, who, having observed her mother winnow at a certain barn-door, stuck to the same locality through life, without the slightest reference to the quarter from whence the wind blew. So exactly is it with the bird. He cares for nothing but his own ideas of comfort, convenience, suitability—whether the original type of his mansion necessitated its being built on the summit of a rook or a tree, under the eaves of a house, or in the thick foliage of a bush, in the crevice of a cliff, or amid the rustling grass of a meadow.
To study the habitations of birds is to traverse the whole extent of man's universal habitation, through every zone from the equator to the polar circle; from the tops of the highest ranges, amid unscalable crags and snows, to the sedgy margin of the sea, and the mossy banks of streams. Whenever the air is fanned by a wing—wherever eggs are deposited— wherever little bills are opened almost hourly for food—wherever the hen sits, and the male bird roves and toils to support her—wherever, from bough or twig, he pours music into the woods, to cheer his helpmate during her labor of love, there is poetry; whether, as on the lofty surface of Danger Island, or amid the flowery bogs of the Orinoco, the airy artisan works in solitude, or, on village roof and church spire, clings to the vicinity of man. Naturalists gravely inform us that birds are bipeds like ourselves, which in some cases may be thought to account for their fondness for our society, as with the sparrow, the swallow, the red-breast, and the martin; but, on the other hand, several members of this numerous family, though they boast of no more legs than we, make careful use of those they have to keep out of our way. Even among the swallow tribe, there is one remarkable branch which abjures the man-loving qualities of his congeners—we mean the sea-swallow of the Twelve Thousand Islands, which in breeding-time mounts high into the air, takes a scrutinizing survey of the earth beneath, and, selecting for his quarters the least frequented, descends, skims into some lofty cave, and there builds his procreant cradle. In this way he hopes to elude observation. Flattering himself that his whereabouts will remain undiscovered, he darts away with his wife to their favorite element the ocean, where it breaks upon solitary shores, and, flying along its crested surges, gathers from amid the foam and spray the materials of its dwelling, the nature of which still remains unknown. Whatever it may be, it forms a delicate bassinet in which to deposit its eggs and rear its young. Less white than alabaster, the nest of the sea-swallow is of a light color, and semi-transparent, odoriferous in smell, glutinous, and rather sweet to the taste. Rows of these little bowls, which look like so many vessels of porcelain, run along the rocky walls of caverns, and are filled with a thickly bedropped with spots of celestial blue. To the people of the Flowery Land, these nests are a delicacy, which, when of the best quality, are weighed in the market against gold. What, however, renders some nests better than others is uncertain; it may be that in parts of the ocean the ingredient which imparts the most delicate flavor to the substance is not to be found; or else, on shore, the flowers that supply the perfume are too few, so that the swallow is compelled to have recourse to blossoms of inferior sweetness.
From the mouth of the swallow's cave, you may sometimes, from a long distance, discern another and very different specimen of ornithological building. This is a mound, sometimes sixty or seventy feet in length, almost as much in diameter, and about six feet high. This also is a nest, or rather a city of nests, for it is constructed so as to receive a whole republic of birds, who, as in a well-ordered state, have all their separate dwellings, with streets, highways, common chambers, breeding apartments, and so on. In some, there you find callow citizens, or fledglings, or eggs, or the grave parents of the state, discussing or meditating upon its common interests. Nothing can be more curious than a section of such a bird mound, with its various cells and compartments laid open to the view.
From this cyclopean style of architecture, the distance is prodigious to the house of the tailor-bird, which selects for its habitation the inside of a leaf, and with its bill and claws sews its house to it. It takes a filament of fine grass, and, steadying the leaf with one of its feet, uses its bill for a needle, or rather for a borer; then, having made a little hole, it introduces the grassy filament into the edge of the leaf, and afterward doing as much for the other edge, weaves between both a sort of herring-bone netting, strong enough to support its nest. Within this net it immediately begins building until it has wrought a small soft purse, sufficiently capacious to contain the female and her eggs. The habitation being completed, she enters tail foremost, leaving her little head and bill visible at the top of the purse, situated directly under the leaf's stem, and forthwith commences her maternal duties. Now begins the business of the male, which flies backward and forward in search of such delicacies as his lady loves; and, having been successful, approaches the leaf, and, with true martial tenderness, puts them gently into the female's mouth. He then seats himself upon a branch overhead, and, watching his helpmate as she swings to and fro in her airy couch, twitters or sings incessantly to keep up her spirit's.