A Nightingale that all day long
Had cheer'd the village with his song,
Nor yet at eve his note suspended,
Nor yet when even-tide was ended--
Began to feel, as well he might,
The keen demands of appetite:
When, looking eagerly around,
He spied, far off upon the ground,
A something shining in the dark,
And knew the glowworm by his spark:
So stooping down from hawthorn top,
He thought to put him in his crop.
The worm, aware of his intent,
Harangued him thus, right eloquent:--
"Did you admire my lamp," quoth he,
"As much as I your minstrelsy,
You would abhor to do me wrong,
As much as I to spoil your song;
For 'twas the self-same power Divine
Taught you to sing and me to shine,
That you with music, I with light,
Might beautify and cheer the night."
The songster heard his short oration,
And, warbling out his approbation,
Released him, as my story tells,
And found a supper somewhere else.
COWPER.
* * * * *
THE INVISIBLE WORLD REVEALED BY THE MICROSCOPE.
A fact not less startling than would be the realisation of the
imaginings of Shakespeare and of Milton, or of the speculations of Locke
and of Bacon, admits of easy demonstration, namely, that the air, the
earth, and the waters teem with numberless myriads of creatures, which
are as unknown and as unapproachable to the great mass of mankind, as
are the inhabitants of another planet.
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