Now when the last hour of his life drew nigh, Cuchullin woke from dreams forewarning death; And cold and awesome came the night-bird's cry An evil omen the magician saith A low gust panted like a man's last breath, As morning crept into the chamber black; Then all his weapons clashed and tumbled from the rack.

A night-bird caroled.

It was long after midnight now, and if one listened carefully he could catch the customary noises of the woods at such a time, from the soft crooning of the breeze as it sighed through the pine tops, to the occasional note of some night-bird calling to its mate, or the plaintive voice of a hungry young coon waiting impatiently the return of its foraging mother.

But the minutes drifted along, and at no time were they able to catch anything out of the common; so, finally, they decided that either it must have been a night-bird that had flown away, or else that change in the wind had kept the sounds from coming to their ears.

When life's fresh spring returns upon the daïs mead, O night-bird!

Often he had called himself a night-bird, but seldom had he been more wakeful than on this night.

As they strolled on beneath the shadows of the tall elms, the stillness of the night was broken only by the quick scurry of a rabbit into the tall bracken or the harsh cry of some night-bird startled by their approach.

AN OWL A Night-bird never eats a black bird.

ONE NIGHT-BIRD

A NIGHT-BIRD [To another just arriving.]

Or only a night-bird's echoing cry? THE GLEANER As children gather daisies down green ways Mid butterflies and bees, To-day across the meadows of past days I gathered memories.

As far as the eye can reach, water, blue, rolling water, tinged with rising sunlight in its morning purity; the night-bird folds her wings, which she has laved in the white sea-foam, softening the sigh of the breakers to the ear of those who slumbered; the white sails bow their heads, while the old tars wonder what makes them so happy.

Sometimes his old lantern-jaws would emit an uncanny cackle of a laugh, and a ghastly flicker of humour play across his parchment features; but these only deepened the general sense of solemnity, as the hoot of a night-bird deepens the loneliness of some desolate hollow among the hills.

He lov'd to delve the darksome dell Where never pierc'd a ray, There to the wailing night-bird tell, 'How love was turn'd to clay.'

The night-bird's song that sweetly floats On this soft gloomthis balmy air Brings to the mind her sweeter notes That I again must never hear.

In some old haunted nook to sleep, Lulled by the dreary night-bird's scream, That flits along the wizard stream, And there, till morning 'gins appear, The tales of troubled spirits hear.

"'What particular specie of night-bird do you call yourself?' said one of 'em, holding my arm in a grip of iron.

The melancholy shrill cry of a night-bird sounded overhead, and suddenly I nearly lost my balance as the piece of bank I stood upon fell with a great splash into the river, undermined by the flood.

As his thought returned he concluded that it must be some night-bird or large bat.

It was not yet perfectly dark; the thin edge of the new moon traced a pale curve in the western sky; frogs were trilling; a night-bird sang in a laurel thicket unceasingly.

The faltering sunbeam fades and goes; The night-bird whistles in the brake; The willows quake; Utter darkness walls; the wind Sighs no more.

And in the sweet Of phantom evening, 'neath the night-bird's lay, Did loved with loved-one meet.

LULLABY Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul; The little mouse cheeps plaintively, The night-bird in the chestnut-tree They sing together, bird and mouse, In starlight, in darkness, lonely, sweet, The wild notes and the faint notes meet Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul.

615 'Tis not a plover of the moors, 'Tis not a bittern of the fen; Nor can it be a barking fox, Nor night-bird chambered in the rocks, Nor wild-cat in a woody glen!

I passed her and went down, and I hid myself in the arbor, quite overgrown with wild, rank vines of late summer, and listened to a little night-bird pouring out his complaining heart.