Part 1 — NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PEACOCK.

The peacock sits perched on the roof all night, And wakes up the farm-house before 't is light; But his matins they suit not the delicate ear Of the drowsy damsels that half in fear And half in disgust his discord hear. If the soul's migration from frame to frame Be truth, tell me now whence the peacock's came? Say if it had birth at the musical close Of a dying hyena,—or if it arose From a Puritan scold that sang psalms through her nose? Well: a jackass there was—but you need not look For this fable of mine in old Æsop's book— That one complaint all his life had whined, How Nature had been either blind or unkind To give him an aspect so unrefined. "'T is cruel," he groaned, "that I cannot escape From the vile prison-house of this horrible shape: So gentle a temper as mine to shut in This figure uncouth and so shaggy a skin, And then these long ears!—it's a shame and a sin." Good-natured Jove his upbraidings heard, And changed the vain quadruped into a bird, And garnished his plumage with many a spot Of ineffable hue, such as earth wears not,— For he dipped him into the rainbow-pot. So dainty he looked in his gold and green That the monarch presented the bird to his queen, Who, taken with colors as most ladies are, Had him harnessed straight in her crystal car Wherein she travels from star to star. But soon as his thanks the poor dissonant thing Began to bray forth when he strove to sing, "Poor creature!" quoth Jove, "spite of all my pains, Your spirit shines out in your donkey strains! Though plumed like an angel, the ass remains." So you see, love, that goodness is better than grace. For the proverb fails in the peacock's case, Which says that fine feathers make fine birds, too; This other old adage is far more true,— They only are handsome that handsomely do.