AVALON AND A BLACKBIRD 189 



Kuno Meyer. Here, one is glad to find, are no old 

 imported bird myths and conventions, but a native 

 bird life and a feeling for birds which amaze us in 

 those remote and barbarous times. Many species 

 are mentioned in these poems, from the largest — 

 eagle and raven and wild goose — down to the little 

 kitty wren, but the blackbird is first on account of 

 its lovely voice — "sweet and soft and peaceful is 

 his note," one has it. 



There is one blackbird poem in the collection which 

 might have been written by a poet of to-day. For we 

 are apt to think that to love birds as we love them, 

 not merely as feathered angels, beautiful to see and 

 hear, but with human tenderness and sympathy as 

 beings that are kin to us, is a feeling peculiar to our 

 own times. The poet laments the bird's loss when it 

 has seen its nest and fledglings destroyed or taken 

 by ruthless cowboy lads. He can understand the 

 bird's grief "for the ruin of its home," because a like 

 calamity has been his: his wife and little ones are 

 dead, and though their taking off was bloodless it is 

 terrible to him as slaughter by the sword. He cries 

 out against the injustice of heaven, for even as that 

 one nest was singled out among many for destruction 

 so were his home and loved ones: 



O Thou, the Shaper of the world ! 



Uneven hands Thou layest on us ; 

 Our fellows at our side are spared, 



Their wives and children are alive. 



There is another remarkable poem conceived in 

 the spirit of that time of wild passions and the 



