BIRDS OF THE POETS 



" Now yield we mournfully, majestic brothers. 

 We, who have grandly filled our time 

 With Nature's calm content, with tacit huge delight. 

 We welcome what we wrought for through the past. 

 And leave the field for a superber race." 



The sense that the explanation of the mystery 

 of life lies just behind a veil so near that it may 

 almost be grasped — the sense that haunted 

 Wordsworth and Jefferies — rose in Whitman to 

 ecstacy. He feels it with such clear certainty 

 that he never stops to argue about it. Thus 

 the world becomes a wonder-land, and the meanest 

 thing in it a miracle. 



The fish poised in the pool, the bee feeding on 

 the flower, the whirr of the rattlesnake, the cry 

 of the night-owl, and not only these but the most 

 commonplace sights and sounds of town and 

 hamlet, all have a significance far beyond their 

 mere outward seeming. In such a world any- 

 thing may happen. The least insect or animal, 

 he tells us, causes him to sing " ecstatic songs." 

 The mystery is there not only in the peeping 

 violet but in the spears of the onion. 



It is instructive to turn from the older writers 

 in order to note how the younger generation of 

 poets stand in relation to Natural History. 

 Francis Thompson has a prominent place in 

 modern poetry, but although he has many beau- 

 tiful lines on Nature generally, he is clearly no 

 bird specialist. 



' ' So know, this I<ady Nature thou hast left. 

 Of whom thou fears't thee 'reft. 

 This Lady is God's daughter, and she lends 

 Her hand but to His friends." 



Surely no higher encouragement to the lowly 

 naturalist exists in literature. Nature, the poet 

 considers, lives in the life of God, and it is only 

 in so far that man lives in that life that he comes 

 into true sympathy with Nature. 



153 



