A Book on Birds 



And it is particularly hard, perhaps, 

 when we look to the birds for them. 



Yet they do exist among the birds also — 

 as well as trees and plants and flowers; 

 and when once discovered they convince 

 us that in the great array of tender thoughts 

 from heaven above which make nature 

 precious to the soul, here verily is revealed 

 the tenderest of all. 



How many of us, for example, have quick- 

 ened to the meaning of it, when we first 

 learned that the little American Gold- 

 finch, sunbeam of the tropics that he is! — 

 exquisitely fragile and delicate, remains 

 right at our doors through all the bitter 

 cold, when ten thousand others, sturdier 

 than he, have fled? 



By the middle of February his bright 

 garb of yellow has turned completely gray 

 because of all he has endured; and yet he 

 holds his ground (his voice quite gone, but 

 his merry flight just as merry as ever) until 

 April showers shall have brought May 

 flowers once again, and with the flowers 

 all his vanished wealth of gold. 



[1821 



