BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 43 



De donde alegre vienes 

 Tan suelta y tan festiva, 

 Las valles alegrando 

 Veloz mariposilla?* 



and can imagine him — the poet himself — coming 

 to see me through the woods and down the hill 

 with the careless ease and lightness of heart of 

 his own purple-winged child of earth and air — 

 tan suelta y tan festiva. Here in these four or 

 five words one may read the whole secret of his 

 charm — the exquisite delicacy and seeming art- 

 lessness in the form, and the spirit that is in him 

 — the old, simple, healthy, natural gladness in 

 nature, and feeling of kinship with all the children 

 of life. But I do not wish to disturb anyone in 

 his prepossessions. It would greatly trouble me 

 to think that my reader should, for the space of 

 a page, or even of a single line, find himself in 

 opposition to and not with me; and I am free 



* May be roughly rendered thus: 



Whence, blithe one, comest thou 

 With that airy,, happy flight — 

 To make the valleys glad, 

 O swift-winged butterfly ? 



