The Birds of Shakespeare 
He tells how “'The birds chant melody on 
every bush,’’? and recounts where 
As it fell upon a day 
In the merry month of May, 
Sitting in a pleasant shade 
Which a grove of myrtles made, 
Beasts did leap and birds did sing, 
Trees did grow and plants did spring ; 
Everything did banish moan.? 
He leads us where we may 
See the shepherds feed their flocks 
By shallow rivers, by whose falls 
Melodious birds sing madrigals.® 
The movement of spring and the renewal 
of the activity of the birds are well 
pictured in the song at the end of Love's 
Labour's Lost : ? 
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, 
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks, 
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, 
And maidens bleach their summer smocks, 
The sadness and silence of the woods in 
autumn when the birds are dumb, are 
recorded in these musical lines : 
1 Titus Andronicus, i. ili. 12. 
2 Passionate Pilgrim, xxi. 5 bid. xx, 
24 
