BIRDS AND POETS 3 
* She sat down below a thorn, 
Fine flowers in the valley, 
And there has she her sweet babe borne, 
And the green leaves they grow rarely.” 
Or the best lyric pieces, how like they are to cer- 
tain bird-songs ! — clear, ringing, ecstatic, and sug- 
gesting that challenge and triumph which the out- 
pouring of the male bird contains. (Is not the 
genuine singing, lyricai quality essentially mascu- 
line?) Keats and Shelley, perhaps more notably 
than any other English poets, have the bird organ- 
ization and the piercing wild-bird cry. This, of 
course, is not saying that they are the greatest poets, 
but that they have preéminently the sharp semi- 
tones of the sparrows and larks. 
But when the general reader thinks of the birds 
vf the poets he very naturally calls to mind the re- 
nowned birds, the lark and nightingale, Old World 
melodists, embalmed in Old World poetry, but occa- 
sionally appearing on these shores, transported in 
the verse of some callow singer. 
The very oldest poets, the towering antique 
bards, seem to make little mention of the song-birds. 
They loved better the soaring, swooping birds of 
prey, the eagle, the ominous birds, the vultures, the 
storks and cranes, or the clamorous sea-birds and 
the screaming hawks. These suited better the rug- 
ged, warlike character of the times and the simple, 
powerful souls of the singers themselves. Homer 
must have heard the twittering of the swallows, the 
ery of the plover, the voice of the turtle, and the 
warble of the nightingale; but they were not ade 
