BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 195 



in all a summer's day. Where they built was apparently 

 once a mystery, for in the long-ago days of Greece and 

 Rome the "halcyon" was supposed to go off somewhere 

 near Sicily and other isles, and nest upon the open seas ; 

 and so fond were both pagan men and pagan gods of the 

 little bird, that — so poets pretended — -the seas were never 

 stormy while the halcyons were nesting, and the word has 

 passed into our language as the symbol of calm security 

 and rest and peace. So in Keats : 



" O magic sleep ! O comfortable bird ! 

 That broodest over the troubled sea of mind 

 Till it is hushed and smooth." 



And in Shelley : 



" Far, far away, O ye 

 Halcyons of memory, 

 Seeli some far calmer nest 

 Than this abandoned breast." 



And in Milton and Dryden, and Kirke White and Coleridge, 

 and ever so many more. Another belief, which, strange to 

 say, still holds its own in England, is that a dead halcyon hung 

 up will turn its beak always in the direction of the wind. So 

 Shakespeare says of courtiers who " turn their halcyon beaks 

 with every gale and vary of their masters " ; and Marlowe, 

 before him, asks " How now stands the wind ? Into what 

 corner peers my halcyon's bill ? " 



