272 THE BLACKBIRD. 



On the first day of February 1879, when going down the 

 Butts Wynd on my way to Strathtyrum to see the skaters and 

 curlers, I heard a blackbird whistling on the top of a chimney 

 at Cliftonbank, although all around was covered with snow, on 

 which I wrote some poor verses, and this the first — 



The ice is thick, the skater glides along, 

 And loudly birrs the curler's roaring-stone, 

 But hark ! adown the glen the blackbird's song 

 Comes whistling through the air that winter's gone — 

 Or on the eve to quit his icy throne. 



1879 was a severe winter, and his whistling on a chimney- 

 can, when curlers were on the ice, and the country covered 

 with snow, shows his desire to begin the cares and duties of a 

 family, impelled by the same law of Nature, called love, which 

 draws man and woman together, and makes such poets of 

 Nature as Burns, sing, rhyme, or whistle about it. On the 8th 

 of June 1888 I heard one whistling at ten o'clock at night at 

 Abbey Park, and at noon on the 1 3th I saw one sitting on the 

 rigging of the Town Hall pouring forth his loud mellow song in 

 the midst of thunder and lightning, so elated as to continue his 

 song on the wing as he flew down and alighted on the big poplar 

 in Queen Street Garden, on which I penned — 



A blackbird whistled on the wing 



As I passed on, sae ch eerie, O ; 

 Wi' joy he made the welkin ring, 



Nae debts to mak him wearie, O. 



A shot ! it micht hae brocht him doon 



When he was whistling merry, O, 

 But, though it had, 'twould been a boon, 



For life is like a cherrie, O. 



I have heard him sing from two in the morning till ten at 

 night ; but rosy dawn and dewy eve are his best times. He 

 has two songs, one for the morning, which is short — more of 

 repetition and harsher than his noonday one — and Burns truly 

 says — 



" The merle in his noontide bower 

 Makes woodland echoes ring ;" 



not so mellow as his evening one, which, when heard for the 

 first time after a severe winter, goes to the heart, at least to 

 mine, and gives a pleasing, soul-inspiring feeling that no other 

 bird can give. Burns felt it when he wrote — 



"In days when daisies deck the ground, 

 And blackbirds whistle clear, 

 With honest joy our hearts will bound 

 To see the coming year." 



