WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



One could not stop and consider what this song 

 was Hke — compare it with the rich chorus of a bobo- 

 link, refined by art and prolonged into infinite va- 

 riety, say it was this or that. Those clear, con- 

 tinuous, liquid, bubbling, hastening notes, drop- 

 ping like a cascade of diamonds, pearls, and rubies 

 from the galleries of the sky, were as ethereal as 

 their source; and that flashing speck, ascending 

 ever higher and higher, seemed to diminish, not 

 by distance, but by dissolving its very self into 

 dropping music. 



Now the bird hovered over the city of the dead, 

 and rained down upon the sad hearts there its 

 heaven - sent message of comfort and hope and 

 joy. None seemed to hear it, truly, but the lark 

 sang on with higher purpose than to win applause, 

 showering near and far its crystal music. So it 

 poised under the vertex, like a day-star, for a mo- 

 ment, then glided gently, reluctantly, down a long, 

 sunny azure slant to its mate and her loving ap- 

 probation among the budding clover. 



Perhaps the occasion and the place, and the 

 sweet, poetic associations of the bird s name af- 

 fected me, but as I saw that tiny, unheeded exile 

 pouring out his heart on this Day of the Resur- 

 rection in the sweetest, purest strain that ever fell 



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