MUSIC OF BIRDS. 



As an illustration of the truth of this remark, I would 

 say that simple melodies have among all people exercised 

 a greater power over the imagination, though producing 

 less pleasure to the ear, than louder and more complicated 

 music. Nature employs a very small amount of physical 

 agency to create sentiment, and when an excess is/ used 

 a diminished effect is produced. I am persuaded that the 

 effect of our sacred music is injured hy an excess of har- 

 mony or too great a volume of sound. A loud crash of 

 thunder deafens and terrifies, but its low and distant rum- 

 bling produces a pleasant emotion of sublimity. 



The songs of birds are as intimately allied with poetry 

 as with music. "Feathered Lyric" is a name that has 

 been applied to the Lark by one of the English poets ; 

 and the analogy is apparent when we consider how much 

 the song of this bird resembles a lyrical ballad in its 

 influence on the mind. Though the song of a bird is 

 without words, how plainly does it suggest a long train 

 of agreeable images of love, beauty, friendship, and home ! 

 When a young person is affected with grief, he seldom 

 fails, if endowed with a sensitive mind, to listen to the 

 birds as sympathizers in his affliction. Through them 

 the deities of the grove seem to offer him their conso- 

 lation. By his companionship with the objects of nature 

 all pleasing sights and sounds have become anodynes for 

 his sorrow ; and those who have this mental alembic for 

 turning grief into poetic melancholy cannot be reduced 

 to despondency. This poetic sentiment exalts our pleas- 

 ures and soothes our afflictions by some illusive charm, 

 derived from religion or romance. Without this reflection 

 of light from poetry, what is the passion of love, and 

 w r hat our love of beauty, but a mere gravitation ? 



The music of birds is modulated in pleasant unison 

 with all the chords of affection and imagination, filling 

 the soul with a lively consciousness of beauty and de- 



