When all the World is Young. 63 



Now his voice is faint, and hardly heard above the 

 sounds of the wood. Now it is harsh and altogether 

 unmusical. Again, it is a faultless strain that rivals 

 the paean of the very nightingale. 



Silent again, the wilful little singer ! Then he 

 threads his way upward through the bushes, and 

 coming to the light at last, he balances a moment on 

 a spray of briar just touched with vivid green, and 

 pours his heart out in a burst of song. 



The slender outline of his sylph-like form, the delicate 

 gray of his breast, the dark feathers of his tufted crown, 

 are clear against the green background of the wood. 



How dull and cold must seem to him these wintry 

 thickets after the fair lands he has traversed in his 

 homeward flight ! 



For his comrades who linger by the way, the orange- 

 groves are sweet on the steep slopes of Sorrento, the 

 sun is warm upon the Pincian Hill. 



It was but yesterday that he, too, felt the hot breath of 

 Vesuvius, lingered among its sunny vineyards, or sang 

 in the green lanes that vein the warm heart of Apennine. 



He may have loitered, perhaps, in the lovely wilder- 

 ness that day by day grows wilder still round the 

 neglected villa in the Sabine Hills. 



Resistless, indeed, is the charm of its cool arcades 

 and stately cypresses, the ceaseless plash of its waters, 

 the breath of its blossoming trees. Endless is the 

 beauty of its tangled ways, where dripping statues 

 of river-gods lie half hidden in the tall reeds, where 



