

rapture transcending human utterance. There The 

 is not less joy in the screech of the jay, in the *? h 

 hoarse cry of the cormorant, in the scream of 

 the gannet poised like a snowflake two 

 thousand feet above the turbulent surge of 

 blue and white, or green and grey, to its vision 

 but a vast obscurity of calm filled with phan- 

 tom life, a calm moveless seen from that 

 great height, wrinkled only with perplexing 

 interplay of wave and shadow. These have 

 their joy, and to the open ear are joy ; not 

 less than the merle singing among wet lilac, 

 the mavis calling from the swaying poplar, the 

 lark flinging the largesse of his golden music 

 along the high devious azure roads. Can one 

 doubt that this is so ... that, listening with 

 the inward ear, we must hold as dear the wail 

 of the curlew, the mournful cry of the lapwing, 

 when on the hill-slope or in the wild grass 

 these call rejoicingly in life and love and the 

 mute ecstasy of implicit duty. 



As long, however, as we impose our own 

 needs and our own desires on the indifferent 

 tribes of the earth and air, so long shall we 

 take this or that comrade of the elements 

 and say it is the voice of Peace, or War, or 

 Love, or Joy. March, we say, is the month 

 of gladness. A new spirit is awake, is 

 abroad. The thrush and the blackbird are 



97 H 



