The Birds and Poets 71 



"Lord, what music hast thou provided for 

 the saints in Heaven, when thou affordest 

 bad men such music on earth?" 



John Vance Cheney's "Wood Thrush" is a 

 classic among nature poems: 



"When lilies by the river fill with sun, 

 And banks with clematis are overrun; 

 When winds are weighed with fern-sweet from the 



hill, 



And hawks wheel in the noontide hot and still; 

 When thistle tops are silvered, every one, 

 And fly-lamps flicker e'er the day is done, 

 Nature bethinks her how to crown these things. 

 At twilight she decides: the wood-thrush sings." 



He is a common summer resident, and may be 

 easily distinguished by his uniformly brown back 

 and tail, and large round black spots all over the 

 breast. 



The hermit thrush is a common migrant, but 

 unfortunately he never sings on his journey to the 

 north. He apparently saves his song for his mate 

 at the time of the home building, in the twilight 

 northern woods. 



As Lowell says : 



"Through the dim arbor, himself more dim, 

 Silently hops the hermit thrush." 



Some day I am going to take a train for the 

 north woods where he nests, just for the pleasure 



