May Hymn of the Birds. 139 



XXVII. 



Hymn of the Birds to the Sun, by Gawin Douglas The Birds hail the 

 Sun with Welcomes How the Poets love the Birds How the Bird- 

 catchers love them The Mistletoe St. Lambert's Poem of the Four 

 Seasons Gentle Heartlessness The Bird-catcher in Buff on The 

 Work of Nest-building Are Birds Architects or Masons ? Magpies 

 The Labor given to a Magpie's Nest Thrush, Tom-tit, Linnet 

 Greenfinch and Goldfinch Wren Excellent Arrangement of Wren's 

 Nest Building a House Building for Oneself Varieties of Nest- 

 building Raising and Fixing of Material Adhesion of Martin's 

 Nests Birds that like to be rocked in their Nests The Cuckoo 

 Poet-cuckoos Birds and Plants The Cuckoo-pint Value of the 

 Common Arum for Artists. 



OF all the fine passages in old poetry concerning the 

 life of birds in Nature, the most magnificent is 

 the hymn of the birds to the Sun in Gawin Douglas's 

 prologue to the twelfth book of the * Eneid.' I should 

 have been glad to abridge the quotation had it been 

 possible without spoiling it, but I find, as the reader will 

 also, that the series of verses beginning with the word 

 ' Welcome ' could not have their due effect if given by 

 themselves ; the mind needs to be led up to them and 

 tuned to the proper poetical pitch before it can fully 

 enter into the fine spirit of the hymn itself. As for the 

 little difficulty with the old Scottish words it vanishes 



