OUTDOORS 



the heavy timber which skirted the lake. The 

 song was clear, voluble, and very sweet, hav- 

 ing in some portions of it notes of other 

 birds. Its own proper song was its rarest 

 quality, apart from the imitations or mock- 

 ings of the common songsters of the fields. 

 There was a mellowness in these notes, a liq- 

 uid quality, which came like little cascades in 

 a mountain-brook. Sometimes it would seem 

 as if the bird were in an ecstasy of happiness, 

 and then there would be a tone of sorrow 

 which would broaden into an interlude of 

 pain, and this again would change and soar 

 into a triumphal passage of bubbling music 

 till the cedar rang with the melody. 



Some miserable vandals destroyed his nest 

 and killed his mate maybe, for the boys 

 found the torn nest and the broken eggs at 

 the side of the road the day before we left. 

 But on that beautiful moonlight night the 

 bird came to the cedar-tree and gave us a 

 farewell burst of the finest bird - music 

 possible. 



The cat-bird sang in the cedar-tree, 



Where the argent flood of a midnight moon 



Poured down as a river flowing free, 



All white and bright as the light of noon, 

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