YELLOWHAMMER 



DYING MUSIC 



WHEN summer is at the full song scarcely ceases for any 

 hour in the twenty-four. 4 The earliest pipe of half-awakened 

 bird ' is very early in the morning. Which bird is the very first 

 to hail the morn is under some dispute, if the barn-door cock 

 be ruled out of the competition. But to some of us there 

 seems little doubt about the question. The most famous of 

 the singers is, at any rate in normal places and occasions, as 

 early as any. While darkness lives below, and dawn is no more 

 than a glint of hidden gold in front of fading stars, the larks 

 are high above the tree-tops, and at no other moment does 

 the sound fall so softly in so gentle a cascade. Heard from 

 quite close the separate notes of the lark may be called harsh 

 and rough. The morning notes descending from unseen 

 singers on the edge of dawn are liquid with the music of 

 another world, where no night is. Meredith must have 

 heard the lark at these hours, though there are some lines in 

 his ' Lark ascending ' which suggest a well-risen sun. 



For singing till his heaven fills, 

 'Tis love of earth that he instils, 

 And ever winging up and up, 

 Our valley is his golden cup, 



