What Birds Have Done With Me 



flooding the old nest with light, unapproachable, 

 that one instinctively begins to fumble for his 

 shoe-laces. We have before us a microcosm, 

 in this shallow cavity, life and melody had their 

 birth, pray God, the life may be unending and the 

 melody as eternal as Time. An empty nest? 

 far from it. Here the miracle of Mother-Love 

 has reflected the visible presence of the Divine 

 Creator of something so holy that in its presence, 

 Art and Song fall down powerless and all speech 

 becomes incoherent mutterings. 



I hold the crumbling nest in my hand and try 

 to visualize a form or forms that the depths of 

 space have swallowed up, try to follow the waves 

 of melody that may flow on for twice ten thou- 

 sand years and my vanished singers, indeed, be- 

 come "Troubadours and Ballad singers on the 

 streets of Heaven." Much has gone from the 

 nest and much remains. A nest is a type of home 

 and the perfect home, also, has its relation to 

 Past and Future, Life and Gladness, and there is 

 nothing else of greater significance, or more uni- 

 versal attractiveness in this present evil world. 



How well I remember my first nest which, so 

 to speak, I held in co-partnership with the parent 

 birds a pair of Robins. It was located on a 

 corner of a Virginia rail fence, along a lane where 

 I drove cows every day on my father's farm in 

 Wisconsin. I had never seen a nest it was my 



