MUSIC OF BIRDS. 9 



As an illustration of the truth of this remark, I would 

 say that simple melodies have among all people exercised 

 a greater power over the imagination, though producing 

 less pleasure to the ear, than louder and more complicated 

 music. Nature employs a very small amount of physical 

 agency to create sentiment, and when an excess is used 

 a diminished effect is produced. I am persuaded that the 

 effect of our sacred music is injured by an excess of har- 

 mony or too great a volume of sound. A loud crash of 

 thunder deafens and terrifies, but its low and distant rum- 

 bling produces a pleasant emotion of sublimity. 



The songs of birds are as intimately allied with poetry 

 as with music. "Feathered Lyric" is a name that has 

 been applied to the Lark by one of the English poets ; 

 and the analogy is apparent when we consider how much 

 the song of this bird resembles a lyrical ballad in its 

 influence on the mind. Though the song of a bird is 

 without words, how plainly does it suggest a long train 

 of agreeable images of love, beauty, friendship, and home ! 

 When a young person is affected with grief, he seldom 

 fails, if endowed with a sensitive mind, to listen to the 

 birds as sympathizers in his affliction. Through them 

 the deities of the grove seem to offer him their conso- 

 lation. By his companionship with the objects of nature 

 all pleasing sights and sounds have become anodynes for 

 his sorrow ; and those who have this mental alembic, for 

 turning grief into poetic melancholy cannot be reduced 

 to despondency. This poetic sentiment exalts our pleas- 

 ures and soothes our afflictions by some illusive charm, 

 derived from religion or romance. Without this reflection 

 of light from poetry, what is the passion of love, and 

 what our love of beauty, but a mere gravitation ? 



The music of birds is modulated in pleasant unison 

 with all the chords of affection and imagination, filling 

 the soul with a lively consciousness of beauty and de- 



