226 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



who has treated the same subject. At all events, the 

 incident related is the same, except that a little girl 

 has been substituted for the girl wife of the original. 

 Here is the first stanza : 



Wherefore pinest them, my bird ? 

 Thy sweet song is never heard. 

 All the bird's best joys surround thee, 

 Ever since the day I found thee. 

 Once thy voice was free and glad, 

 Tell me why thou art so sad ? 

 If this coarse thread cause thee pain, 

 Thou shalt have a silken chain. 



What poor, artificial stuff it is ! How it bumps you, 

 each line ending with the dull, hard, wooden thud of 

 the rhyme ! Doubtless if a better poet had written 

 it the result would not have been so bad ; my sole 

 reason for quoting it is that I can find no other transla- 

 tion or version in our literature. We abound in bird 

 poems, some of them among the most beautiful lyrics 

 in the language ; but I confess that, for the reasons 

 already given, even the best, such as those of Words- 

 worth, Hogg, Shelley, Meredith, and Swinburne him- 

 self, particularly in his splendid ode to the sea-mew, 

 fail to give me entire satisfaction. 



I am bad at translating, or paraphrasing, anything, 

 and the subject of the Spanish poem is one peculiarly 

 suited to verse; if taken out of that sublimated 

 emotional language, I fear it must seem flat, if not 

 ridiculous. Nevertheless, I will venture to give here 

 a simple prose translation of the anecdote, and will 



