BIRDS AND POETS. 151 



"We might gaze back tranquil love for love into her dark 

 eyes of sleeping waters when they showed eloquent for us 

 the sparkling visions of her infinite life. In pleasant won- 

 der, and some awe, we might look down where the cavern- 

 ous arteries of her warm great heart were yawning hear 

 the clinking ripple of her nourishing blood go through her 

 veins while, far beneath, her fiery bowels yearned and 

 shook the hills with belchings. 



Then in her long rivers we would see the arms of a nurs- 

 ing Mother thrown around the nations we should know in 

 the wind-bowed voiceful forest, the shaking of her musical 

 hair and ah ! how tenderly salute the Wild Flower " cinque- 

 spotted with its crimson drops," sent forth to us from near 

 her heart a thought of odors painted and embodied by the 

 Sun. 



"We should then see in Brute active life ; not simply sav- 

 age foes with whom our dealings should be under the law 

 of blood, but Anti-types in which were foreshadowed the 

 physical thoughts of strength, activity, courage, &c., which 

 were to be united in man the Type. Lion, tiger, horse, hog, 

 monkey, all blended into one ; and he with his union of 

 the Higher Vitality acting through these forces exhibiting 

 their utmost capabilities, the basest as well as the best powers 

 of these organized thoughts of action and of passion. 



Then would they become to us forever a lower Brother- 

 hood, reminding us that we too are born " of the earth, 

 earthy ;" that, with all the keen exulting of this star measur- 

 ing vision, we are linked to them through a common life in 

 half that constitutes our being. 



Then would the Brute King of Numidian forests be a re- 

 proach to us with its inviolate faith to the original laws 

 which stamped it royal would rebuke its Human Brother 

 of the lion-heart back to " mere nature ;" when he grew vo- 

 luptuous, would taunt him through the fixed wrinkles in its 

 tawny face and the still strength of fierceness in its eye, to 



