176 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS. 



" Art thou the Bird whom man loves best, 

 The pious Bird with the scarlet breast, 

 Our little English Robin ?" 



On the highways, in the by -ways, from the green lanes, 

 the hedge-rows and the gardens, by the lintel near the hearth- 

 stone, summer in and winter out, under sunshine, under 

 clouds, happy, calm and musical, ever 



" A life, a Presence like the air ;" 



over merry England and the world will Kobin and the Poet 

 go together, 



" Scattering gladness without care." 



But the "Little English Robin" does not furnish a suffi- 

 cient Anti-type to the higher powers of song which distin- 

 guish "Wordsworth, as well as these gentler graces. Our 

 American Robin, which belongs to the Shaksperian family 

 of " The Turdinae," which includes the Mocking Bird and 

 the Song Thrush, is, in a better sense, his Anti-type. 



This Bird is as well a social familiar, and builds its woven 

 nest upon the limb that leans nearest the homestead walls. 

 Many a time have we seen it, about dusk, catch the fire-flies 

 within ten feet of the door-sill as if it swallowed the weird 

 light to feed and go flashing through the tender magic of its 

 vesper hymn ! And ah ! who that has heard that vesper 

 hymn, beneath the last golden pauses of the twilight, swell 

 out as if it took the plaintive echo, of a saddened Human 

 heart for key-note, and set it in gradations up through the 

 soft notes of Hope to the shrilly clamors of a Joy set free, 

 chastened by the memory of prison bars will fail to under- 

 stand how the American Eobin is the true Anti-type of 

 Wordsworth ! 



But with thee, venerable and most venerated melodist ! 

 11 Sunset is on the dial," and soon we may expect thee to be 



