178 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS. 



" thou surely art 



A creature of a fiery heart ; 



Those notes of thine, they pierce and pierce 



Tumultuous harmony and fierce." 



We cannot dwell longer in the atmosphere of Him who 

 tortured music through his whole dissonant volcanic life into 

 singing that 



" Our life is a false nature 'tis not in 

 The harmony of things this hard decree, 

 This uneradicable taint of sin 

 This boundless Upas," &c. 



We do not recognize him among " God's Prophets," who 

 eternally cant of 



" The immedicable soul with heart-aches ever new." 



There is an equal difficulty in finding any distinct Anti- 

 type of Coleridge though not for the same cause. His mag- 

 nificent Genius hangs upon the Times like some clouded 

 mystic Fantasy. 



" Up from the lake a shape of golden dew, 

 Between two rocks athwart the rising moon, 

 Dances i'the wind where eagle never flew." 



Though there is a Bird as yet unknown and unclassified 

 of Naturalists we heard of, and saw a single specimen of, 

 in Mexico, which fully expresses him. It is of a very splen- 

 did plumage and most miraculous powers of song, and the 

 superstitious natives hold it in great veneration. It haunts 

 the deep groves about the old Catholic Missions, and they 

 say is often heard to imitate from its hidden coverts the 

 strains and voices of the Nuns singing their Aves to the Vir- 

 gin. We heard it singing one night, and -shall never forget 

 the wild unearthly mellowness of that song 



