Timeless Night 121 



faded or their wings can be seen above the fields. 

 When the dew grows visible upon the out-thrust 

 hedge-sprays, sometimes the nightjar will renew a 

 fitful murmur, like a ghost between the night and 

 the day. As daylight widens, all the other birds 

 still singing lift up their voices, with the song- 

 thrush and the turtle-dove conspicuous in the 

 shrunken band. Even the corn-bunting, resolutely 

 hissing on the fallow, at last makes his own voice 

 audible in this hymn to Day. It ceases as suddenly 

 as it began ; the birds disperse to feed, and flit 

 about the bushes with the old confidence of Eden. 

 Men are so rarely seen abroad in these early morning 

 hours that the birds pay them little attention if 

 they come. The highway at sunrise is their play- 

 ground ; the thrushes, still following their grown 

 young, have lost their quick glances of timidity, 

 robins flit about with a peculiar aspect of possession, 

 and here and there a cock yellowhammer, still busy 

 with courtship, runs in wide curves and sudden 

 dashes about his hen. Some flowers still sleep in 

 the cornfields, tightly folded until the sunlight warms 

 them, or their own hour for opening is come. But 

 others, like the wild roses and the purple mallows, 

 do not close in darkness, but watch on, mysteriously 

 vigilant in the first light ; and these keep the sense 

 of night's magic alive until the sun warns the birds 

 to be fearful again, and the world grows busy. 



