66 THE LAND'S END 



of seeing them which kept me to the crags. Sturge 

 Moore says in a poem on " Wings " : 



That man who wishes not for wings, 



Must be the slave of care ; 

 For birds that have them move so well 



And softly through the air : 

 They venture far into the sky, 

 If not so far as thoughts and angels fly. 



Feather from under feather springs ; 



All open like a fan ; 

 Our eyes upon their beauty dwell 



And marvel at the plan 

 By which things made for use so rare 

 Are powerful and delicate and fair. 



In Calderon's celebrated drama, Life's a Dream, 

 when Sigismund laments his miserable destiny, com- 

 paring it with that of the wild creatures which in- 

 habited the forest where he is kept a prisoner, the 

 contrast between his lot and theirs seems greatest 

 when he considers the birds, perfect in form, lovely in 

 colouring, graceful in their motions, and so wonder- 

 ful in their faculty of flight ; while he, a being with 

 a higher nature, a greater, more aspiring soul, had no 

 such liberty ! We need not be so unhappy as the 

 Polish prince to envy the birds their freedom. I 

 watch and am never tired of watching their play. 

 They rise and fall and circle, and swerve to this side 

 and to that, and are like sportive flies in a room which 

 has the wind-roughened ocean for a floor, and the 

 granite cliffs for walls, and the vast void sky for 

 ceiling. The air is their element : they float on it 



