The Birds and Poets 59 



laid them in the grass where he hoped the robins 

 would find them, although the robin's nest had 

 long been finished, and was built of much coarser 

 material, but a pair of orioles espied it and eagerly 

 appropriated it for the delicately woven, pensile 

 nest which I, by this means, discovered they were 

 building in a neighboring elm. 



When I hear the first oriole sing in the spring, I 

 feel an impulse to run out into the sunshine and 

 stretch my hands out to him in glad welcome. 

 The golden buoyancy of his song is an invitation 

 out doors and is as brilliant as his beautiful coat. 

 He seems to say : 



"Come out beneath the unmastered sky, 

 With its emancipating spaces, 

 And learn to sing as well as I, 



Without premeditated graces." 



His song and his nest recall Lowell's beautiful 

 lines : 



"* * * from the honeysuckle gray 



The oriole with experienced quest 



Twitches the fibrous bark away, 



The cordage of his hammock-nest, 



Cheering his labor with a note 



Rich as the orange of his throat. 



High o'er the loud and dusty road 



The soft gray cup in safety swings, 



To brim ere August with its load 



Of downy breasts and throbbing wings, 



