The Birds and Poets 107 



throat and breast of the male are bright orange yel- 

 low, with the region before the eye black like the 

 rest of his plumage. The white wing bars are 

 lower down than the red shoulder patch of his 

 cousin, the red-winged blackbird. 



The red-wing, blithesome inhabitant of the cat- 

 tail marshes, companion of every boy who goes 

 fishing, is remembered in his "Lyrics of a Lad," by 

 Scharmel Iris: 



"Fire bearer of the Gods! — ^blue black — 

 With flecks of sunshine on thy back ! 

 Thou herald Mercury, with flame 

 Upon thy shoulders! Dost proclaim 

 In sweat and pangs the pregnant Night 

 Brings forth the wondrous infant Light? 



When sunbeams dance in Dawn's ballet 

 Thou breakest through the blue of day; 

 A shaft of throbbing crimson flame, 

 Flown from God's Hand to earth ye came ; 

 Darting bewildered woodlands through, 

 Unquenched by morning's pools of dew." 



While not so musical as the red-wing, as he 

 "flutes his o-ka-lee," as Emerson so well expresses 

 it, the song of the yellow-head is a typical black- 

 bird song. Tennyson refers to the summer notes 

 of the blackbird as contrasted with his "silver 

 tongue" of early spring: 



