68 THE EGG. 
should regard this egg, so exactly like another, and yet the source 
whence shall issue the innumerable tribes born to a life of wings on 
earth. 
From the obscure unity it pours out, it expands, in countless.and 
prodigiously divergent rays, those winged flames which you name birds, 
glowing with ardour and life, with colour and song. From the 
burning hand of God escapes continuously that vast fan of astound- 
ing diversity, where everything shines, where everything sings, where 
everything floods me with harmony and light. Dazzled, I lower my 
eyes. 
Melodious sparks of celestial fire, whither do ye not attain? 
For ye exists nor height nor distance; the heaven, the abyss, it is 
all one. What cloud, what watery deep is inaccessible to ye? Earth, 
in all its vast circuit, great as it is with its mountains, its seas, and 
its valleys, is wholly yours. I hear ye under the Equator, ardent as 
the arrows of the sun. I hear ye at the Pole, in the eternal lifeless 
silence, where the last tuft of moss has faded; the very bear sees 
ye afar, and slinks away growling. Ye, ye still remain; ye live, ye 
love, ye bear witness to God, ye reanimate death. In those terrestrial 
deserts your touching loves invest with an atmosphere of innocence 
what man has designated the barbarism of nature. 
