Mistress Cuckoo 



more unmelodious and rasping than the chick- 

 adee's note ; yet it stirs the heart as quickly as 

 a thrush or finch. Something worth more than 

 music has made it musical. Nature's audible 

 effects, thus slightly tinged or deeply saturated 

 with sentiment, are so innumerable, by day and 

 night, in every season of the year, that we may 

 well ask whether the attentive listener will not, 

 in the aggregate, derive more of music's very 

 essence from Nature than from Art. With an 

 ambition for nothing short of omniscience, yet, 

 in thoughts upon these things, I would far rather 

 be the poet than the philosopher, since beauty 

 is more than truth to my soul — nay, rather, we 

 should say, beauty is very truth, fashioned in 

 fairest form, instinct with spirit's force, robed 

 in soft color, and flushed with keen vitality. For 

 surely it cannot be called vague transcendental- 

 ism nor odious pantheism to say that the Divine 

 Soul lives in the insect, flower, and crystal, in 

 wave and cloud, in storm and sunshine, as He 

 does not in algebraic equation or in geometric 

 theorem. 



The universal familiarity with the cuckoo's 

 notes finds its reason, not in their greater beauty, 



"3 



