212 Conservation Reader 



And when you think of this, remember too 

 'Tis always morning somewhere, and above 

 The awakening continents, from shore to shore, 

 Somewhere the birds are singing evermore. 



Think of your woods and orchards without birds ! 



Of empty nests that cHng to boughs and beams 

 As in an idiot's brain remembered words 



Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams ! 

 Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds 



Make up for the lost music, when your teams 

 Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more 

 The feathered gleaners follow to your door ? 



What ! would you rather see the incessant stir 



Of insects, in the windrows of the hay. 

 And hear the locust and the grasshopper 



Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play? 

 Is this more pleasant to you than the whir 



Of meadow lark, and its sweet roundelay. 

 Or twitter of little fieldfares, as you take 

 Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake? 



You call them thieves and pillagers ; but know 

 They are the winged wardens of your farms. 



Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, 

 And from your harvests keep a hundred harms ; 



Even the blackest of them all, the crow. 

 Renders good service as your man-at-arms, 



Crushing the beetle in his coat of maU, 



And crying havoc on the slug and snail. 



Henry W. Longfellow, 

 The Birds of Killingworth 



