BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 137 



ode to "The Skylarks" by Sir Rennell Rodd, that 

 the reader will probably feel grateful to me for 

 quoting a portion of it in this place, especially as 

 the volume in which it appears — Feda, with Other 

 Poems — is, I imagine, not very widely known : 



"Oh, the sky, the sky, the open sky, 

 For the home of a song-bird's heart ! 



And why, and why, and for ever why, 

 Do they stifle here in the mart: 



Cages of agony, rows on rows, 

 Torture that only a wild thing knows : 



Is it nothing to you to see 

 That head thrust out through the hopeless wire, 

 And the tiny life, and the mad desire 



To be free, to be free, to be free? 

 Oh, the sky, the sky, the blue, wide sky, 



For the beat of a song-bird's wings 1 



Straight and close are the cramping bars 

 From the dawn of mist to the chill of stars, 

 And yet it must sing or die I 



