170 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 



foliate yellow wort with erect stem, thrust through 

 the glaucous, up-curled leaves. 



But flowers are birds and butterflies that cannot fly. 

 Nature cannot be at her best without the birds, and 

 the most splendid and moving portraits of her in verse 

 and prose are lacking, unless they take account of the 

 whole rather than the less animate piece. I have 

 wandered in places where nature, unlike the young 

 man in the Scriptures, seemed to give all that she had. 

 But all she did not give, for birds were few — rari nanies 

 in gurgite vasto — ^and their absence crippled her beauty. 



I remember walking along some water-meadows one 

 day near my village, " enamelled o'er " with a press 

 of flowers dropped like rain out of nature's seed-box, 

 and finding it empty of voice and flying shape. With- 

 out the birds, it was a melancholy still life picture ; or 

 a house with bright curtains in the open windows, 

 cushions in the chairs, table laid and door set wide, 

 inviting dwellers that come not ; or the blue sky in 

 the Ancient Mariner, a sky wherein the stars do not 

 enter " as lords that are certainly expected." For the 

 birds are nature's articulation, and without them she 

 is a sleeping princess, a tree in winter, fine clothes in 

 a window, with no fair body to wear them. What rhythm 

 is to the poet, so birds to nature. 



I remember another occasion one early spring morn- 

 ing about half-past five when I was awakened to the 

 first feathered chorus I had heard that year. Chaffinch, 

 blackbird, throstle, blue and great tits, wren, robin and 

 dunnock could be disentangled from these wild matins 

 to the morning of the year. But it was idle thus 

 splitting and labelling the whole — a festival, turning 

 the world into a dew-drop of song : — 



Glorious the sun in mid career ; 

 Glorious th' assembled fires appear ; 



Glorious the comet's train : 

 Glorious the trumpet and alarm ; 

 Glorious the Almighty's stretched-out arm ; 



Glorious th' enraptured main. 



There was nature at her best, and now for birds at 

 theirs. 



