BIRDS AND POETS 



BIRDS AND POETS 



"In summer, when the shawes be shene, 



And leaves be large and long, 

 It is full merry in fair forest 



To hear the fowl^s' song. 

 The wood-wele sang, and wolde not cease, 



Sitting upon the spray ; 

 So loud, it wakened Sobin Hood 



In the greenwood where he lay." 



"TT migkt almost be said that th.e birds are all 

 -*- birds of tbe poets and of no one else, because it 

 is only the poetical temperament that fully responds 

 to them. So true is this, that all the great orni- 

 thologists — original namers and biographers of the 

 birds — have been poets in deed if not in word. 

 Audubon is a notable case in point, who, if he had 

 not the tongue or pen of the poet, certainly had the 

 eye and ear and heart — " the fluid and attaching 

 character '' — and the singleness of purpose, the en- 

 thusiasm, the unworldliness, the love, that charac- 

 terizes the true and divine race of bards. 



So had Wilson, though perhaps not in as large a 

 measure ; yet he took fire as only a poet can. While 



