BIRDS AND POETS 3 



" She sat down below a thorn, 

 Fine flowers in the valley, 

 And there has she her sweet babe born, 

 And the green leaves they grow rarely.'* 



Or the best lyric pieces, how like they are to cer- 

 tain bird-songs ! — clear, ringing, ecstatic, and sug- 

 gesting that challenge and triumph which the out- 

 pouring of the male bird contains. (Is not the 

 genuine singing, lyrical quality essentially mascu- 

 line?) Keats and Shelley, perhaps more notably 

 than any other English poets, have the bird organ- 

 ization and the piercing wild-bird cry. This, of 

 course, is not saying that they are the greatest poets, 

 but that they have preeminently the sharp semi- 

 tones of the sparrows and larks. 



But when the general reader thinks of the birds 

 of the poets he very naturally calls to mind the re- 

 nowned birds, the lark and nightingale. Old World 

 melodists, embalmed in Old World poetry, but occa- 

 sionally appearing on these shores, transported in 

 the verse of some callow singer. 



The very oldest poets, the towering antique 

 bards, seem to make little mention of the song-birds. 

 They loved better the soaring, swooping birds of 

 prey, the eagle, the ominous birds, the vultures, the 

 storks and cranes, or the clamorous sea-birds and 

 the screaming hawks. These suited better the rug- 

 ged, warlike character of the times and the simple, 

 powerful souls of the singers themselves. Homer 

 must have heard the twittering of the swallows, the 

 cry of the plover, the voice of the turtle, and the 

 warble of the nightingale; but they were not ade- 



