A BIRD MEDLEY 73 



old, your friends die or move to distant lands, 

 events sweep on, and aU things are changed. Yet 

 there in your garden or orchard are the birds of your 

 boyhood, the same notes, the same calls, and, to all 

 intents and purposes, the identical birds endowed 

 with perennial youth. The swallows, that built so 

 far out of your reach beneath the eaves of your 

 father's barn, the same ones now squeak and chatter 

 beneath the eaves of your barn. The warblers and 

 shy wood-birds you pursued with such glee ever so 

 many summers ago, and whose names you taught 

 to some beloved youth who now, perchance, sleeps 

 amid his native hills, no marks of time or change 

 cling to them; and when you walk out to the 

 strange woods, there they are, mocking you with 

 their ever-renewed and joyous youth. The call of 

 the high-holes, the whistle of the quail, the strong 

 piercing note of the meadowlark, the drumming of 

 the grouse, — how these sotmds ignore the years, 

 and strike on the ear with the melody of that spring- 

 time when the world was young, and life was all 

 holiday and romance ! 



During any unusual tension of the feelings or 

 emotions, how the note or song of a single bird will 

 sink into the memory, and become inseparably asso- 

 ciated with your grief or joy! Shall I ever again 

 be able to hear the song of the oriole without being 

 pierced through and through 1 Can it ever be other 

 than a dirge for the dead to me ? Day after day, 

 and week after week, this bird whistled and warbled 

 in a mulberry by the door, while sorrow, like a 



