A BIRD MEDLEY 79 



" Steering north, with raucous cry, 

 Through tracts and provinces of sky, 

 Every night alighting down 

 In new landscapes of romance, 

 Where darkling feed the clamorous clans 

 By lonely lakes to men unknown." 



Dwelling upon these sights, I am reminded that 

 the seeing of spring come, not only upon the great 

 wings of the geese and the lesser wings of the 

 pigeons and birds, hut in the many more subtle 

 and indirect signs and mediums, is also a part of the 

 compensation of living in the country. I enjoy not 

 less what may be called the negative side of spring, 

 — those dark, dank, dissolving days, yellow sposh 

 and mud and water everywhere, — yet who can stay 

 long indoors ? The humidity is soft and satisfying 

 to the smell, and to the face and hands, and, for 

 the first time for months, there is the fresh odor of 

 the earth. The air is full of the notes and calls 

 of the first birds. The domestic fowls refuse their 

 accustomed food and wander far from the barn. Is 

 it something winter has left, or spring has dropped, 

 that they pick up? And what is it that holds 

 me so long standing in the yard or in the fields ? 

 Something besides the ice and snow melts and runs 

 away with the spring floods. 



The little sparrows and purple finches are so 

 punctual in announcing spring, that some seasons 

 one wonders how they know without looking in the 

 almanac, for surely there are no signs of spring out 

 of doors. Yet they will strike up as cheerily amid 

 the driving snow as if they had just been told that 



