36 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



and most facile singers, from Herrick to Swinburne, 

 seem hard and mechanical by comparison. But 

 there is something more. I doubt for one thing if 

 we are justified in the boast we sometimes make 

 that the feeling for nature is stronger in our poets 

 than in those of other countries. The most scientific 

 critic may be unable to pick a hole in Tennyson's 

 botany and zoology, but the passion for, and feeling 

 of oneness with, nature may exist without this 

 modern minute accuracy. Be this as it may, it was 

 not Tennyson nor any other of our poets that I 

 would have taken to my drearaed-of solitary cabin 

 for companionship : Melendez came first to my 

 mind. I think of his lines to a butterfly — 



De donde alegre vienes 

 Tan suelta y tan festtva. 

 Las valles alegrando 

 Veloz mariposilb i ' 



and can imagine him — the poet himself — coming to 

 see me through the woods and down the hill with 

 the careless ease and lightness of heart of his own 

 purple-winged child of earth and air — tan suelta y 

 tan f estiva. Here in ihese four or five words one may 

 read the whole secret of his charm — the exquisite 



• May be roughly rendered thus : 



Whence, blithe one, comest thou 

 With that airy, happy flight — 

 To make the valleys glad, 

 O swift-winged butterfly i 



