FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE. 
91 
it. The death of a singing bird has been touchingly 
described by Mrs. Hemans in the following lines :— 
“ Mournfully, sing mournfully ! 
The royal rose is gone : 
Melt from the woods, my spirit! melt 
In one deep farewell tone ! 
Not so !—swell forth triumphantly 
The full, rich, fervent strain ! 
Hence with young love and life I go, 
In the summer’s joyous train. 
With sunshine, with sweet odour, 
With every precious thing, 
Upon the last warm southern breeze 
My soul its flight shall wing.” 
Unfortunately this beautiful poem is as little true to 
nature as the lovely legend told in the song of the dying 
Swan. The sick bird has, alas, no song! It is mute, 
closes its filmy eye, and ruffles its plumage ; puts its head 
under its wing, and departs this life after a few short 
struggles. I do not know that I can look upon such a 
demise, happily less frequent among the free tenants of the 
woods, as so poetical as the forms of death by which they 
usually suffer. I have often shot a bird whilst singing its 
blithest, and far from pitying have, on the contrary, envied 
it such a departure. To die suddenly amid a full out¬ 
burst of song, without any warning from whence the stroke 
comes, is a death that a poet might envy. Even the short 
struggle in the claws of the Eagle or Hawk—no uncom¬ 
mon death for a bird—appears more desirable than the 
gradual sinking and withering away, day by day and hour 
by hour, under the shadow of disease. 
The bird, however, which dies thus, is better off than 
man who expires on the field of battle. Its death is at 
the same time its burial: for this reason the bodies of 
