“ * * * * * * The throng 
That dwell in nests, and have the gift of song. 
“You slay them all! and wherefore ? for the gain 
Of a scant handful more or less of wheat, 
Or rye, or barley, or some other grain, 
Scratched up at random by industrious feet, 
Searching for worm or weevil after rain ! 
Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet 
As are the songs these uninvited guests 
Sing at their feast with comfortable breasts. 
“ Do you ne’er think what wondrous beings these ? 
Do you ne’er think who made them, and who taught 
The dialect they speak, where melodies 
Alone are the interpreters of thought ? 
Whose household words are songs in many keys, 
Sweeter than instrument of man e’er caught ! 
Whose habitations on the tree-tops even 
Are half-way houses on the road to heaven ! 
“ Think, every morning when the sun peeps through 
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove 
How jubilant the happy birds renew 
Their old melodious madrigals of love ! 
And when you think of this, remember too 
’Tis always morning somewhere, and above 
The awakening continents, from shore to shore, 
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore. 
********* 
“ You call them thieves and pillagers ; but know 
They are the winged wardens of your farms, 
Who from the corn-fields drive the insidious foe, 
And from your harvests keep a hundred harms ; 
Even the blackest of them all, the crow, 
Benders good service as your man-at-arms, 
Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, 
And crying havoc on the slug and snail.” 
Longfellow. 
