as often as in any meadow or orchard on
a May morning. All poets have been their lovers, from the psalmist of
old, who knew "all the birds of the mountains," to our own Lowell with
his "Gladness on wings--the bobolink is here."

The poets, who voice our deepest thoughts, have studied birds with the
utmost care. It is astonishing to note the mention made of them in the
pages of Browning, Tennyson, and in fact of every great maker of
verse. Not merely as adjuncts of the landscape are they mentioned, but
with intensity of feeling, as in William Watson's poem on his recovery
from temporary loss of mind--one of the most pathetic poems ever
written--where he thanks the Heavenly Power for letting him feel once
again at home in nature and again related to the birds and to human
life. Dr. Van Dyke's wish that, when his twilight hour is come, he
"may hear the wood note of the veery" finds response in the heart of
every one who has listened to that song. Frequently the poet seems to
have entered into the life of the bird and to have found his inner
secret, as Keats in the "Ode to a Nightingale":--

Immortal bird, thou wast not born for death,
No hungry generations tread thee down.

Sometimes the words seem to have caught the rhythm and ripple of the
song, as in Browning's reference to the thrush:--

The wise thrush, he sings each song twice over,
Lest you think he never could recapture
That first fine careless rapture.

Or the bird's voice may be so suggestive as to lead the seer to the
very limits of thought and aspiration, like Shelley's "Skylark." As we
need the help of the naturalists, who see more accurately than we, we
also need the assistance of the poet's clearer vision, with its wider
and deeper sweep. How completely Sidney Lanier summed up the mocking
bird! and how much more pleasing is the bird in the tree because of
the bird in the poem:--

Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray
That o'er the general leafage boldly grew,
He summed the woods in song; or typic drew
The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay
Of languid doves when long their lovers stray,
And all birds' passion plays that sprinkle dew
At morn in brake or bosky avenue.
Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say.
Then down he shot, bounced airily along
The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song
Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again.
Sweet science, this larg