"Where are the birds that sangAn hundred years ago?"
"Where are the birds that sangAn hundred years ago?"
"Where are the birds that sangAn hundred years ago?"
"Where are the birds that sang
An hundred years ago?"
would find them there, with the sweet old song that charmed an humbler world. And, may be, we should learn the bird language then, and would know what the robins were saying, and the chirping of sparrows be turned to the choicest of English.
There in the meadow, all the days in the year, Robert o' Lincoln should ring his chime of bells; there in the leafy cloisters, "Bob White" should be incessantly called; there on the nodding thistle-blossoms, the yellow-bird should ride as the summer wind went gently by.
And what would a June be without roses? And so the sod should be enameled, and the woods should not be lonely for them. The timid children of the Rainbow, that fled before the plowshare, should grow bold again, and start up like young quails from their hiding, and cluster round the door-stone, and swing themselves up to the roof by green shrouds of their own, and swing themselves down the damp, mossy sides of the spring, and be numbered with the household.
And here, to this Bird Heaven, one should come who all his earthly life long was a loving child of Nature; who saw in the feather fallen from the blue bird in its flight the tinting of the Hand that touched the tented sky with azure; in the red bird's glowing wing, the finger-prints of Him who wove a ribbon of the falling rain, and bound therewith the cloudy brow of storm: Audubon should come and go at will. The freedom of the planet should be his.
And the world adjoining, and lying in full sight, should be a Tophet for the slayers of robins and sparrows; the men whom want of worth makes "fellows"; who lurk about the woods, in the yet unraveled leaf, and prowl in the orchards white with the sweet drift of apple-blossoms, and murder the builders of the homes of song; the ruffians who, in bright top-boots and game-bag cap-a-pie, return elated with two dead blue-birds and a lark without a head, who break a thrush's wing, and misname it "sport," and pass disguised as men. And in that Tophet they should play Nimrod, with kicking muskets shooting empty air; the crows should live with them, and Nero to fiddle for them, and a filer of saws for orchestra; and so, like Alexander the coppersmith, they should be rewarded "according to their works."
Who can imagine a birdless June, or could love a grove rich as Vallombrosa in leafy beauty, that sheltered no bird, rustled with no wings, along whose green corridors floated no little song?
With what elegance of form, grace of motion, brilliancy of coloring, and sweetness of utterance do they fill the summer world. How like carrier-doves are they, forever bringing messages of peace from the bosom of Nature even to our own; and a wintry thing indeed is the happiness that has no birds in it.
As he can not be altogether evil who cherishes a flower, makes friends with the little violet until it pleads for him, so they who love birds for their beauty and song have yet something in themselves that is lovely.
And this lingering trace of an Eden-born nature gives to the denizens of the air a commercial value beyond that of the provision market. Who would think,withoutthinking, that more than seventeen thousand song birds are annually sold in New York? The linnets, finches and thrushes of the Hartz Mountains, the canaries from Antwerp and Brussels, the skylarks from English fields, and the painted sparrows from Java are among the multitude. Seventy-five thousand dollars expended in a single city every year for birds, not to be grilled or fricasseed, but to be admired for their beauty or loved for their song! Here are the figures for a single year of this graceful trade in the city of New York:
In 1873, ninety-five thousand canaries were sold in America—birds enough to make a golden cloud and hide the sun at high noon. And how kind it was of Chief Justice Chase to decide, in 1872, that in the intent of the law imposing a tax upon imported animals, birds werenotanimals, and so the wings and the warblers enter the United States duty free!
Who can help following those wicker cages with their little tenants, as, borne here and there, they make "the winter of our discontent" a summer; to some gloomy room with its one window and its narrow strip of sky; to the chamber of the invalid and the garret of poverty. There, under the dim sky-light, and there, by the one window, and there, by the couch of languishing, the captives sit and sing—sing, though no "sweet South" is blowing, and no soft sky is bending, and no green branch is rustling; sit and sing while the fall rains beat upon the panes; while the snows drift white upon the threshold; and then, when, through the smoky air and the dull window, there comes a gush of sunshine, what a burst of the old woodland melody there is, till the listening heart is full of the sweet thoughts of summer, and so they sing out sorrow's night, and "joy cometh in the morning."
It is with a sort of regret, shared perhaps by nobody else, that I end these sketches. We always get into thehabitof things, and habit comes to rest easily, like an old garment. I do not now remember much of anything I was not a little sorry to part with, except a jumping toothache. But the best thing I can do, after wishing my readers a pleasant trip by the World on Wheels and a pleasant Station at last, is to
SWITCH OFF.
A sitting woman
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Old-Time PicturesANDSHEAVES OF RHYME.
By BENJ. F. TAYLOR.
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Getting On in the World;Or, HINTS ON SUCCESS IN LIFE.
By WILLIAM MATHEWS, LL.D.,Prof. of Rhetoric and English Literature, University of Chicago.
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Transcriber's Note:Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.The cover of this ebook was created by the transcriber and is hereby placed in the public domain.
Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.
The cover of this ebook was created by the transcriber and is hereby placed in the public domain.