A RAMBLE WITH BURROUGHS. “Te Deum amoris!" sang the throstle cocke, Tuball himself, the first musician, With key of armony, could not unlocke CHAUCER. No poetic treatN° O objects of the animate world offer a more fertile theme for ment than the great galaxy of the birds, as annually they proclaim the resurrection of the year, and with their voice and presence lend a companionship to outward scenes that nothing else may so effectually impart. From the dove, bearing the olive-branch, to the mavis, nightingale, and our own beloved choristers of forest, field, and garden, they are invariably associated in our minds with whatever is fairest and most attractive. Indeed, Nature were scarcely less companionable without birds than without flowers. To those possessed of a musical ear and a keen appreciation for sounds, it were a question which would prove the greater deprivation. An artist, if pressed for a choice, would probably choose the flower; a poet, in most instances, would retain the bird. The bird upon the spray was the first musician, the primal genesis of song. From the arc of his tiny throat may be traced the origin and subsequent development of music and concord of sweet sounds, - the lyre and lute, rebeck and harpsichord, flute and hautboy; the plaint of viols, and thrilling harmony of reeds. The great Rana, it is possible, might have suggested the trombone, and the cicada the cymbals, while the wind, the lapse of flowing waters, and sound of surf upon the shingle, may have been the foundation of other forms of instrumental expression; but to the bird mainly belongs the origin of music, and, indirectly through man's development, the development and present perfection of the art itself. earliest master of melody, his was likewise the first poetic voice to hymn Nature's manifold charms; and he still remains the laureate of the outer world, the singer of the green leaf and sunny hour, the lutanist of the opening bud and the season's rhythmic span. The How welcome the first bluebird's warble and song-sparrow's vernal lay, audible ere leaves unsheathe their chrysalides, and while the snow still lingers amid the shaded hollows! With what exultant glee the whitethroat winds his silver horn, and thrush and bobolink, finch and oriole, with warblers innumerable, acclaim the heyday of the year, when the wind pauses in its passage through the beech-wood to hearken to the hermit's chant, and violets bloom fairer for the veery's song! The very voice of the crow ringing through the welkin's wintry arch, and lisp of the chickadee amid the frost-bound woods, attune the landscape to a tenderer grace. But to most persons birds exist merely as pleasing features of man's surroundings, or minister to his well-being and delight, not unlike the sunshine, the flora, and the starlit sky. Only to the relatively few is accorded. the gift to rightly define their speech, and The apknow the meaning of their ways. preciative observers, and even the scientific recorders, are many; the true interpreters are few. Unless in Oriental lands, where the bulbul sings, the nightingale is almost universally considered the foremost songster, -a fact due not only to the intrinsic quality of his voice, but equally to his peculiarity of singing at night, when most birds are silent, as well as to the constant tributes to his minstrelsy that occur in British and continental verse. He is par excellence the bird of the poets, extolled by them as the prince of songsters, as the rose is termed the queen of flowers. In Great Britain, however, though the poets' distinction usually prevails, there are those who accord to the thrush an equal place. One will remember Chaucer's and Burns' many tributes to his melodious voice, - the "throstle with his note so true," of the "Midsummer-Night's Dream;" Montgomery's thrush, "enraptur ing heaven and earth; Shenstone's throstle, "chanting the rising year;" and the many acclaiming notes of other bards, among which none are more appreciative than those of Alfred Austin: "Hearing thee flute, who pines or grieves "Scorning to wait for tuneful May In England, too, the lark, blackbird, chaffinch, linnet, blackcap, and even the starling and yellow-hammer, have their favourites, not in all cases owing to preference for their song, but more frequently from association. Thus Richard Jefferies, who loved all living creatures with a devotion that is seldom equalled, and who possessed a most discriminating ear, gives the lark and chaffinch a foremost place. In the pastoral scenes of Tennyson, amid the low of oxen, the plaint of tremulous poplars, and bleat of sheep from wattled folds, is heard the "sightless song" of the lark, the latest linnet's trill," the "mellow ouzel fluting in the elm ;" and surely it is the thrush who is referred to in the passage of "In Memoriam ": 66 "Wild bird, whose warble, liquid-sweet, Wordsworth's favourite bird was the cuckoo, whom he terms the "darling of the spring." Bourdillon singles out the blackbird as "poet-laureate to Queen Spring." Tennyson and Charles Tennyson Turner vie with each other in praise of the blackbird. David |