Part 18 (2/2)

Whose household words are songs in many keys, Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught!

Whose habitations in the treetops even Are halfway 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 sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.

Think of your woods and orchards without birds!

Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams As in an idiot's brain remembered words Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!

Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds Make up for the lost music, when your teams Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more The feathered gleaners follow to your door?

What! would you rather see the incessant stir Of insects in the windrows of the hay, And hear the locust and the gra.s.shopper Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play?

Is this more pleasant to you than the whir Of meadow lark, and its sweet roundelay, Or twitter of little fieldfares, as you take Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake?

You call them thieves and pillagers; but know They are the winged wardens of your farms, Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, And from your harvests keep a hundred harms; Even the blackest of them all, the crow, Renders good service as your man-at-arms, Crus.h.i.+ng the beetle in his coat of mail, And crying havoc on the slug and snail.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, _The Birds of Killingworth_

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