Birds and PoetsI have deliberated a long time about coupling some of my sketches of outdoor nature with a few chapters of a more purely literary character, and thus confiding to my reader what absorbs and delights me inside my four walls, as well as what pleases and engages me outside those walls; especially since I have aimed to bring my outdoor spirit and method within, and still to look upon my subject with the best naturalist's eye I could command. I hope, therefore, he will not be scared away when I boldly confront him in the latter portions of my book with this name of strange portent, Walt Whitman, for I assure him that in this misjudged man he may press the strongest poetic pulse that has yet beaten in America, or perhaps in modern times. Then, these chapters are a proper supplement or continuation of my themes and their analogy in literature, because in them we shall follow out these lessons of the earth and air, and behold their application to higher matters. |
Contents
| 9 | |
TOUCHES OF NATURE | 49 |
A BIRD MEDLEY | 83 |
APRIL | 103 |
SPRING POEMS | 115 |
OUR RURAL DIVINITY | 123 |
BEFORE GENIUS | 144 |
BEFORE BEAUTY | 152 |
EMERSON | 162 |
THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE | 184 |
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Common terms and phrases
Aeschylus April barn swallow beauty behold beneath bird blood bobolink breath character charm color creature cuckoo delight earth Emerson emotional especially fact feeling fields genius hear heard heart herd hermit thrush human intellectual lark Leaves of Grass light literary literature living look loon loud manner master mate melody mind mockingbird morning mountain nature nest never night nightingale ornithologists Pe-wee perhaps person plumage poems poet poetic poetry purple finch reader robin sandpiper season seems Shakespeare sing snow song song sparrow songster soul sound sparrow spirit spring stand strong suggestion summer swallows sweet Tennyson thee things Thoreau thou thought thrush Titmouse traits trees true utter vesper sparrow voice Walt Whitman whole wild Wilson Flagg wings winter wonder wood thrush woods
Popular passages
Page 22 - Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire ; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning « Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run ; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
Page 23 - Leave to the nightingale her shady wood ; A privacy of glorious light is thine; Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Of harmony, with instinct more divine; Type of the wise who soar, but never roam; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home...
Page 23 - What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.