BIRDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 65, 8 June 1927, Page 14

BIRDS

Birds—birds! ye are beautiful things, With your earth-treading feet and your cloud-cleaving wings: Where shall man wander, and where shall he dwell, Beautiful birds, that ye come not as well? Ye have nests on the mountain all rugged and stark, Ye have nests in the forest all tangled and dark: Ye build and ye brood ’neath the cottager’s eaves, And ye sleep on the sod ’mid the bonny green leaves; Ye hide in the heather, ye lurk in the brake, Ye dive in the sweet flags that shadow the lake: Ye skim where the stream parts che orchard-decked land, Ye dance where the foam sweeps the desolate strand. Beautiful birds! ye come thickly around. When the bud’s on the branch, and the snow’s on the ground; Ye come when the richest of roses flush out, And yet come when the yellow leaf eddies about. Beautiful birds! how the schoolboy remembers The warblers that chorused his holiday tune; The robin that chirped in the frosty Decembers, The blackbird that whistled through flower-crowned June. That schoolboy remembers his holiday ramble, When he pulled every blossom of palm he could see, When his finger was raised as he stopped in the bramble, With, Hark! there’s the cuckoo; hosv close he must be! —WILLIAM H. THOMSON. Whenever you observe a shadow, remember it could not exist without light.