The Bird in the Box

MARY MEARS
Author of The Breath of The Runners
TORONTO WILLIAM BRIGGS
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages including the Scandinavian Copyright, 1910, by FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY October, 1910
To THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER NELLY WILDWOOD THIS BOOK IS DEVOTEDLY INSCRIBED
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The soul of man at birth is immured in a prison. It is like a bird singing in a cage, heedless of the bars that confine it. But later the soul knows its bondage.
Panting with a desire for liberty, man tries in two ways to attain it, through his ability to labour, through his capacity to feel.
He has need of freedom, hence the poem, the ship, the engine, the thousand cunning and gigantic structures for annihilating space, for chaining the forces of nature.
He has need of freedom, hence the universal outpouring of his affections, the glory and the emancipation of his highest love.
June, 1910
CONTENTS