FOREWORD
John Burroughs, in his delightful essay called “Birds and Poets” says: “The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his life—large brained, large lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song. The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds,—how many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives—and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song.”[1]
Long before the place of birds in the great scheme of nature was understood, they made their appeal: first, to primitive man, who had curious superstitions and created beautiful myths concerning them; next, to poets and dreamers of ancient civilizations, who used them in allusions beautiful with Oriental imagery; to artists, who delighted in portraying symbolism; to later poets and lovers of beauty, who perceived deep truths and revelations of God; and to scientists, who saw back of the phenomena of nature the marvelous laws of God.
It is interesting to follow the effect birds have had upon the development of man. Though the religion of the early Egyptians was largely worship of the sun and moon, yet reverence for birds entered into their faith and their ritual. The swallow, the heron, the hawk, the vulture, the goose, and the ibis were all held sacred. The people of Egypt with their belief in transmigration, imagined the swallow and the heron as possible abiding-places for their souls after death.
The Chinese and Japanese have had interesting conceptions regarding birds that have been both symbolic and poetic. In Japan, wild ducks, geese, cocks, herons, and cranes have been highly honored. The people have built torii gates, or entrances to their temples, as “bird-rests” or perches for their sacred fowl.
The Greek and Roman mythologies abound in allusions to bird-life. It was natural that the powerful eagle should be held sacred to Jupiter, the lordly peacock to Juno, the wise owl to Minerva, the repulsive vulture that haunted battlefields to Mars, the beautiful swan to Apollo, and the cooing dove to Venus.
The American Indians regarded birds with great reverence. Their bird-myths are full of beauty. To them the eagle and the raven were especially sacred.
The dove was a cherished symbol of early Christian writers and painters. The pelican, too, was revered; it was the mediæval symbol of charity. The red breast of the robin was thought to have been caused by a prick of a thorn in Christ’s crown as the bird strove to “wrench one single thorn away.” The red crossbill’s beak was believed to have been twisted in its attempt to remove the iron nail from Christ’s blood-stained hand.
Burroughs continues: “The very oldest poets, the towering antique bards, seem to make very little mention of the song-birds. They loved better the soaring, swooping birds of prey, the eagle, the ominous birds, the vultures, the storks and cranes, or the clamorous sea-birds and the screaming hawk. These suited better the rugged, warlike character of the times, and the simple, powerful souls of the singers themselves. Homer must have heard the twittering of the swallows, the cry of the plover, the voice of the turtle (dove), and the warble of the nightingale; but they were not adequate symbols to express what he felt or to adorn his theme. Æschylus saw in the eagle the ‘dog of Jove,’ and his verse cuts like a sword with such a conception.
“It is not because the old bards were less as poets, but that they were more as men. To strong, susceptible characters, the music of nature is not confined to sweet sounds. The defiant scream of the hawk circling aloft, the wild whinney of the loon, the whooping of the crane, the booming of the bittern, the loud trumpeting of the migratory geese sounding down out of the midnight sky, or the wild crooning of the flocks of gulls—are much more welcome in certain moods than any and all mere bird-melodies, in keeping as they are with the shaggy and untamed features of ocean and woods, and suggesting something like Richard Wagner music in the ornithological orchestra.”
As the life of man grew less warlike and heroic, as the humbler fireside virtues were honored and the amenities of life were cultivated, it is true that poets sang of the gentler, more beautiful aspects of nature. Wordsworth wrote of the skylark, the cuckoo, and the throstle, Shelley and Shakespeare of the skylark, Keats of the nightingale and of goldfinches, Tennyson of the swallow and the throstle. They were, however, all deeply sensitive to the wilder phases of nature—to the scudding cloud, the dashing spray of the ocean, the raving and moaning of the tempest. They saw, too, as have many later poets, a spiritual significance and an inspiration as truly great and ennobling as the conceptions of the older bards.
Numerous American poets have found spiritual help, comfort, and inspiration in birds. Frank Bolles felt the presence of God in the forest where the Oven-bird sings:
“Pouring out his spirit’s gladness
Toward the Source of life and being.”
Celia Thaxter mused on God’s care of man and bird:
“For are we not God’s children both,
Thou, little Sandpiper, and I?”
Serenity and joy came to Edna Dean Proctor:
“My heart beside the bluebird, sings
And folds serene its weary wings.”
Edward Rowland Sill voiced human need in his poem: