Birds, small and great, of endless shapes and colours,
Here flew and perched, there swam and dived at pleasure;
Watchful and agile, uttering voices wild
And harsh, yet in accordance with the waves
Upon the beach, the winds in caverns moaning,
Or winds and waves abroad upon the water.
His was an eager, rapturous temperament. Next to birds he seems to have loved the insect legions—“children of light and air and fire” he calls them,
Their lives all ecstasy and quick cross motion.
But birds and insects did not confine his sympathy. They did not, e.g., turn it aside from the elephant, leading his quiet life “among his old contemporary trees.”
Whether it was through the impulse of the discoverer’s words, or, as is more likely, through his own nature, he was able to suggest with some power the world that does without men, the “sterile wilderness” not neglected by the dew, the Paradise without man and without death, where