From the robin’s polished beak.
Then the brothers, as he dropped it
Picked it up and careful sowed;
And abundantly in autumn
Reaped the harvest where they strewed.[[21]]
Greater poets than Baring-Gould or even Bishop Trench have found literary material in these monastic tales. Witness Longfellow’s Golden Legend, where he sings of good St. Felix, the Burgundian missionary who crossed the Channel, and in A.D. 604 converted to Christianity the wild king of the East Saxons; and who listened to the singing of a milk-white bird for a hundred years, although it had seemed to him but an hour, so enchanted was he with the music. No doubt myth-mongers might discourse very scientifically on this and some other of these episodes in the penumbra of history, but we will leave the pleasure of it to them.
None of these traditions of early bird-lovers and teachers of kindness are so pleasant as are those inspired by the gracious life of St. Francis.[[22]] A familiar classic is his sermon to the birds when
Around Assisi’s convent gate
The birds, God’s poor who cannot wait,
From moor and mere and darksome wood