[THE SONG.]
There is no one who will not have remarked that birds kept in a cage in a drawing-room never fail, if visitors arrive and the conversation grows animated, to take a part in it, after their fashion, by chattering or singing.
It is their universal instinct, even in a condition of freedom. They are the echoes both of God and of man. They associate themselves with all sounds and voices, add their own poesy, their wild and simple rhythms. By analogy, by contrast, they augment and complete the grand effects of nature. To the hoarse beating of the waves the sea-bird opposes his shrill strident notes; with the monotonous murmuring of the agitated trees the turtle-dove and a hundred birds blend a soft sad cadence; to the awakening of the fields, the gaiety of the country, the lark responds with his song, and bears aloft to heaven the joys of earth.
Thus, then, everywhere, above the vast instrumental concert of nature, above her deep sighs, above the sonorous waves which escape from the divine organ, a vocal music springs and detaches itself—that of the bird, almost always in vivid notes, which strike sharply on this solemn base with the ardent strokes of a bow.
Winged voices, voices of fire, angel voices, emanations of an intense life superior to ours, of a fugitive and mobile existence, which inspires the traveller doomed to a well-beaten track with the serenest thoughts and the dream of liberty.
Just as vegetable life renews itself in spring by the return of the leaves, is animal life renewed, rejuvenified by the return of the birds, by their loves, and by their strains. There is nothing like it in the southern hemisphere, a youthful world in an inferior condition, which, still in travail, aspires to find a voice. That supreme flower of life and the soul, Song, is not yet given to it.
The beautiful, the sublime phenomenon of this higher aspect of the world occurs at the moment that Nature commences her voiceless concert of leaves and blossoms, her melodies of March and April, her symphony of May, and we all vibrate to the glorious harmony; men and birds take up the strain. At that moment the smallest become poets, often sublime songsters. They sing for their companions whose love they wish to gain. They sing for those who hearken to them, and more than one accomplishes incredible efforts of emulation. Man also responds to the bird. The song of the one inspires the other with song. Harmony unknown in tropic climes! The dazzling colours which there replace this concord of sweet sounds do not create such a mutual bond. In a robe of sparkling gems, the bird is not less alone.
Far different from this favoured, dazzling, glittering being are the birds of our colder countries, humble in attire, rich in heart, but almost paupers. Few, very few of them, seek the handsome gardens, the aristocratic avenues, the shade of great parks. They all live with the peasant. God has distributed them everywhere. Woods and thickets, clearings, fields, vineyards, humid meadows, reedy pools, mountain forests, even the peaks snow-crowned—he has allotted each winged tribe to its particular region—has deprived no country, no locality, of this harmony, so that man can wander nowhere, can neither ascend so high, nor descend so low, but that he will be greeted with a chorus of joy and consolation.
