Or thought. A winged emotion of the sky,
The birds through an eternal Present fly.
Oxford, April 1923.
ILS N’ONT QUE DE L’ÂME:
AN ESSAY ON BIRD-MIND
“O Nightingale, thou surely art
A creature of a fiery heart.”
—W. Wordsworth.
“The inferior animals, when the conditions of life are favourable, are subject to periodical fits of gladness, affecting them powerfully and standing out in vivid contrast to their ordinary temper.... Birds are more subject to this universal joyous instinct than mammals, and ... as they are much freer than mammals, more buoyant and graceful in action, more loquacious, and have voices so much finer, their gladness shows itself in a greater variety of ways, with more regular and beautiful motions, and with melody.”—W. H. Hudson.