Nest that has song-birds in it.”
Lowell never speaks of the birds in a stereotyped way, as many poets do, but mentions them by name, and often describes their behavior with a deftness and accuracy of touch that fairly enchant the specialist in bird lore. Having given no little attention to the study of birds, I feel prepared to say that Lowell’s hand is almost always sure when he undertakes to depict the manners of the “feathered republic of the groves.” I have found, I think, only one technical inaccuracy in all his numerous allusions;[10] and I believe I may say, without boasting, that I am familiar with every bird whose charms he has chanted. Indeed, he himself boasts modestly, as poets may, of his familiarity with the birds in his beautiful tribute to George William Curtis, saying,—
“I learned all weather-signs of day and night;
No bird but I could name him by his flight.”
In the first place, let me point out the remarkable felicity of his more general references to birds and their ways. The music of the minstrels of the air often fills his bosom with pleasing but half-regretful reminders of other and happier days, as, for example, when he penned those exquisite lines, “To Perdita, Singing,”—
“She sits and sings,
With folded wings
And white arms crost,
‘Weep not for bygone things,
They are not lost.’”