Half bird, half fly, the fairy king of flowers
Reigns there, and revels through the fragrant hours;
Gem full of life and joy and song divine!”
Could the compressed, intense, vehement little sprite be expanded to the dimensions of the ordinary folk of air, would the magnified musical and physical representation be as entrancing as are the fleeting glimpses of the fairy and the elusive hints of melody that so nearly escape us now?
For this electric spark, like an erratic meteorite of topaz and ruby and gold,
“As if inlaid
With brilliants from the mine, or made
Of tearless rainbows, such as span
Th’ unclouded skies of Peristan,”
hovering between heaven and earth in a mist created by its own prismatic wings, might almost be believed an exemplification of light itself as scientifically defined, “a form of radiant energy,” and it is the nearest approach to a disembodied spirit that lies within the range of mortal vision. So while it is believed that its song is but a feeble twittering, it may yet be as much musician as it is bird, and emit strains of melody too exquisite and finely drawn for human apprehension, and of which the notes that reach us are but the deeper tones of a delicate and etherial ariose.