The Song of the Birds

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22142, 22 June 1935, Page 4 (Supplement)

The Song of the Birds

If all that has been written concerning music by human voice', or about music sounded on an instrument by finger or breath, were put together, volume by the side of volume, it would fill a hundred alcoves of the national libraries. But about the music of birds there is as much silence as though a thousand years ago the last lark had, with his wing, swept the door-latch of heaven.

Will you tell me how it is possible for that wren, or that sparrow, to sing so sweetly when they may at any time he pounced on by a hawk and torn wing from wing? There are cruel beaks in thicket and in sky, ready to slay the song-birds. Assassins armed with iron claw. Murderers of song floating up and down the heavens. How can the birds sing amid such perils? Beside that, how is the bird sure to get its food? Millions of birds have been starved. Yet it sings in the dawn without any certainty of breakfast or dinner or supper. Would it not be better to gather its food for the day before vocalising? Beside that, winter will come, and it may be smitten down before it gets to the tropics. Emerson describes the little thing he found:

Here was thia atom in full breath Hurling defiance at vast Death: This scrap of valour just for play Fronts the north wind in waistcoat grey

For every bird, a thousand perils and disasters hovering and sweeping around and around. Yet there it sings, and it is a trustful song. The bird that has it the hardest sings the sweetest. The lark from the shape of her claws may not perch on a tree. In the grass her nest is exposed to every hoof that passes. One of the poorest shelters of all the earth is the lark's nest. If she sings at all, you will expect her to render the saddest of melodies. No, no. She sings exultingly an hour without a pause, and mounts three thousand feet without losing a note. Would God we all might learn a lesson. Further, I notice that the 6ong of birds is a family song. Even those of the feathered throngs which have no song make what utterances they do in sounds of their own family of birds. The hoot of the owl, the chatter of the magpie, the drumming of the grouse, the cackle of the hen, the scream of the eagle, the croak of the raven, are sounds belonging to each particular family; but when you come to those which have real songs, how suggestive that it is always a family song! All the skyla! ks, all the nightingales, all the goldfinches, all the blackbirds, all the cuckoos, prefer the song of their own fcynily, and never sing anything else. Be careful how you treat the birds. Remember, thqv are God's favourites, and if you offend them, you offend Him. Ho is so fond of their voices that there are forests where for a hundred miles no human foot has ever trod and no human ear has ever listened. Those interminable forests are concert halls with only one auditor —the Lord God

A Sermon by the REV. T. Do WITT TALMADGE, D.D

Almighty. Ho builded those auditoriums of leaves and sky, and supports all that infinite minstrelsy for Himself alone. _ Be careful how you treat His favourite choir. In Deuteronomy He warns the people: "If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones or eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days." So, you see, your own longevity is related to your treatment of birds.

In some way let us demonstrate our gratitude to God. Let us not be beaten by the chimney-swallow and the hum-ming-bird and the brown-thresher. Let us try to set everything in our life to music, and if we cannot give the carol of the song-sparrow, take the plaint of the hermit-thrush. Let our life be an anthem to the God who created us, the Christ who ransomed us, the Holy Ghost who sanctifies us. And our last song! May it be our best song! The swan was thought by the ancients never to sing except when dying. In the time of Edward IV. no one was allowed to own a swan except he were a king's son, or had considerable estate. Through one or two hundred years of life that bird was said never to utter anything like music, until its last moment came, and then, lifting its crested beauty, it would pour forth a song of almost matchless thrill, resounding through the groves. And so, although the struggles of life ma.y be too much for us, and we may find it hard to sing at all, when the last hour comes to you and me, may there be a radiance from above, and a glory settling round that shall enable us to utter a song on the wings of which we shall mount to where the music never ceases. "What is that, mother?" "The swan, my

love; He is floating down from his native grove. No loved one, no nestling nigh. lie is flouting down by himself to die. Death dnrkens his eye and unplumes his wingß,

Yet the sweetest song is the last he sings. Live bo. my child, that when death shall come, Swan-like and sweet it may waft thee home!"