John Burroughs, in his delightful essay called "Birds and Poets" says:
"The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A
bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his
life--large brained, large lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with
buoyancy and his heart with song. The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with
every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds,--how many
human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives--and how
many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song."[1]
Long before the place of birds in the great scheme of nature was
understood, they made their appeal: first, to primitive man, who had
curious superstitions and created beautiful myths concerning them; next,
to poets and dreamers of ancient civilizations, who used them in
allusions beautiful with Oriental imagery; to artists, who delighted in
portraying symbolism; to later poets and lovers of beauty, who perceived
deep truths and revelations of God; and to scientists, who saw back of
the phenomena of nature the marvelous laws of God.
It is interesting to follow the effect birds have had upon the
development of man. Though the religion of the early Egyptians was
largely worship of the sun and moon, yet reverence for birds entered
into their faith and their ritual. The swallow, the heron, the hawk, the
vulture, the goose, and the ibis were all held sacred. The people of
Egypt with their belief in transmigration, imagined the swallow and the
heron as possible abiding-places for their souls after death.
The Chinese and Japanese have had interesting conceptions regarding
birds that have been both symbolic and poetic. In Japan, wild ducks,
geese, cocks, herons, and cranes have been highly honored. The people
have built torii gates, or entrances to their temples, as "bird-rests"
or perches for their sacred fowl.
The Greek and Roman mythologies abound in allusions to bird-life. It was
natural that the powerful eagle should be held sacred to Jupiter, the
lordly peacock to Juno, the wise owl to Minerva, the repulsive vulture
that haunted battlefields to Mars, the beautiful swan to Apollo, and the
cooing dove to Venus.
The American Indians regarded birds with great reverence. Their
bird-myths are full of beauty. To them the eagle and the raven were
especially sacred.
The dove was a cherished symbol of early Christian writers and painters.
The pelican, too, was revered; it was the mediæval symbol of charity.
The red breast of the robin was thought to have been caused by a prick
of a thorn in Christ's crown as the bird strove to "wrench one single
thorn away." The red crossbill's beak was believed to have been twisted
in its attempt to remove the iron nail from Christ's blood-stained hand.
Burroughs continues: "The very oldest poets, the towering antique bards,
seem to make very little mention of the song-birds. They loved better
the soaring, swooping birds of prey, the eagle, the ominous birds, the
vultures, the storks and cranes, or the clamorous sea-birds and the
screaming hawk. These suited better the rugged, warlike character of the
times, and the simple, powerful souls of the singers themselves. Homer
must have heard the twittering of the swallows, the cry of the plover,
the voice of the turtle (dove), and the warble of the nightingale; but
they were not adequate symbols to express what he felt or to adorn his
theme. Æschylus saw in the eagle the 'dog of Jove,' and his verse cuts
like a sword with such a conception.
"It is not because the old bards were less as poets, but that they were
more as men. To strong, susceptible characters, the music of nature is
not confined to sweet sounds. The defiant scream of the hawk circling
aloft, the wild whinney of the loon, the whooping of the crane, the
booming of the bittern, the loud trumpeting of the migratory geese
sounding down out of the midnight sky, or the wild crooning of the
flocks of gulls--are much more welcome in certain moods than any and all
mere bird-melodies, in keeping as they are with the shaggy and untamed
features of ocean and woods, and suggesting something like Richard
Wagner music in the ornithological orchestra."
As the life of man grew less warlike and heroic, as the humbler fireside
virtues were honored and the amenities of life were cultivated, it is
true that poets sang of the gentler, more beautiful aspects of nature.
Wordsworth wrote of the skylark, the cuckoo, and the throstle, Shelley
and Shakespeare of the skylark, Keats of the nightingale and of
goldfinches, Tennyson of the swallow and the throstle. They were,
however, all deeply sensitive to the wilder phases of nature--to the
scudding cloud, the dashing spray of the ocean, the raving and moaning
of the tempest. They saw, too, as have many later poets, a spiritual
significance and an inspiration as truly great and ennobling as the
conceptions of the older bards.
Numerous American poets have found spiritual help, comfort, and
inspiration in birds. Frank Bolles felt the presence of God in the
forest where the Oven-bird sings:
"Pouring out his spirit's gladness
Toward the Source of life and being."
Celia Thaxter mused on God's care of man and bird:
"For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little Sandpiper, and I?"
Serenity and joy came to Edna Dean Proctor:
"My heart beside the bluebird, sings
And folds serene its weary wings."
Edward Rowland Sill voiced human need in his poem: