h the objects of
Nature, all pleasing sights and sounds gradually become certain
anodynes for his sorrow; and those who have this mental alembic for
turning grief into a poetic melancholy can seldom be reduced to a
state of absolute despondency. Poetry, or rather the poetic sentiment,
exalts all our pleasures and soothes all our afflictions by some
illusive charm, whether it be turned into the channel of religion or
romance. Without this reflection of light from the imagination, what
is the passion of love? and what is our love of beauty and of sweet
sounds, but a mere gravitation?

The voice of every singing-bird has its associations in the minds of
all susceptible persons who were born and nurtured within the
precincts of its untutored minstrelsy. The music of birds is
modulated in pleasant unison with all the chords of affection and
imagination, filling the soul with a lively consciousness of happiness
and beauty, and soothing it with romantic visions of memory,--of love,
when it was an ethereal sentiment of adoration and not a passion, and
of friendship, when it was a passion and not an expedience,--of dear
and simple adventures, and of comrades who had part in them,--of
dappled mornings, and serene and glowing sunsets,--of sequestered
nooks and mossy seats in the old wood,--of paths by the riverside, and
flowers that smiled a bright welcome to our rambling,--of lingering
departures from home, and of old by-ways, overshadowed by trees and
hedged with roses and viburnums, that spread their shade and their
perfume around our path to gladden our return. By this pleasant
instrumentality has Nature provided for the happiness of those who
have learned to be delighted with the survey of her works, and with
the sound of those voices which she has appointed to communicate to
the human soul the joys of her inferior creation.

The singing-birds, with reference to their songs, may be divided into
four classes. First, the Rapid Singers, whose song is uninterrupted,
of considerable length, and uttered with fervor, and in apparent
ecstasy. Second, the Moderate Singers, whose notes are slowly
modulated, but without pauses or rests between their different
strains. Third, the Interrupted Singers, who seldom modulate their
notes with rapidity, and make decided pauses between their several
strains, of which there are in general from five to eight or
nine. Fourth, the Warblers, whose notes consist of only one or two
strains, not comb