The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds and Poets, by John Burroughs

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Title: Birds and Poets

Author: John Burroughs

Posting Date: March 19, 2009 [EBook #5177]
Release Date: February, 2004

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS AND POETS ***

Produced by Jack Eden

BIRDS AND POETS

WITH OTHER PAPERS

THE WRITINGS OF JOHN BURROUGHS, VOLUME III WITH PORTRAITS AND MANY
ILLUSTRATIONS

By John Burroughs

PREFACE

I have deliberated a long time about coupling some of my sketches of
outdoor nature with a few chapters of a more purely literary character,
and thus confiding to my reader what absorbs and delights me inside my
four walls, as well as what pleases and engages me outside those walls;
especially since I have aimed to bring my outdoor spirit and method
within, and still to look upon my subject with the best naturalist's eye
I could command.

I hope, therefore, he will not be scared away when I boldly confront
him in the latter portions of my book with this name of strange portent,
Walt Whitman, for I assure him that in this misjudged man he may press
the strongest poetic pulse that has yet beaten in America, or perhaps
in modern times. Then, these chapters are a proper supplement or
continuation of my themes and their analogy in literature, because
in them we shall "follow out these lessons of the earth and air," and
behold their application to higher matters.

It is not an artificially graded path strewn with roses that invites us
in this part, but, let me hope, something better, a rugged trail through
the woods or along the beach where we shall now and then get a whiff of
natural air, or a glimpse of something to

"Make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs."

ESOPUS-ON-HUDSON, March, 1877.

CONTENTS

I. BIRDS AND POETS
II. TOUCHES OF NATURE
III. A BIRD MEDLEY
IV. APRIL
V. SPRING POEMS
VI. OUR RURAL DIVINITY
VII. BEFORE GENIUS
VIII. BEFORE BEAUTY IX. EMERSON
X. THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE
INDEX

BIRDS AND POETS

I BIRDS AND POETS

"In summer, when the shawes be shene,