“The thrush that carols at the dawn of day
      From the green steeples of the piny wood;
    The oriole in the elm; the noisy jay,
      Jargoning like a foreigner at his food;
    The bluebird balanced on some topmost spray,
      Flooding with melody the neighborhood;
    Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng
    That dwell in nests, and have the gift of song.

    “You slay them all! and wherefore? for the gain
      Of a scant handful more or less of wheat,
    Or rye, or barley, or some other grain,
      Scratched up at random by industrious feet,
    Searching for worm or weevil after rain! 
      Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet
    As are the songs these uninvited guests
    Sing at their feast with comfortable breasts.

    “Do you ne’er think what wondrous beings these? 
      Do you ne’er think who made them, and who taught
    The dialect they speak, where melodies
      Alone are the interpreters of thought? 
    Whose household words are songs in many keys,
      Sweeter than instrument of man e’er caught! 
    Whose habitations in the tree-tops even
    Are half-way houses on the road to heaven!

    “Think, every morning when the sun peeps through
      The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove,
    How jubilant the happy birds renew
      Their old melodious madrigals of love! 
    And when you think of this, remember too
      ’Tis always morning somewhere, and above
    The awakening continents, from shore to shore,
    Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.

        THEIR SERVICE TO MAN.

    “Think of your woods and orchards without birds! 
      Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams
    As in an idiot’s brain remembered words
      Hang empty ’mid the cobwebs of his dreams! 
    Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds
      Make up for the lost music, when your teams
    Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more
    The feathered gleaners follow to your door?

    “What! would you rather see the incessant stir
      Of insects in the windrows of the hay,
    And hear the locust and the grasshopper
      Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play? 
    Is this more pleasant to you than the whir
      Of meadow-lark, and her sweet roundelay,
    Or twitter of little field-fares, as you take
    Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake?

    “You call them thieves and pillagers; but know,
      They are the winged wardens of your farms,
    Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe,
      And from your harvest keep a hundred harms. 
    Even the blackest of them all, the crow,
      Renders good service as your man-at-arms,
    Crushing the beetle in his coat-of-mail,
    And crying havoc on the slug and snail.