Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-03-29
sprIns time and the BIrds.

| come" and these musical bipeds, silent SO
/ long, egain claim a share of our attention
I with voices too sweet TO be ignored. The
artist who gathers his genial inspiration
from the summit of Crescent Hill, the sleep
less patriotism that keeps watch ever the
Armory Hiehts, have alike heard on the
2Sth ult., the early warbling of the blue
winged messengers Of Spring. One day
later the first blue bird of the season was re-
ported in Roxbury, and announced, with
jubilant welcome, in the Boston evening
papers. Otherwise, the great majority of
sober citizens, here and elsewhere, catch the
song of the coming season only in their
! dreams.
1t is suggested by the soft airs beneath
these sunny skies 1t breaths faint apology
/ for the presumption with which the day
} light enters the chamber of the sleeper at
an unwonted hour it blends the regretful
monody to which the breakfast bell is the
accompanying instrument with variations of
seductive sweetness. And no pleasauter
waking thought can mingle with the visions
| it dispels, than this of the mild sunlight
kissing the slumbering city, and the blue
bird warbliDg his small lullaby above it's
drowsy homes.
In the country this matin song is not
! lullaby but reveille. At its call the far
mers and mechanics, the robust soldiery who
fight the worlds great battle against want
Nhh uuhktAg cpAluk lLOAu a sluLuutE udJluR
back far beyond the small hours, among
those whose numerous strokes it is their
blessed privilege never to count They rise
fresh for q day of toll, of achievement, of
victory. They breathe an air pure, bracing,
exhilarating, that makes the physical sensa.
tion of beautiful existence almost enough
for happiness. They are rich in vigor and
endurance, in exultant hardihood of muscle
and nerve.
If their sources of pleasure are notnumer-
GUS and varied, their liability to suffer is re-
duced to its lowest terms. Conquerors of
the present hour they scarcely look for de-
feat in the future, the wide earth holds so
| little that they can fear. Yet out Of this
| very abundance comes a lack. As the heirs
| of wealth and luxury have little feeling for
| the poor, so the persistenty healthy and
happy find it difficult to sympathize with
weakness and suffering. d - .a.r..-
| Hence it comes about that our recognized
| lord OF the manor, our genuine New En-
| gland farmer has often a certain ruthless
ness of character, lack of that compassion
ate consideration for others, to which, in
! others, he has so little occasion to appeal.
| His battle.cTy is-victoTy or death; and as
he is an habitual conqueror, he interpets it
to mean victory to himself and death to
whatever interferes with success in his pur-
suits
And this brings us back to the birds again,
for the hero of q hundred fields wages too
often pitiless warfare, or allows his light
infantry TO do so, with the feathered heroes
| of the wood. He looks with an evil eve
upon the birds that through each successive
season becomes his tenants at will Ia will
| which is certainly not his) and who seem
presumptuously to suppose that cherries and
strawberries can be bought for a song.
He has read, as we have all done, the ex-
peTiments Of learned professors, showing
| 4hnA4 4bn r-l 49, ~, l. A.
year takes no vegetable food whatever and
that he prefers before the most delicious
fruit the insects that are leagued to destroy
it. Still this verdict of acquittal from
scientific jury does not make him always
look amicably upon detected theft.
1t ayails little when the feathered Nor
dtcai sits complacently in the kingliest of his
cherry trees, his red breast protruding with
the plethora of the redder fruit within, and
his sauog head dnisG no reverence to whirls
ing wind-mills or fiuttering flags
Even so good friend. The petty larceny
is too obvious to be denied It is fact be-
yond question that the prisoner on parole
now about to return to your custody, did
then and there, to-wit, on the loveliest days
of the last July, feloniously enter the do
mestic Edens of thousand homesteads,
and with malice prepense, deliberately feast
upon forbidden fruit. Yet the luxury was
not unbought. All through the blossoming
Spring, through bright warm days like such
as are now at hand, his gay breast had been
cleaning here and there among the bud
ding leaves like the "haming sword that
turned every way to keep the way of the
tree of life"
Every day hundred insect traitors died
that the self. constituted guardian of the
Summers hopes might live. And lest you
might regard as an intruder the assistant
you had never voluntarily employed, how
often has he paused to give utterance, in the
sweetest tones, TO his oYerflowing harmony
and good will. And again will he toll for
you in the days that are coming. Again
will he and his feathered compeers do battle
for your sake with an enemy that never did
them harm.
1t is vel understood that the warfare i:
not strictly gratuitous nor will you feel sur.
prise when, after many days of victoriou!
carnage, the honored survivors among these
plumed volunteers present their bills. Lee
us suggest a way to meet these inevitable
demands. Wherever in leafy hollows and
in the angles of fences worthless alder
grows, let it be grubbed up and a fruit tree
be planted in its stead. Let Young AmericG
do this when his muscles ache for exercise
as severe as that of throwing stones. He
will then be, not an annoyance but bene,
factor TO his feathered friends, and may be
safely trusted to appropriate his share Of thu
fruits of their mutual labor.