The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-11-10

Among the Gagged BIRDS of the poets
exotics priced either for song or plumage
are the canary, cockatoo, macaw and
parrot. Lyttleton rescues the first from
total neglect by his charming verse:
"A bird for Thee, in silken bonds hold,
Whose yellow piumage shines like Poiishet
From distant isles the lovely stranger came
And bears the fortunate Canaries name."
Gay finds smile to Frenchmen in tn.
oockatoo:
Monkeys in action. parroquets in talk,
atoo;"
and for courtiers in macaws. The par
rots, poor wretches! "csrsed with pos
tulating resemblance to man." find M
friend or even apologist- But Sir Viii
liam Jones-and he knew this birds de
lightful Oriental Associatioas-has {
word of admiration fox it:
Nor absent he who leares the hannah sound
With wavy gold and moving emerald
Whose head and breast with polished sap
And on whose wings the gems of Ind d
grow.
And again, in the hymn t. Camdeo, tis<
Cupid of Hindostan,
10 thou for ages born, yetever young,
For ages may thy BrahnIsn's lay be sung
And when thy Tory spreads his emerald
To watt the hieS abovetb the towerof kiags.'
For the parrot is a notable bird in the
East, and, above all, as the bird Of love
and the steed of the god of the blossom
headed SHOWS, exacts the reverence of the
Hindoo millions. But in English poetry
it is only the ape among the birds; Gan
odious libel on the human voice" Cow.
per especially went out of his way to
afrout the parrot-simply because it can
be taught to initiate human speech, and
because it can only say as much as it is
taught! To base reproach against the
poet for such display of Immature may
seem trivial and whimsical enough, but
if many such instances of unnecessary
and commonplace prejudice are accumu-
lated, it is difficult to avoid the suspicion
that the poets perpetually Wanted
sympathy with nature" does not really
exist. The parrot is a bird of extra
ordinary beauty and astonishing intelli-
gence. Few feathered things rival it in
brilliance and variety of plnmage, and
llOhc llc bihC VI us Dt1tu. lhOlSONtT.
it is alphabetically creature of freedom
and space, and requires for its proper set
ting background with at least grove
of trees, or great sweep of open sky, or
an old ruin with its battlement fretted
by age into crevices and loop-holes-and,
above all, it is creature Of sunlight.
Those who have heard them gossiping
together in pleasant soft undertones, as
they swung like blossoms on the trees;
or have seen them, as if some swift gust
of wind had suddenly taken color, sweep
across an open space, never think of par
rots as mere old-maids' pets. Indeed.
for any one to do so showsa lack of ten
derness toward nature that is not either
attractive or poetical. 1t is we, the men
and women of sunless country, that
cage up parrots in our small rooms, and
it seems hardly worthy, therefore, of the
poet of the "Idiot Lad" to sneer ct the
captive stranger
+" Fraught with antics as the Indian bird,
That writbes and chatters in her why cage"
Nor, seeing that it is human beings who
teach parrots the use and abuse of words,
does it seem to me fair of the poets to
hang so much prejudice against the bird
on such peg.-Contempordry Reuieso.