quotations about birds
Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Toll Slowly
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!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Tales of a Wayside Inn
The air is crowded with birds -- beautiful, tender, intelligent birds -- to whom life is a song.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES
Studies in Animal Life
Bird on the horizon, sittin' on a fence
He's singin' his song for me at his own expense
And I'm just like that bird, oh, oh
Singin' just for you
BOB DYLAN
"You're a Big Girl Now", Blood on the Tracks
Dame nature's minstrels.
GAVIN DOUGLAS
Morning in May
I've been where the eagle flies
Rode his wings 'cross autumn skies
Kissed the sun, touched the moon
But he left me much too soon
NANCY SINATRA
"Lady Bird"
Take any bird and in a cage it put,
And do your best, while it therein is shut,
To nurse it tenderly with meat and drink,
And with such dainties, as you can bethink,
And keep it e'er so cleanly as you may;
Although the cage with gold be e'er so gay,
Yet would the bird, by twenty thousand fold,
Far rather in a forest wild and cold,
Go, and eat worms and such like wretchedness.
And never will this bird attempt the less,
To fly from out his cage whene'er he may:
His liberty the bird desireth aye.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
The Canterbury Tales
From bush and hedge and tree
Joy, unrestrained and free,
Breaks forth in melody,
Twitter and chirp and song.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Matins"
Alive the festal air
With gauze-winged creatures fair,
That flicker everywhere,
Dart, poise, and flash along.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Matins"
The birds nor sow nor reap, yet sup and dine,
The flowers without clothes live,
Yet Solomon was never dressed so fine.
HENRY VAUGHN
Man
The bird that can sing and won't sing must be made to sing.
JOHN RAY
English Proverbs
A bird appears a thoughtless thing,
He's ever living on the wing,
And keeps up such a carolling,
That little else to do but sing
A man would guess had he.
No doubt he has his little cares,
And very hard he often fares,
The which so patiently he bears,
That, list'ning to those cheerful airs,
Who knows but he may be
In want of his next meal of seeds?
I think for that his sweet song pleads.
If so, his pretty art succeeds.
I'll scatter there among the weeds
All the small crumbs I see.
CHARLES LAMB
"Crumbs to the Birds"
The wren and the nightingale sound nothing alike, but think how dull the world would be without the songs of both birds.
KIRBY LARSON
The Friendship Doll
A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.
BIBLE
Ecclesiastes 10:20
But how can one toil at the great task with this hurry and tumult of birds just outside the open window? I hear the Thrush, and the Blackbird, that romantic liar; then the delicate cadence, the wiry descending scale of the Willow-wren, or the Blackcap's stave of mellow music. All these are familiar--but what is that unknown voice, that thrilling note? I hurry out; the voice flees and I follow; and when I return and sit down again to my task, the Yellowhammer trills his sleepy song in the noonday heat; the drone of the Greenfinch lulls me into dreamy meditations. Then suddenly from his tree-trunks and forest recesses comes the Green Woodpecker, and mocks at me an impudent voice full of liberty and laughter. Why should all the birds of the air conspire against me? My concern is with the sad Human Species, with lapsed and erroneous Humanity, not with that inconsiderate, wandering, feather-headed race.
LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH
Trivia
The little birds that tune their morning's joy.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Rape of Lucrece
My sisters, the birds, ye are greatly beholden to God for the element of the air.
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
attributed, "The Gentle Saint of Assisi", Our Animal Friends, September 1893