It seemed to
me that I could never sing again.
Then Helen saw me and begged her mother to give the man two dollars, so
that she could take me out of the hot sun and the narrow box. How big
and bright this cage seemed then!
I am never cold and hungry, it is true, but sometimes I try to fancy how
it would seem to be free, to fly where I like under the open sky, and to
have other birds near by. I dream of waving branches and distant
mountain-tops. I can almost hear the sea pounding on the sunny beaches
of those warm islands where I first saw the light. Do you think, if you
were I, you could be quite happy?
THE CAGED THRUSH.
Alas for the bird who was born to sing!
They have made him a cage; they have clipped his wing;
They have shut him up in a dingy street,
And they praise his singing and call it sweet;
But his heart and his song are saddened and filled
With the woods and the nest he never will build,
And the wild young dawn coming into the tree,
And the mate that never his mate will be;
And day by day, when his notes are heard,
They freshen the street, but--alas for the bird!
R. F. MURRAY.
In the "Academy."
HOW TO CARE FOR A CANARY.
The original home of the canary was in the Canary Islands.
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