Oftentimes on a broad meadow near Dunbar we stood for
hours enjoying their marvelous singing and soaring. From the grass
where the nest was hidden the male would suddenly rise, as straight as
if shot up, to a height of perhaps thirty or forty feet, and,
sustaining himself with rapid wing-beats, pour down the most delicious
melody, sweet and clear and strong, overflowing all bounds, then
suddenly he would soar higher again and again, ever higher and higher,
soaring and singing until lost to sight even on perfectly clear days,
and oftentimes in cloudy weather "far in the downy cloud," as the poet
says.
To test our eyes we often watched a lark until he seemed a faint speck
in the sky and finally passed beyond the keenest-sighted of us all. "I
see him yet!" we would cry, "I see him yet!" "I see him yet!" "I see
him yet!" as he soared. And finally only one of us would be left to
claim that he still saw him. At last he, too, would have to admit
that the singer had soared beyond his sight, and still the music came
pouring down to us in glorious profusion, from a height far above our
vision, requiring marvelous power of wing and marvelous power of
voice, for that rich, delicious, soft, and yet clear music was
distinctly heard long after the bird was out of sight.
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