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Land of play

THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS.

Reading edition

Do you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the Dove, The Linnet and Thrush say, “I love and I love!” In the winter they’re silent—the wind is so strong; What it says, I don’t know, but it sings a loud song. But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather, And singing and loving all come back together. “I love, and I love,” almost all the birds say, From sunrise to star-rise, so gladsome are they! But the Lark is so brimful of gladness and love, The green fields below him, the blue sky above, That he sings, and he sings; and forever sings he— “I love my Love, and my Love loves me!”

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

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