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Each brilliant bird that wings the air is seen;--
Gay, sparkling loories such as gleam between
The crimson blossoms of the coral-tree[1]
In the warm isles of India's sunny sea:
Mecca's blue sacred pigeon,[2] and the thrush
Of Hindostan[3] whose holy warblings gush
At evening from the tall pagoda's top;--
Those golden birds that in the spice time drop
About the gardens, drunk with that sweet food[4]
Whose scent hath lured them o'er the summer flood;[5]
- ↑ "Thousands of variegated loories visit the coral-trees."--Barrow.
- ↑ "In Mecca there are quantities of blue pigeons, which none will affright or abuse, much less kill."--Pitt's Account of the Mahometans.
- ↑ "The Pagoda Thrush is esteemed among the first choristers of India. It sits perched on the sacred pagodas, and from thence delivers its melodious song."--Pennant's "Hindostan."
- ↑ Tavernier adds, that while the Birds of Paradise lie in this intoxicated state, the emmets come and eat off their legs; and that hence it is they are said to have no feet.
- ↑ Birds of Paradise, which, at the nutmeg season, come in flights from the southern isles to India; and "the strength of the nutmeg," says Tavernier, "so intoxicates them that they fall dead drunk to the earth."
