THE BLACKBIRD So, worthy Joshua! You feel the dawn coming, and then you crow! For lightness of touch and richness of invention, give us a lyric poet! CHANTECLER [_Bursting forth._] Wretch! THE BLACKBIRD [_Surprised._] Are you keeping it up with me? [_Winking._] Oh, we know how the thing is done! CHANTECLER You may know,--not I! I just open my heart and sing! THE BLACKBIRD [_Hopping about._] That’s the idea! CHANTECLER Blackbird, laugh at everything besides, but not at that, if you love me! THE BLACKBIRD I love you! CHANTECLER [_Bitterly._] With half a heart! THE BLACKBIRD Can’t say a word about his _Fiat Lux?_ CHANTECLER Not that! Not that! THE BLACKBIRD Old man, it’s not my fault that I’m no gull. CHANTECLER [_Looking after him as he hops about._] He cannot keep still long enough, I suppose, to let the sacred truth sink in. [_Trying to stop him in his hopping._] You behold the agony of emotion shaking me. No more baffle and keep me off with words! THE BLACKBIRD [_Hopping past him._] Catch, if you can, and convince me! CHANTECLER [_Imploring._] It’s a matter of life--my profoundest life! Oh, convince you I must, if only for a second! I feel the holy impulse to struggle with your soul! THE BLACKBIRD [_Hopping past him._] Do you! CHANTECLER In solemn earnest, at the bottom of your heart, you did--did you not?--believe me? THE BLACKBIRD I believe you! CHANTECLER [_With pressing anguish._] You must in some manner be aware of the dreadful cost to me of that song? Come, use your reason. To sing as you heard me sing, you must realise that I needed-- THE BLACKBIRD A whopping muscle and a tolerable nerve! CHANTECLER No, let us not make light of serious things, responsible winged creatures that we are! THE BLACKBIRD Let us go in for heavy-weight truths, by all means! CHANTECLER But can’t you see that to look straight at the sun, rising before his eyes by the exertions of his larynx, one must have at the same time-- THE BLACKBIRD Stentorian lungs and the eyes of a lynx! [_He hops out of the way._] CHANTECLER [_Controlling himself._] No, I cannot give up the hope of winning this soul to the truth! [_With desperate patience._] Come, now, have you any conception, unhappy bird, of what dawn actually is? THE BLACKBIRD I should say so! It’s the time of day when fluffy Aurora gets busy, as it were, and plays ball! CHANTECLER But what do you say when you see the dawn shining upon the mountains? THE BLACKBIRD Mountains, I say, what on earth are you blushing about? CHANTECLER And what do you say when you hear me singing in the furrow long before the cricket is awake? THE BLACKBIRD Cricket, I say, you scandalous slug-a-bed! [_He hops out of the way._] CHANTECLER [_Beside himself._] Are you conscious of no impulse to exclaim, cry out, when I have made a dawn so fine and fiery-red that the heron, flying in the early glow, looks from afar like a flamingo?