The original text is as follows:
I love birds
In the past I often saw people carrying caged birds wandering around the streets early in the morning (there are fewer people with such leisure now) ). What interests me is not the man's leisure, but the bird's distress. The eagle carried on the arm sometimes has a piece of skin covering its head and is crouching motionless with its feathers untidy. How can it show the slightest look of gazing and hiding? Not to mention the bird in the cage, which has been locked in the fence all year round, it is drinking and pecking. It is convenient, and there is a cotton cover to protect you from the wind in winter, which is a very "preferential treatment", but if you want to "strive for success", you will have to hit a wall. When a bird reaches this stage, I think its depression is probably second only to a fly stuck on tape, and its happiness is probably only better than living in a herbarium?
I I started to appreciate birds in Sichuan. At dawn, there are birds chirping outside the window. They are not chirping sparrows or croaking crows. The sounds are crisp and loud. Some are long calls, including six or seven tones, and some are just A voice, mellow but not monotonous, sometimes a solo, sometimes a chorus, it is simply a harmonious symphony. I don’t know how many spring mornings this kind of bird sound has awakened me from my dreams. When the sun rises high and the city is noisy, the bird becomes silent and disappears. It was not until night that I heard the cuckoo calling again, from far away to near, and from near to far. The sound was as urgent as the sound of the cuckoo, but it was actually a sad and sad song. When guests hear this at night, they are indescribably sad!
In the daytime, you can't hear the singing of birds, but you can see their shapes. There is no creature in the world more beautiful than a bird. How many unknown birds are jumping on the branches, some with long tails, some with long pointed beaks, some with a patch of eye-catching color on their breasts, and some that only shine when they fly. Show off the colorful festoons. With almost no exception, the bodies of birds are all exquisite and plump, thin but not shriveled, plump but not bloated. If you lose one point, you will be too thin, if you add one point, you will be too fat. They are so slender and fit, and they dance so lightly. Ling, it's like there are springs on my feet. Seeing it perched high on a branch, looking forward to the wind - such sharp joy stabbed my heart. I don't know what disturbed it, but it fluttered its wings and flew away without looking back or feeling sad. It disappeared like a rainbow, leaving behind infinite confusion. Sometimes there is an egret standing in the rice field, with one foot fisted and its neck hunched, sometimes "a row of egrets ascending to the blue sky", with the dark green mountains and glazed green terraces in the background. Even the kite catching the chicks, chirping and circling in the sky, has a majestic appearance that makes people happy.
I love the sounds and shapes of birds. This hobby is very simple. I have no illusions about birds. Some people are so excited that they can't sleep all night when they hear the cuckoo for the first time. They think of "Du Yu" and "Wang Di" for a while, and then they think of crying for blood and guest's sorrow, which makes them feel infinitely poetic. I told him that was not the case at all. The cuckoo is originally a very strong bird, much bigger than other birds, with a flat beak and a big mouth. It is not particularly beautiful. Moreover, it does not know how to build its own nest, so it relies on its physical strength to lay its eggs in another nest. If there are enough eggs in the nest, they will be squeezed out unceremoniously, and the responsibility of incubation will be shouldered by others. After they hatch, and their feathers become more abundant, they can take the nest as their own. After the man listened to my words, he could no longer conjure any poetic thoughts about this arrogant and ruthless bird. I think Keats's "Nightingale" and Shelley's "Lark" are not all poets' own fantasies. What does it have to do with birds?
Birds do not always bring joy to people, but sometimes they also bring misery. In a poem by the poet Hardy, on Christmas Eve, with a blazing fire burning in the furnace, spring in the house, and a sumptuous banquet on the table, he was preparing for a night of universal celebration, when he suddenly saw a beautiful snow scene outside the window. Among them, a little bird stood with its legs shrunken on the tip of a cold branch, pecking at a remaining frozen fruit. Unable to resist the harsh cold wind, it fell to the ground and died, rolling into a ball of snow. !The poet lamented: "Bird! You didn't even give me this happy night!" I also had a similar experience. In a room with double glass windows in the northeast, I suddenly saw a sparrow on the branch, trembling. It was beating and shaking, pecking at a dry leaf. But I found that the sparrow's feathers were particularly long and fluffy. It looked like it was wearing a raincoat. It immediately reminded me of the large group of ragged and bloated people on the garbage heap. The description was exactly the same. . The lonely sparrow has no time to mourn.
Since leaving Sichuan, it is no longer easy to see so many types of birds dancing, nor is it easy to hear such sweet bird songs. It's just that when the chimney is smoking early in the morning, a group of sparrows huddle next to the chimney under the eaves to keep warm. Sometimes you can still see the reflection of the sparrows lying on the window lattice through the window paper. The magpie escaped to nowhere. Pigeons with whistles are rarely seen swirling in the sky. At dusk, you can occasionally hear jackdaws clamoring on the ancient trees, and at night, you can still hear the strange cry of an owl that sounds like crying and laughing at the same time. The most eye-catching thing is the little birds in cages that I see by chance, but I can't bear to look at them.
About the author:
Liang Shiqiu (1903-1987), whose original name was Zhihua and whose courtesy name was Shiqiu, was from Hang County, Zhejiang (now Hangzhou). The pen names are Zijia, Qiulang, Cheng Shu, etc. Famous Chinese essayist, scholar, literary critic, and translator. His representative works include "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" (translation), etc.
Article Appreciation:
This prose is good at using associations. When writing about the various moods of birds, it is very natural to think of the works about birds by Keats, Shelley, and Hardy. Thinking of the various scenes of birds in my own experience enriches the content of the description and increases the thickness of the article. The article describes the beauty of birds in elegant and vivid language, and also describes the feelings that various birds bring to me. The author's appreciation and understanding of nature and life are contained in the words.
The words "since leaving Sichuan" in the last section point out another meaning. After the author left his hometown, time flew by and the poor sparrows and jackdaws he saw in front of him had long lost the "Land of Abundance". With the lively and colorful birds, the author can't help but reveal his longing for his homeland.
The author also hopes to build a society with freedom, equality, happiness, beauty, no power, no oppression, no poverty, and a life in which one can freely develop one's personality and talents.