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Table of Contents | |
Section | Page |
Start of eBook | 1 |
PREFACE | 1 |
CONTENTS BY TITLES. | 1 |
INTRODUCTION. | 3 |
VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. | 5 |
JOHN BOYLE | 39 |
THE HUMMING-BIRD’S WEDDING | 53 |
INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TITLES. | 112 |
INDEX OF AUTHORS. | 115 |
The compiler of this little book has often heard inquiries by teachers of schools, for selections suitable for reading and recitations by their scholars, in which the duty of kindness to animals should be distinctly taught.
To meet such calls, three successive pamphlets were published, and a fourth consisting of selections from the Poems of Mr. Longfellow. All were received with marked favor by the teachers to whom they became known.
This led to their collection afterwards in one volume for private circulation, and now the volume is republished for public sale, with a few omissions and additions.
All who desire our children to be awakened in their schools to the claims of the humbler creatures are invited to see that copies are put in school libraries, that they may be within the reach of all teachers. And this, not for the sake of the creatures only.
As Pope has said, “Nothing stands alone; the chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.”
Many readers may be surprised to find how many of the great poets have been touched by the sufferings of the “innocent animals,” and how loftily they have pleaded their cause.
The poems in the collection are not all complete, because of their length in some cases, and, in others, because a part only of each was suited to the end in view. A very few, however, like “Geist’s Grave” and “Don,” could not be divided satisfactorily.
To all who have aided in this humble undertaking, heartiest thanks are given, and especially to its publishers who have accorded to it their coveted approval and the benefit of their large facilities for making the volume widely known.
May the lessons of kindness and dependence here taught with so much poetical beauty and with such mingled justice, pathos and humor, find a permanent lodgment in the hearts of all who may read them!
A. F.
Boston, mass., U. S. A., June, 1883.
Introduction
A Prayer
He Prayeth Best
Our Morality on Trial
Sympathy
Mercy
Results and Duties of Man’s Supremacy
Justice to the Brute Creation
Can they Suffer?
Growth of Humane Ideas
Moral Lessons
Duty to Animals not long recognized
Natural Rights
“Dumb”
Upward
Care for the Lowest
Trust
Say Not
See, through this Air
The Right must win
Animated Nature
Animal Happiness
No Grain of Sand
Humanity, Mercy, and Benevolence
Living Creatures
Nothing Alone
Man’s Rule
Dumb Souls
Virtue
Little by Little
Loyalty
Animals and Human Speech
Pity
Learn from the Creatures
Pain to Animals
What might have been
Village Sounds
Buddhism
Old Hindoo
Truth
Our Pets
Egyptian Ritual
Brotherhood
* * * * *
The Bible.
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.—Gen. i. 31.
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.—Ex. xx. 10.
For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.—Psa. l. 10, 11.
The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
The eyes of all wait upon thee: and thou givest them their meat in due season.
Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.—Psa. cxlv. 9, 15, 16.
A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast.—Prov. xii. 10.
Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.—Prov. xxxi. 8.
But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee.—Job xii. 7.
Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother. And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.
In like manner shalt thou do with his ass; and so shalt thou do with his raiment: and with all lost things of thy brother’s, which he hath lost, and thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise: thou mayest not hide thyself.
Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again.—Deut. xxii. 1-4.
Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he DELIGHTETH in mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities: and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.—Mic. vii. 18, 19.
Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south? Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?—Job xxxix. 26, 27.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider
her ways, and be wise:
Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
Provideth her meat in summer, and gathereth
her food in the harvest.
—Prov. vi. 6-8.
And the Lord sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city: the one was rich, and the other poor.
The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds: But the poor man had nothing save one little ewe-lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.
And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock, and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come to him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.
And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die. And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.—2 Sam. xii. 1-6.
Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights. Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.
Beasts and all cattle: creeping things, and flying fowl.—Psa. cxlviii. 1, 2, 10.
Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.—Psa. lxxxiv. 3.
And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?—Jonah iv. 11.
For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.—1 Tim. v. 18.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Matt. v. 7.
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.—Matt. vi. 26.
Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?—Luke xii. 6.
* * * * *
A prayer.
Maker of earth and sea and
sky,
Creation’s
sovereign, Lord and King,
Who hung the starry worlds
on high,
And formed alike
the sparrow’s wing:
Bless the dumb creatures of
thy care,
And listen to their voiceless
prayer.
For us they toil, for us they
die,
These humble creatures
Thou hast made;
How shall we dare their rights
deny,
On whom thy seal
of love is laid?
Teach Thou our hearts to hear
their plea,
As Thou dost man’s in
prayer to Thee!
Emily B. Lord.
* * * * *
He prayeth best.
O wedding guest! this soul
hath been
Alone on a wide,
wide sea:
So lonely ’twas, that
God himself
Scarce seemed
there to be.
O sweeter than the marriage
feast,
’Tis sweeter
far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly
company!—
To walk together to the kirk,
And all together
pray,
While each to his great Father
bends,
Old man, and babes, and loving
friends,
And youths and
maidens gay!
Farewell! farewell! but this
I tell
To thee, thou
wedding guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth
well
Both man and bird
and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth
best
All things both
great and small;
For the dear God who loveth
us,
He made and loveth
all.
S. T. Coleridge.
* * * * *
Our morality on trial.
Bishop Butler affirmed that it was on the simple fact of a creature being sentient, i.e. capable of pain and pleasure, that rests our responsibility to save it pain and give it pleasure. There is no evading this obligation, then, as regards the lower animals, by the plea that they are not moral beings; it is our morality, not theirs, which is in question.
Miss F. P. Cobbe.
* * * * *
“Never,” said my aunt, “be mean in anything; never be false, never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.”
C. Dickens, in David Copperfield.
* * * * *
Sympathy.
Wherefore it is evident that even the ordinary exercise of this faculty of sympathy implies a condition of the whole moral being in some measure right and healthy, and that to the entire exercise of it there is necessary the entire perfection of the Christian character, for he who loves not God, nor his brother, cannot love the grass beneath his feet and the creatures that fill those spaces in the universe which he needs not, and which live not for his uses; nay, he has seldom grace to be grateful even to those that love and serve him, while, on the other hand, none can love God nor his human brother without loving all things which his Father loves, nor without looking upon them every one as in that respect his brethren also, and perhaps worthier than he, if in the under concords they have to fill their part is touched more truly.
Ruskin.
* * * * *
Mercy.
The quality of mercy is not
strained;
It droppeth as the gentle
rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath:
it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives,
and him that takes:
’Tis mightiest in the
mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better
than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force
of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread
and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptred
sway:
It is enthroned in the hearts
of kings;
It is an attribute to God
himself;
And earthly power doth then
show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
Therefore,...
Though justice be thy plea,
consider this,—
That, in the course of justice,
none of us
Should see salvation.
We do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth
teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Sc. 1.
* * * * *
Results and duties of man’s supremacy.
And in that primeval account of Creation which the second chapter of Genesis gives us, the first peculiar characteristic of the Human Being is that he assumes the rank of the Guardian and Master of every fowl of the air and every beast of the field. They gather round him, he names them, he classifies them, he seeks for companionship from them. It is the fit likeness and emblem of their relation to him in the course of history. That “earnest expectation of the creature” which the Apostle describes, that, “stretching forth the head” of the whole creation towards a brighter and better state as ages
Dean Stanley.
* * * * *
Justice to the brute creation.
The rights of all creatures are to be respected, but especially of those kinds which man domesticates and subsidizes for his peculiar use. Their nearer contact with the human world creates a claim on our loving-kindness beyond what is due to more foreign and untamed tribes. Respect that claim. “The righteous man,” says the proverb, “regardeth the life of his beast.” Note that word “righteous.” The proverb does not say the merciful man, but the righteous, the just. Not mercy only, but justice, is due to the brute. Your horse, your ox, your kine, your dog, are not mere chattels, but sentient souls. They are not your own so proper as to make your will the true and only measure of their lot. Beware of contravening their nature’s law, of taxing unduly their nature’s strength. Their powers and gifts are a sacred trust. The gift of the horse is his fleetness, but when that gift is strained to excess and put to wager for exorbitant tasks, murderous injustice is done to the beast. They have their rights, which every right-minded owner will respect. We owe them return for the service they yield, all needful comfort, kind usage, rest in old age, and an easy death.
Rev. Dr. Hedge.
* * * * *
Can they suffer?
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withheld from them but by the hand of tyranny. It may come one day to be recognized that the number of legs, or the villosity of the skin, are reasons insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the caprice of a tormentor. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational as well as a more conversable animal than an infant of a day, a week, or even a month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what could it avail? The question is not “Can they reason?” nor “Can they speak?” but “Can they suffer?”
Bentham.
* * * * *
Growth of humane ideas.
The disposition to raise the fallen, to befriend the friendless, is now one of the governing powers of the world. Every year its dominion widens, and even now a strong and growing public opinion is enlisted in its support. Many men still spend lives that are merely selfish. But such lives are already regarded with general disapproval. The man on whom public opinion, anticipating the award of the highest tribunal, bestows its approbation, is the man who labors that he may leave other men better and happier than he found them. With the noblest spirits of our race this disposition to be useful grows into a passion. With an increasing number it is becoming at least an agreeable and interesting employment. On the monument to John Howard in St. Paul’s, it is said that the man who devotes himself to the good of mankind treads “an open but unfrequented path to immortality.” The remark, so true of Howard’s time, is happily not true of ours.
MACKENZIE’S Nineteenth Century.
* * * * *
Moral lessons.
And let us take to ourselves the moral lessons which these creatures preach to all who have studied and learned to love what I venture to call the moral in brutes. Look at that faithful servant, the ox! What an emblem in all generations of patient, plodding, meek endurance and serviceable toil! Of the horse and the dog, what countless anecdotes declare the generous loyalty, the tireless zeal, the inalienable love! No human devotion has ever surpassed the recorded examples of brutes in that line. The story is told of an Arab horse who, when his master was taken captive and bound hand and foot, sought him out in the dark amidst other victims, seized him by the girdle with his teeth, ran with him all night at the top of his speed, conveyed him to his home, and then, exhausted with the effort, fell down and died. Did ever man evince more devoted affection?
Surely, something of a moral nature is present also in the brute creation. If nowhere else we may find it in the brute mother’s care for her young. Through universal nature throbs the divine pulse of the universal Love, and binds all being to the Father-heart of the author and lover of all. Therefore is sympathy with animated nature, a holy affection, an extended humanity, a projection of the human heart by which we live, beyond the precincts of the human house, into all the wards of the many creatured city of God, as He with his wisdom and love is co-present to all. Sympathy with nature is a part of the good man’s religion.
Rev. Dr. Hedge.
* * * * *
Whenever any trait of justice, or generosity, or far-sighted wisdom, or wide tolerance, or compassion, or purity, is seen in any man or woman throughout the whole human race, as in the fragments of a broken mirror we see the reflection of the Divine image.
Dean Stanley.
* * * * *
Duty to animals not long recognized.
It is not, however, to be reckoned as surprising, that our forefathers did not dream of such a thing as Duty to Animals. They learned very slowly that they owed duties to men of other races than their own. Only in the generation which recognized thoroughly for the first time that the negro was a man and brother, did it dawn that beyond the negro there were other still humbler claimants for benevolence and justice. Within a few years, passed both the Emancipation of the West Indian slaves and the first act for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, of which Lord Erskine so truly prophesied that it would prove not only an honor to the Parliament of England, but an era in the civilization of the world.
Miss F. P. Cobbe.
* * * * *
Natural rights.
But what is needed for the present is due regard for the natural rights of animals, due sense of the fact that they are not created for man’s pleasure and behoof alone, but have, independent of him, their own meaning and place in the universal order; that the God who gave them being, who out of the manifoldness of his creative thought let them pass into life, has not cast them off, but is with them, in them, still. A portion of his Spirit, though unconscious and unreflecting, is theirs. What else but the Spirit of God could guide the crane and the stork across pathless seas to their winter retreats, and back again to their summer haunts? What else could reveal to the petrel the coming storm? What but the Spirit of God could so geometrize the wondrous architecture of the spider and the bee, or hang the hill-star’s nest in the air, or sling the hammock of the tiger-moth, or curve the ramparts of the beaver’s fort, and build the myriad “homes without hands” in which fish, bird, and insect make their abode? The Spirit of God is with them as with us,—consciously with us, unconsciously with them. We are not divided, but one in his care and love. They have their mansions in the Father’s house, and we have ours; but the house is one, and the Master and keeper is one for us and them.
Rev. Dr. Hedge.
* * * * *
“Dumb.”
I can hardly express to you how much I feel there is to be thought of, arising from the word “dumb” applied to animals. Dumb animals! What an immense exhortation that is to pity. It is a remarkable thing that this word dumb should have been so largely applied to animals, for, in reality, there are very few dumb animals. But, doubtless, the word is often used to convey a larger idea than that of dumbness; namely, the want of power in animals to convey by sound to mankind what they feel, or, perhaps, I should rather say, the want of power in men to understand the meaning of the various sounds uttered by animals. But as regards those animals which are mostly dumb, such as the horse, which, except on rare occasions of extreme suffering, makes no sound at all, but only expresses pain by certain movements indicating pain—how tender we ought to be of them, and how observant of these movements, considering their dumbness. The human baby guides and governs us by its cries. In fact, it will nearly rule a household by these cries, and woe would betide it, if it had not this power of making its afflictions known. It is a sad thing to reflect upon, that the animal which has the most to endure from man is the one which has the least powers of protesting by noise against any of his evil treatment.
Arthur Helps.
* * * * *
Upward.
His
parent hand
From the mute shell-fish gasping
on the shore,
To men, to angels, to celestial
minds,
Forever leads the generations
on
To higher scenes of being;
while supplied
From day to day with His enlivening
breath,
Inferior orders in succession
rise
To fill the void below.
Akenside: Pleasures of Imagination.
* * * * *
Care for the lowest.
I would not enter on my list
of friends
(Though graced with polished
manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the
man
Who needlessly sets foot upon
a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush
the snail
That crawls at evening in
the public path;
But he that has humanity,
forewarned,
Will tread aside, and let
the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome
to the sight,
And charged perhaps with venom,
that intrudes,
A visitor unwelcome, into
scenes
Sacred to neatness and repose,
the alcove,
The chamber, or refectory,
may die:
A necessary act incurs no
blame.
Not so when, held within their
proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence,
they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the
spacious field:
There they are privileged;
and he that hunts
Or harms them there is guilty
Cowper.
* * * * *
Trust.
Oh, yet we trust that somehow
good
Will be the final
goal of ill,
To pangs of nature,
sins of will,
Defects of doubt and taints
of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless
feet;
That not one life
shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish
to the void,
When God hath made the pile
complete;
That not a worm is cloven
in vain;
That not a moth
with vain desire
Is shrivelled
in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s
gain.
Tennyson.
* * * * *
Say not.
Say not, the struggle naught
availeth,
The labor and
the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor
faileth,
And as things
have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears
may be liars;
It may be, in
yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e’en
now the fliers,
And, but for you,
possess the field.
For while the tired waves,
vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful
inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and
inlets making,
Comes silent,
flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows
only,
When daylight
comes, comes in the light;
In front, the sun climbs slow,
how slowly!
But westward,
look, the land is bright.
A. H. Clough.
* * * * *
See, through this air.
See, through this air, this
ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting
into birth.
Above, how high progressive
life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep
extend below!
Vast chain of being! which
from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel,
man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect,
which no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite
to thee;
From thee to nothing.
On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior
might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave
a void,
Where, one step broken, the
great scale’s destroyed:
From Nature’s chain
whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth,
breaks the chain alike.
Pope.
* * * * *
The right must win.
Oh, it is hard to work for
God,
To rise and take
his part
Upon this battle-field of
earth,
And not sometimes
lose heart!
Ill masters good; good seems
to change
To ill with greatest
ease;
And, worst of all, the good
with good
Is at cross purposes.
It is not so, but so it looks;
And we lose courage
then;
And doubts will come if God
hath kept
His promises to
men.
Workman of God! Oh lose
not heart,
But learn what
God is like;
And in the darkest battle-field
Thou shalt know
where to strike.
For right is right, since
God is God;
And right the
day must win;
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would
be sin!
Faber.
* * * * *
Animated nature.
Nature inanimate employs sweet
sounds,
But animated nature sweeter
still
To soothe and satisfy the
human ear.
Ten thousand warblers cheer
the day, and one
The livelong night: nor
these alone whose notes
Nice-fingered art must emulate
in vain;
But coying rooks, and kites
that swim sublime
In still repeated circles,
screaming loud,
The jay, the pie, and ev’n
the boding owl
That hails the rising moon,
have charms for me.
Sounds inharmonious in themselves
and harsh,
Yet heard in scenes where
peace forever reigns,
And only there, please highly
for their sake.
Cowper.
* * * * *
Animal happiness.
The heart is hard in nature,
and unfit
For human fellowship, as being
void
Of sympathy, and therefore
dead alike
To love and friendship both,
that is not pleased
With sight of animals enjoying
life,
Nor feels their happiness
augment his own.
The bounding fawn that darts
along the glade
When none pursues, through
mere delight of heart,
Cowper.
* * * * *
No grain of sand.
The very meanest things are
made supreme
With innate ecstasy.
No grain of sand
But moves a bright
and million-peopled land,
And hath its Edens and its
Eves, I deem.
For love, though blind himself,
a curious eye
Hath lent me,
to behold the heart of things,
And touched mine ear with
power. Thus, far or nigh,
Minute or mighty,
fixed or free with wings,
Delight, from many a nameless
covert sly,
Peeps sparkling,
and in tones familiar sings.
Laman Blanchard.
* * * * *
Humanity, mercy, and benevolence.
When that great and far-reaching softener of hearts, the sense of our failures and offences, is vividly present, the position we hold to creatures who have never done wrong is always found inexpressibly touching. To be kind to them, and rejoice in their happiness, seems just one of the few ways in which we can act a godlike part in our little sphere, and display the mercy for which we hope in turn. The only befitting feeling for human beings to entertain toward brutes is—as the very word suggests—the feeling of Humanity; or, as we may interpret it, the sentiment of sympathy, as far as we can cultivate fellow feeling; of Pity so far so we know them to suffer; of Mercy so far as we can spare their sufferings; of Kindness and Benevolence, so far as it is in our power to make them happy.
MISS F. P. COBBE.
* * * * *
LIVING CREATURES.
What call’st thou solitude?
Is mother earth
With various living creatures,
and the air
Replenished, and all these
at thy command
To come and play before thee?
Know’st thou not
Their language and their ways?
They also know,
And reason not contemptibly;
with these
Find pastime, and bear rule;
thy realm is large.
Paradise Lost, bk. 8.
* * * * *
NOTHING ALONE.
One all-extending, all-preserving
Soul
Connects each being, greatest
with the least;
Made beast in aid of man,
and man of beast;
All served, all serving:
nothing stands alone:
The chain holds on, and where
it ends, unknown.
POPE.
* * * * *
MAN’S RULE.
Thou gavest me wide nature
for my kingdom,
And power to feel it, to enjoy
it. Not
Cold gaze of winder gav’st
thou me alone,
But even into her bosom’s
depth to look,
As it might be the bosom of
a friend;
The grand array of living
things thou madest
To pass before me, mak’st
me know my brothers
In silent bush, in water,
and in air.
Blackie’s Translation of Goethe’s Faust.
* * * * *
DUMB SOULS.
Even the she-wolf with young,
on rapine bent,
He caught and tethered in
his mat-walled tent,
And cherished all her little
sharp-nosed young,
Till the small race with hope
and terror clung
About his footsteps, till
each new-reared brood,
Remoter from the memories
of the wood
More glad discerned their
common home with man.
This was the work
of Jubal: he began
The pastoral life, and, sire
of joys to be,
Spread the sweet ties that
bind the family
O’er dear dumb souls
that thrilled at man’s caress,
And shared his pain with patient
helpfulness.
GEORGE ELIOT: Legend of Jubal.
* * * * *
Nor must we childishly feel contempt for the study of the lower animals, since in all nature’s work there is something wonderful. And if any one thinks the study of other animals despicable, he must despise the study of his own nature.
ARISTOTLE.
* * * * *
VIRTUE.
Thus born alike, from virtue
first began
The diff’rence that
distinguished man from man:
He claimed no title from descent
of blood;
But that which made him noble
made him good.
DRYDEN.
* * * * *
LITTLE BY LITTLE.
Little by little the time
goes by—
Short if you sing through
it, long if you sigh.
Little by little—an
hour, a day,
Gone with the years that have
vanished away;
Little by little the race
is run,
Trouble and waiting and toil
are done!
Little by little the skies
grow clear;
Little by little the sun comes
near;
Little by little the days
smile out
Gladder and brighter on pain
and doubt;
Little by little the seed
we sow
Into a beautiful yield will
grow.
Little by little the world
grows strong,
Fighting the battle of Right
and Wrong:
Little by little the Wrong
gives way,
Little by little the Right
has sway;
Little by little all longing
souls
Struggle up nearer the shining
goals!
Little by little the good
in men
Blossoms to beauty for human
ken;
Little by little the angels
see
Prophecies better of good
to be;
Little by little the God of
all
Lifts the world nearer the
pleading call.
Cincinnati Humane Appeal.
* * * * *
LOYALTY.
Life may be given in many
ways
And loyalty to truth be sealed
As bravely in the closet as
the field,
So
generous is fate;
But then to stand beside her,
When craven churls deride
her,
To front a lie in arms, and
not to yield,
This shows, methinks, God’s
plan
And measure of a stalwart
man,
Limbed like the old heroic
breeds,
Who stands self-poised on
manhood’s solid earth,
Not forced to frame excuses
for his birth,
Fed from within with all the
strength he needs.
J. R. LOWELL.
* * * * *
ANIMALS AND HUMAN SPEECH.
Animals have much more capacity to understand human speech than is generally supposed. The Hindoos invariably talk to their elephants, and it is amazing how much the latter comprehend. The Arabs govern their camels with a few cries, and my associates in the African desert were always amused whenever I addressed a remark to the big dromedary who was my property for two months; yet at the end of that time the beast evidently knew the meaning of a number of simple sentences. Some years ago, seeing the hippopotamus in Barnum’s museum looking very stolid and dejected, I spoke to him in English, but he did not even open his eyes. Then I went to the opposite corner of the cage, and said in Arabic, “I know you; come here to me.” He instantly turned his head toward me; I repeated the words, and thereupon he came to the corner where I was standing, pressed his huge, ungainly head against the bars of the cage, and looked in my face with a touch of delight while I stroked his muzzle. I have two or three times found a lion who recognized the same language, and the expression of his eyes, for an instant, seemed positively human.
BAYARD TAYLOR.
* * * * *
PITY.
And I, contented with a humble
theme,
Have poured my stream of panegyric
down
The vale of Nature, where
it creeps and winds
Among her lovely works, with
a secure
And unambitious course, reflecting
clear
If not the virtues, yet the
worth, of brutes.
And I am recompensed, and
deem the toils
Of poetry not lost, if verse
of mine
May stand between an animal
and woe,
And teach one tyrant pity
for his drudge.
COWPER.
* * * * *
LEARN FROM THE CREATURES.
See him from Nature, rising
slow to Art!
To copy Instinct, that was
Reason’s part;
Thus then to man the voice
of Nature spake:—
“Go, from the creatures
thy instructions take;
Learn from the birds what
food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beasts the
physic of the field;
Thy arts of building from
the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plough,
the worm to weave;
Learn of the little nautilus
to sail,
Spread the thin oar, and catch
the driving gale.
Here, too, all forms of social
union find,
And hence let reason, late,
instruct mankind:
Here subterranean works and
cities see;
There towns aerial on the
waving tree.
Learn each small people’s
genius, policies,
The Ant’s republic,
and the realm of Bees:
How those in common all their
wealth bestow,
And Anarchy without confusion
know;
And these forever, though
a monarch reign,
Their sep’rate cells
and properties maintain.
Mark what unvaryed laws preserve
each state,
Laws wise as Nature, and as
fixed as Fate.
In fine, thy Reason finer
webs shall draw,
Entangle Justice in her net
of Law,
And Right, too rigid, harden
into Wrong;
Still for the strong too weak,
the weak too strong.
Yet go! and thus o’er
all the creatures sway,
Thus let the wiser make the
rest obey;
And, for those Arts mere Instinct
could afford,
Be crowned as Monarchs, or
as God adored.”
POPE.
* * * * *
PAIN TO ANIMALS.
Granted that any practice causes more pain to animals than it gives pleasure to man; is that practice moral or immoral? And if exactly in proportion as human beings raise their heads out of the slough of selfishness, they do not answer “immoral,” let the morality of the principle of utility be forever condemned.
JOHN STUART MILL.
* * * * *
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.
It might have been that the
sky was green, and the grass serenely blue;
It might have been that grapes
on thorns and figs on thistles grew;
It might have been that rainbows
gleamed before the showers came;
It might have been that lambs
were fierce and bears and tigers tame;
It might have been that cold
would melt and summer heat would freeze;
It might have been that ships
at sea would sail against the breeze—
And there may be worlds unknown,
dear, where we would find the change
From all that we have seen
or heard, to others just as strange—
But it never could be wise,
dear, in haste to act or speak;
It never could be noble to
harm the poor and weak;
It never could be kind, dear,
to give a needless pain;
It never could be honest,
dear, to sin for greed or gain;
And there could not be a world,
dear, while God is true above,
Where right and wrong were
governed by any law but love.
KATE LAWRENCE.
* * * * *
VILLAGE SOUNDS.
Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening’s close, Up yonder hill the village murmur rose; There as I passed with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came softening from below; The swain responsive to the milkmaid sung: The sober herd that lowed to meet their young; The noisy geese that gabbled o’er the pool: The playful children just let loose from school; The watch-dog’s voice that bayed the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind,— These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And filled each pause the nightingale had made.
GOLDSMITH.
* * * * *
BUDDHISM.
The Buddhist duty of universal love enfolds in its embraces not only the brethren and sisters of the new faith, not only our neighbors, but every thing that has life.
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS.
* * * * *
As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, protects her son, her only son, so let a man cultivate good-will without measure toward all beings. Let him cultivate good-will without measure, unhindered love and friendliness toward the whole world, above, below, around. Standing, walking, sitting, or lying, let him be firm in this mind so long as he is awake; this state of heart, they say, is the best in the world.
Metta Sutta.
* * * * *
He who lives pure in thought, free from malice, contented, leading a holy life, feeling tenderly for all creatures, speaking wisely and kindly, humbly and sincerely, has the Deity ever in his breast. The Eternal makes not his abode within the breast of that man who covets another’s wealth, who injures living creatures, who is proud of his iniquity, whose mind is evil.
Dhammapada.
* * * * *
FROM THE ASOKA INSCRIPTIONS.
The discontinuance of the murder of human beings and of cruelty to animals, respect for parents, obedience to father and mother, obedience to holy elders, these are good deeds.—No. IV.
And now the joyful chorus resounds again and again that henceforward not a single animal shall be put to death.—No. V.
In a summary of the inscriptions by Arthur Lillie, in “Buddhism and Early Buddhism,” he says, they require also, for the benefit of both beast and men, “that gardens be cultivated everywhere of healing shrubs and herbs.”
[The inscriptions were written on “rocks, temples, and monuments” in India for the instruction of the people, by order of the Emperor Asoka, who lived about 250 years before Christ.]
* * * * *
OLD HINDOO.
God is within this universe, and yet outside this universe; whoever beholds all living creatures as in Him, and Him the universal Spirit, as in all, henceforth regards no creature with contempt.
Quoted by REV. J. E. CARPENTER.
* * * * *
TRUTH.
It fortifies my soul to know
That though I
perish, truth is so,
That howsoe’er I stray
and range,
Whate’er
I do, thou dost not change.
I steadier step when I recall
That, if I slip,
thou dost not fall.
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.
* * * * *
OUR PETS.
We, dying, fondly hope the life
immortal
To win at last;
Yet all that live must through death’s dreary
portal
At length have passed.
And from the hope which shines
so bright above us,
My spirit turns,
And for the lowlier ones, that serve and love
us,
Half sadly yearns.
Never a bird its glad way safely
winging
Through those blest skies?
Never, through pauses in the joyful singing,
Its notes to rise?
Not one of those who toil’s
severest burdens
So meekly bear,
To find at last of faithful labor’s guerdons
An humble share?
Ah, well! I need not question;
gladly rather,
I’ll trust in all—
Assured that not without our Heavenly “Father”
The sparrows fall.
And if He foldeth in a sleep eternal
Their wings to rest;
Or waketh them to fly the skies supernal—
He knoweth best?
MARY SHEPPARD.
* * * * *
EGYPTIAN RITUAL.
God is the causer of pleasure and light, maker of grass for the cattle, and of fruitful trees for man, causing the fish to live in the river and the birds to fill the air, lying awake when all men sleep, to seek out the good of His creatures.
Quoted by REV. J. E. CARPENTER.
* * * * *
BROTHERHOOD.
There is a higher consanguinity than that of the blood which runs through our veins,—that of the blood which makes our hearts beat with the same indignation and the same joy. And there is a higher nationality than that of being governed by the same imperial dynasty,—that of our common allegiance to the Father and Ruler of all mankind.
MAX MUeLLER.
* * * * *
A BIRTHDAY ADDRESS.
TO ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, SEVENTH EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, K. G., APRIL 13, 1880.
For eighty years! Many
will count them over,
But none but He
who knoweth all may guess
What those long years have
held of high endeavor,
Of world-wide
blessing and of blessedness.
For eighty years the champion
of the right
Of hapless child
neglected and forlorn;
Of maniac dungeoned in his
double night;
Of woman overtasked
and labor-worn;
Of homeless boy, in streets
with peril rife;
Of workman, sickened
in his airless den;
Of Indian parching for the
streams of life;
Of negro slave
in bond of cruel men.
O Friend of all the friendless
’neath the sun,
Whose hand hath
wiped away a thousand tears,
Whose fervent lips and clear
strong brain have done
God’s holy
service, lo! these eighty years,—
How meet it seems thy grand
and vigorous age
Should find beyond
man’s race fresh pangs to spare,
And for the wronged and tortured
brutes engage
In yet fresh labors
and ungrudging care!
Oh, tarry long amongst us!
Live, we pray,
Hasten not yet
to hear thy Lord’s “Well done!”
Let this world still seem
better while it may
Contain one soul
like thine amid its throng.
Whilst thou art here our inmost
hearts confess,
Truth spake the
kingly seer of old who said,—
“Found in the way of
God and righteousness,
A crown of glory
is the hoary head.”
MISS F. P. COBBE.
* * * * *
SUFFERING.
Pain, terror, mortal agonies
which scare
Thy heart in man, to brutes
thou wilt not spare.
Are these less
sad and real? Pain in man
Bears the high mission of
the flail and fear;
In brutes ’tis
purely piteous.
HENRY TAYLOR.
* * * * *
TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD.
Who knows thy love most royal
power,
With largess free
and brave,
Which crowns the helper of
the poor,
The suffering
and the slave.
Yet springs as freely and
as warm,
To greet the near
and small,
The prosy neighbor at the
farm,
The squirrel on
the wall.
ELIZA SCUDDER.
* * * * *
VIVISECTION.
It is the simple idea of dealing with a living, conscious, sensitive, and intelligent creature as if it were dead and senseless matter, against which the whole spirit of true humanity revolts. It is the notion of such absolute despotism as shall justify, not merely taking life, but converting the entire existence of the animal into a misfortune which we denounce as a misconception of the relations between the higher and lower creatures. A hundred years ago had physiologists frankly avowed that they recognized no claims on the part of the brutes which should stop them from torturing them, they would have been only on a level with their contemporaries. But to-day they are behind the age.
As I have said ere now, the battle of Mercy, like that of Freedom,
“Once
begun,
Though often lost, is always
won.”
MISS F. P. COBBE.
* * * * *
NOBILITY.
From yon blue heavens above us
bent
The grand old gardener and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.
Howe’er it be, it seems to me
’Tis only noble to be good;
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
A. TENNYSON.
* * * * *
ACTS OF MERCY.
Yes, any act of mercy, even to the humblest and lowliest of God’s creatures, is an act that brings us near to God. Although “the mercy of God,” as the Psalmist says, “reaches to the heavens, although his judgments are like the great deep,” yet still, as the Psalmist adds, it is the same mercy, the same justice as that which we know in ourselves. “Thou preservest both man and beast; how exalted is thy mercy, O Lord; therefore the children of men take refuge under the shadow of thy wings.” That mercy which we see in the complex arrangements of the animal creation, extending down to the minutest portions of their frames—that same Divine mercy it is which we are bid to imitate. He whose soul burns with indignation against the brutal ruffian who misuses the poor, helpless, suffering horse, or dog, or ass, or bird, or worm, shares for the moment that Divine companion wrath which burns against the oppressors of the weak and defenceless everywhere. He who puts forth his hand to save from ill treatment, or add to the happiness of any of those dumb creatures, has opened his heart to that Divine compassion which our Heavenly Father has shown to the whole range of created things—which our blessed Saviour has shown to the human race, his own peculiar charge, by living and dying for us. “Be ye merciful” to dumb animals, for ye have a common nature with them. Be ye merciful, for the worst part of the nature of brutes is to be unmerciful. Be ye merciful, for ye are raised far above them, to be their appointed lords and guardians. Be ye merciful, for ye are made in the image of him who is All-Merciful and All-Compassionate.
DEAN STANLEY.
* * * * *
THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
He beheld the poor man’s
need;
Bound his wounds, and with
all speed
Set him on his own good steed,
And brought him to the inn.
When our Judge shall reappear,
Thinkest thou this man will
hear,
Wherefore didst thou interfere
With what concerned not thee?
No! the words of Christ will
run
“Whatsoever thou hast
done
To the poor and suffering
one
That hast thou done to me.”
ANON.
* * * * *
LOVE.
Thus, when Christianity announced its fundamental idea of love, it, by an immovable logic, enveloped all things in that affection, and every dumb brute of the street comes within the colored curtains of the sanctuary. The Humane Society is a branch of God’s Church, and we Christian church-members are all members of all such associations, so far as we are intelligent members of the Church of Christ. Love does not mean love of me or you, but it means love always and for all.
PROF. SWING.
* * * * *
CHILDREN AT SCHOOL.
If children at school can be made to understand how it is just and noble to be humane even to what we term inferior animals, it will do much to give them a higher character and tone through life. There is nothing meaner than barbarous and cruel treatment of the dumb creatures, who cannot answer us or resent the misery which is so often needlessly inflicted upon them.
JOHN BRIGHT.
* * * * *
MEMBERSHIP OF THE CHURCH.
Love and charity being the basis of Christianity, it is as much a question for the Church to ask, when a person wishes to be admitted into her bosom, “Are you kind to animals?” as it is to ask, “Do you believe in such or such a doctrine?” Certainly the question would be pertinent to Christian life and consonant with the fundamental and distinguishing principle of the Christian religion; and the mere asking of it at so solemn a juncture could not but do much to assimilate and draw closer the heart and life of the novitiate to Him who sees every sparrow that falls.
E. HATHAWAY.
* * * * *
FEELING FOR ANIMALS.
The power of feeling for animals, realizing their wants and making their pains our own, is one which is most irregularly shown by human beings. A Timon may have it, and a Howard be devoid of it. A rough shepherd’s heart may overflow with it, and that of an exquisite fine gentleman and distinguished man of science may be as utterly without it as the nether millstone. One thing I think must be clear: till man has learnt to feel for all his sentient fellow-creatures, whether in human or in brutal form, of his own class and sex and country, or of another, he has not yet ascended the first step towards true civilization nor applied the first lesson from the love of God.
MISS F. P. COBBE.
* * * * *
HEROIC.
Nay, on the strength of that same element of self-sacrifice, I will not grudge the epithet “heroic” which my revered friend Darwin justly applies to the poor little monkey who once in his life did that which was above his duty; who lived in continual terror of the great baboon, and yet, when the brute had sprung upon his friend the keeper, and was tearing out his throat, conquered his fear by love, and, at the risk of instant death, sprung in turn upon his dreaded enemy, and hit and shrieked until help arrived.
CHARLES KINGSLEY.
* * * * *
EFFECT OF CRUELTY.
The effect of the barbarous treatment of inferior creatures on the minds of those who practise it is still more deplorable than its effects upon the animals themselves. The man who kicks dumb brutes kicks brutality into his own heart. He who can see the wistful imploring eyes of half-starved creatures without making earnest efforts to relieve them, is on the road to lose his manhood, if he has not already lost it. And the boy who delights in torturing frogs or insects, or robbing birds’-nests, or dogging cattle and hogs wantonly and cruelly, can awaken no hope of an honorable after life.
E. HATHAWAY.
* * * * *
ASPIRATION.
Oh may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who
live again
In minds made better by their
presence: live
In pulses stirred to generosity:
In deeds of daring rectitude,
in scorn
For miserable aims that end
with self;
In thoughts sublime that pierce
the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence
urge men’s search
To vaster issues.
GEORGE ELIOT.
* * * * *
THE POOR BEETLE.
The sense of death is most
in apprehension;
And the poor beetle that we
tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds
a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
Measure for Measure, Act 3, Sc. 1.
* * * * *
THE CONSUMMATION.
It is little indeed that each of us can accomplish within the limits of our little day. Small indeed is the contribution which the best of us can make to the advancement of the world in knowledge and goodness. But slight though it be, if the work we do is real and noble work, it is never lost; it is taken up into and becomes an integral moment of that immortal life to which all the good and great of the past, every wise thinker, every true and tender heart, every fair and saintly spirit, have contributed, and which, never hasting, never resting, onward through ages is advancing to its consummation.
REV. DR. CAIRD.
* * * * *
PERSEVERE.
Salt of the earth, ye virtuous
few
Who season human
kind!
Light of the world, whose
cheering ray
Illumes the realms
of mind!
Where misery spreads her deepest
shade,
Your strong compassion
glows;
From your blest lips the balm
distils
That softens mortal
woes.
Proceed: your race of
glory run,
Your virtuous
toils endure;
You come, commissioned from
on high,
And your reward
is sure.
MRS. BARBAULD.
* * * * *
A VISION.
When ’twixt the drawn
forces of Night and of Morning,
Strange visions
steal down to the slumbers of men,
From heaven’s bright
stronghold once issued a warning,
Which baffled
all scorning, when brought to my ken.
Methought there descended
the Saints and the Sages,
With grief-stricken
aspect and wringing of hands,
Till Dreamland seemed filled
with the anguish of ages,
The blots of Time’s
pages, the woes of all lands.
And I, who had deemed that
their bliss knew no morrow
(Half vexed with
their advent, half awed with their might)—
Cried, “Come ye from
heaven, Earth’s aspect to borrow,
To mar with weird
sorrow the peace of the night?”
They answered me sternly,
“Thy knowledge is mortal;
Thou hear’st
not as we must, the plaints without tongue:
The wrongs that come beating
the crystalline portal,
Inflicted by mortals
on those who are dumb.
“Ye bleed for the nation,
ye give to the altar,
Ye heal the great
sorrows that clamor and cry,
Yet care not how oft ’neath
the spur and the halter,
The brutes of
the universe falter and die.
“Yet Jesus forgets not
that while ye ensnared Him,
And drove Him
with curses of burden and goad,
These gentle ones watched
where the Magi declared Him,
And often have
spared Him the long desert road.
“They crumble to dust;
but we, watchers remaining,
Attest their endurance
through centuries past,
Oh, fear! lest in future to
Judgment attaining,
These woes, uncomplaining,
confront you at last!”
JULIA C. VERPLANCK.
* * * * *
SPEAK GENTLY.
Speak gently! it is better
far
To rule by love
than fear:
Speak gently! let not harsh
words mar
The good we might
do here.
Speak gently! ’tis a little
thing,
Dropped in the heart’s deep well,
The good, the joy, which it may bring,
Eternity shall tell.
* * * * *
O,
it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength;
but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
Measure for Measure, Act 2, Sc. 2.
* * * * *
QUESTIONS.
Is there not something in the pleading eye
Of the poor brute that suffers, which arraigns
The law that bids it suffer? Has it not
A claim for some remembrance in the book,
That fills its pages with the idle words
Spoken of man? Or is it only clay,
Bleeding and aching in the potter’s hand,
Yet all his own to treat it as he will,
And when he will to cast it at his feet,
Shattered, dishonored, lost for evermore?
My dog loves me, but could he look beyond
His earthly master, would his love extend
To Him who—Hush! I will not doubt that He
Is better than our fears, and will not wrong
The least, the meanest of created things.
O. W. HOLMES.
* * * * *
HEROES.
The heroes are not all six
feet tall,
Large souls, may dwell in
bodies small,
The heart that will melt with
sympathy
For the poor and the weak,
whoe’er it be,
Is a thing of beauty, whether
it shine
In a man of forty or lad of
nine.
Scattered Seed.
* * * * *
FOR THE SAKE OF THE INNOCENT ANIMALS.
During his march to conquer the world, Alexander, the Macedonian, came to a people in Africa, who dwelt in a remote and secluded corner, in peaceful huts, and knew neither war nor conqueror. They led him to the hut of their chief, and placed before him golden dates, golden figs, and bread of gold. “Do you eat gold in this country?” said Alexander. “I take it for granted,” replied the chief, “that thou wert able to find eatables in thine own country. For what reason, then, art thou come among us?” “Your gold has not tempted me hither,” said Alexander; “but I would become acquainted with your manner and customs.” “So be it,” rejoined the other; “sojourn among us as long as it pleaseth thee.” At, the close of this conversation two citizens entered, as into their court of justice. The plaintiff said: “I bought of this man a piece of land, and as I was making a deep drain through it, I found a treasure. This is not mine, for I only bargained for the land, and not for any treasure that might be concealed beneath it; and yet the former owner of the land will not receive it.” The defendant answered: “I hope I have a conscience as well as my fellow-citizen. I sold him the land with all its contingent, as well as existing advantages, and consequently the treasure inclusively.”
The chief, who was also their supreme judge, recapitulated their words, in order that the parties might see whether or not he understood them aright. Then, after some reflection, he said, “Thou hast a son, friend, I believe?” “Yes.” “And thou (addressing the other) a daughter?” “Yes.” “Well, then, let thy son marry thy daughter, and bestow the treasure on the young couple for a marriage portion.” Alexander seemed surprised and perplexed. “Think you my sentence unjust?” the chief asked him. “Oh, no!” replied Alexander; “but it astonishes me.” “And how, then,” rejoined the chief, “would the case have been decided in your country?” “To confess the truth,” said Alexander, “we should have taken both into custody, and have seized the treasure for the king’s use.” “For the king’s use!” exclaimed the chief. “Does the sun shine on that country?” “Oh, yes.” “Does it rain there?” “Assuredly.” “Wonderful! But are there tame animals in the country that live on the grass and green herbs?” “Very many, and of many kinds.” “Ay, that must then be the cause,” said the chief; “for the sake of those innocent animals the all-gracious Being continues to let the sun shine and the rain drop down on your own country, since its inhabitants are unworthy of such blessings.”
UNKNOWN.
* * * * *
RING OUT.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms
of party strife;
Ring in the nobler
modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer
laws.
Ring out false pride in place
and blood,
The civic slander
and the spite;
Ring in the love
of truth and right,
Ring in the common love
of good.
Ring in the valiant man and
free,
The larger
heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness
of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is
to be.
A. TENNYSON.
* * * * *
FAME AND DUTY.
“What shall I do, lest
life in silence pass?”
“And
if it do,
And never prompt the bray
of noisy brass,
What
need’st thou rue?
Remember, aye the ocean-deeps
are mute;
The
shallows roar:
Worth is the ocean,—fame
is but the bruit
Along
the shore.”
“What shall I do to
be forever known?”
“Thy
duty ever.”
“This did full many
who yet slept unknown.”
“Oh,
never, never!
Think’st thou perchance
that they remain unknown
Whom
thou know’st not?
By angel trumps in heaven
their praise is blown—
Divine
their lot.”
“What shall I do to
gain eternal life?”
“Discharge
aright
The simple dues with which
each day is rife,
Yea,
with thy might.
Ere perfect scheme of action
thou devise,
Will
life be fled,
Where he, who ever acts as
conscience cries,
Shall
live though dead.”
SCHILLER.
* * * * *
NO CEREMONY.
No ceremony that to great
ones ’longs,
Not the king’s crown,
nor the deputed sword,
The marshal’s truncheon,
nor the judge’s robe,
Become them with one half
so good a grace
As mercy does. If he
had been as you,
And you as he, you would have
slipt like him;
But he, like you, would not
have been so stern.
Measure for Measure, Act 2, Sc. 2.
* * * * *
TRUE LEADERS.
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not in your brow.
Ye alight in our van! at your
voice.
Panic, despair flee away.
Ye move through the ranks,
recall
The stragglers, refresh the
outworn,
Praise, reinspire the brave.
Order, courage return;
Eyes rekindling, and prayers
Follow your steps as you go.
Ye fill up the gaps in our
files,
Strengthen the wavering line,
Stablish, continue our march,
On, to the bound of the waste,
On, to the City of God.
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
* * * * *
BE KIND TO DUMB CREATURES.
A SONG.
Be kind to dumb creatures,
be gentle, be true,
For food and protection they
look up to you;
For affection and help to
your bounty they turn.
Oh, do not their trusting
hearts wantonly spurn!
Chorus:
Be kind to dumb
creatures, nor grudge them your care,
God gave them
their life, and your love they must share;
And He who the
sparrow’s fall tenderly heeds,
Will lovingly
look on compassionate deeds.
The brave are the tender,—then
do not refuse
To carefully cherish the brutes
you must use;
Make their life’s labor
sweet, not dreary and sad,
Their working and serving
you, easy and glad.
Chorus:
“Be kind,” etc.
He made them and blessed them,
the least are his care:
The swallow that wings her
swift flight through the air,
The dog on your hearthstone,
the horse in your barn,
The cow in your pasture, the
sheep on your farm.
Chorus:
“Be kind,” etc.
Our Dumb Animals.
* * * * *
ACTION.
Do something! do it soon!
with all thy might;
An angel’s
wing would droop if long at rest,
And God inactive
were no longer blest.
Some high or humble enterprise
of good
Contemplate till
it shall possess thy mind,
Become thy study, pastime,
rest, and food,
And kindle in
thy heart a flame refined:
Pray heaven for firmness thy
whole soul to bind
To this high purpose:
to begin, pursue,
With thoughts all fixed, and
feelings purely kind;
Strength to complete,
and with delight review,
And strength to
give the praise where all is due.
WILCOX.
* * * * *
“IN HIM WE LIVE.”
The measureless gulfs of air
are full of Thee:
Thou art, and
therefore hang the stars: they wait
And swim, and shine in God
who bade them be,
And hold their
sundering voids inviolate.
A God concerned (veiled in
pure light) to bless,
With sweet revealing
of his love, the soul;
Towards things piteous,
full of piteousness;
The Cause, the
Life, and the continuing Whole.
He is more present to all
things He made
Than anything
unto itself can be;
Full-foliaged boughs of Eden
could not shade
Afford, since
God was also ’neath the tree._
JEAN INGELOW.
* * * * *
FIRM AND FAITHFUL.
Be firm and be faithful; desert
not the right;
The brave are the bolder,
the darker the night;
Then up and be doing, though
cowards may fail;
Thy duty pursuing, dare all,
and prevail.
If scorn be thy portion, if
hatred and loss,
If stripes or a prison, remember
the cross!
God watches above thee, and
He will requite;
Stand firm and be faithful,
desert not the right.
NORMAN MCLEOD.
* * * * *
HEART SERVICE.
Our hearts’ pure service,
Love, be thine,
Who clothest all with rights
divine,
Whose great Soul burns, though
ne’er so dim,
In all that walk, or fly,
or swim.
All Father! who on Mercy’s
throne
Hear’st thy dumb creatures’
faintest moan,—
Thy love be ours, and ours
shall be
Returned in deeds to thine
and Thee.
REV. H. BERNARD CARPENTER.
* * * * *
EXULTING SINGS.
Sweet morn! from countless cups
of gold
Thou liftest reverently on high
More incense fine than earth can hold,
To fill the sky.
The lark by his own carol blest,
From thy green harbors eager springs;
And his large heart in little breast
Exulting sings.
The fly his jocund round unweaves,
With choral strain the birds salute
The voiceful flocks, and nothing grieves,
And naught is mute.
To thousand tasks of fruitful hope,
With skill against his toil, man bends
And finds his work’s determined scope
Where’er he wends.
From earth, and earthly toil and
strife,
To deathless aims his love may rise,
Each dawn may wake to better life,
With purer eyes.
JOHN STERLING.
* * * * *
IN HOLY BOOKS.
In holy books we read how God hath
spoken
To holy men in many different ways;
But hath the present worked no sign nor token?
Is God quite silent in these latter days?
The word were but a blank,
a hollow sound,
If He that spake
it were not speaking still;
If all the light and all the
shade around
Were aught but
issues of Almighty Will.
So, then, believe that
every bird that sings,
And every flower
that stars the elastic sod,
And every thought the happy
summer brings,
To the pure spirit
is a word of God.
HARTLEY COLERIDGE.
* * * * *
THE BELL OF ATRI.
At Atri in Abruzzo, a small
town
Of ancient Roman date, but
scant renown,
One of those little places
that have run
Half up the hill, beneath
a blazing sun,
And then sat down to rest,
as if to say,
“I climb no farther
upward, come what may,”—
The Re Giovanni, now unknown
to fame,
So many monarchs since have
borne the name,
Had a great bell hung in the
market-place
Beneath a roof, projecting
some small space,
By way of shelter from the
sun and rain.
Then rode he through the streets
with all his train,
And, with the blast of trumpets
loud and long,
Made proclamation, that whenever
wrong
Was done to any man, he should
but ring
The great bell in the square,
and he, the King,
Would cause the Syndic to
decide thereon.
Such was the proclamation
of King John.
How swift the happy days in
Atri sped,
What wrongs were righted,
need not here be said.
Suffice it that, as all things
must decay,
The hempen rope at length
was worn away,
Unravelled at the end, and
strand by strand,
Loosened and wasted in the
ringer’s hand,
Till one, who noted this in
passing by,
Mended the rope with braids
of briony,
So that the leaves and tendrils
of the vine
Hung like a votive garland
at a shrine.
By chance it happened that
in Atri dwelt
A knight, with spur on heel
and sword in belt,
Who loved to hunt the wild-boar
in the woods,
Who loved his falcons with
their crimson hoods,
Who loved his hounds and horses,
and all sports
And prodigalities of camps
and courts;—
Loved, or had loved them:
for at last, grown old,
His only passion was the love
of gold.
He sold his horses, sold his
hawks and hounds,
Rented his vineyards and his
garden-grounds,
Kept but one steed, his favorite
steed of all,
To starve and shiver in a
naked stall,
And day by day sat brooding
in his chair,
Devising plans how best to
hoard and spare.
At length he said: “What
is the use or need
To keep at my own cost this
lazy steed,
Eating his head off in my
stables here,
When rents are low and provender
is dear?
Let him go feed upon the public
ways;
I want him only for the holidays.”
So the old steed was turned
into the heat
Of the long, lonely, silent,
shadeless street;
And wandered in suburban lanes
forlorn,
Barked at by dogs, and torn
by brier and thorn.
One afternoon, as in that
sultry clime
It is the custom in the summer-time,
With bolted doors and window-shutters
closed,
The inhabitants of Atri slept
or dozed;
When suddenly upon their senses
fell
The loud alarum of the accusing
bell!
The Syndic started from his
deep repose,
Turned on his couch, and listened,
and then rose
And donned his robes, and
with reluctant pace
Went panting forth into the
market-place,
Where the great bell upon
its cross-beam swung
Reiterating with persistent
tongue,
In half-articulate jargon,
the old song:
“Some one hath done
a wrong, hath done a wrong!”
But ere he reached the belfry’s
light arcade
He saw, or thought he saw,
beneath its shade,
No shape of human form of
woman born,
But a poor steed dejected
and forlorn,
Who with uplifted head and
eager eye
Was tugging at the vines of
briony.
“Domeneddio!”
cried the Syndic straight,
“This is the Knight
of Atri’s steed of state!
He calls for justice, being
sore distressed,
And pleads his cause as loudly
as the best.”
Meanwhile from street and
lane a noisy crowd
Had rolled together like a
summer cloud,
And told the story of the
wretched beast
In five-and-twenty different
ways at least,
With much gesticulation and
appeal
To heathen gods, in their
excessive zeal.
The Knight was called and
questioned; in reply
Did not confess the fact,
did not deny;
Treated the matter as a pleasant
jest,
And set at naught the Syndic
and the rest,
Maintaining, in an angry undertone,
That he should do what pleased
him with his own.
And thereupon the Syndic gravely
read
The proclamation of the King;
then said:
“Pride goeth forth on
horseback grand and gay,
But cometh back on foot, and
begs its way;
Fame is the fragrance of heroic
deeds,
Of flowers of chivalry and
not of weeds!
These are familiar proverbs;
but I fear
They never yet have reached
your knightly ear.
What fair renown, what honor,
what repute
Can come to you from starving
this poor brute?
He who serves well and speaks
not, merits more
Then they who clamor loudest
at the door.
Therefore the law decrees
that, as this steed
Served you in youth, henceforth
you shall take heed
To comfort his old age, and
to provide
Shelter in stall, and food
and field beside.”
The Knight withdrew abashed;
the people all
Led home the steed in triumph
to his stall.
The King heard and approved,
and laughed in glee,
And cried aloud: “Right
well it pleaseth me!
Church-bells at best but ring
us to the door;
But go not in to mass; my
bell doth more:
It cometh into court and pleads
the cause
Of creatures dumb and unknown
to the laws;
And this shall make, in every
Christian clime,
The Bell of Atri famous for
all time.”
Tales of a Wayside Inn, second day, 1872.
* * * * *
AMONG THE NOBLEST.
“Yes, well your story
pleads the cause
Of those dumb mouths that
have no speech,
Only a cry from each to each
In its own kind, with its
own laws;
Something that is beyond the
reach
Of human power to learn or
teach,—
An inarticulate moan of pain,
Like the immeasurable main
Breaking upon an unknown beach.”
Thus spake the poet with a
sigh;
Then added, with impassioned
cry,
As one who feels the words
he speaks,
The color flushing in his
cheeks,
The fervor burning in his
eye:
“Among the noblest in
the land,
Though he may count himself
the least,
That man I honor and revere
Who without favor, without
fear,
In the great city dares to
stand
The friend of every friendless
beast,
And tames with his unflinching
hand
The brutes that wear our form
and face,
The were-wolves of the human
race!”
Tales of a Wayside Inn, second day, 1872.
* * * * *
THE FALLEN HORSE.
Mr. George Herbert’s love to music was such that he went usually twice every week, on certain appointed days, to the Cathedral Church in Salisbury. When rector of Bemerton, in one of his walks to Salisbury, he saw a poor man with a poorer horse, that was fallen under his load; they were both in distress, and needed present help, which Mr. Herbert perceiving, put off his canonical coat and helped the poor man to unload, and after to load his horse. The poor man blessed him for it, and he blessed the poor man; and was so like the good Samaritan, that he gave him money to refresh both himself and his horse; and told him, “That if he loved himself, HE SHOULD BE MERCIFUL TO HIS BEAST.”
Thus he left the poor man: and at his coming to his musical friends at Salisbury, they began to wonder that Mr. George Herbert, who used to be so trim and clean, came into that company so soiled and discomposed; but he told them the occasion. And when one of the company told him “he had disparaged himself by so dirty an employment,” his answer was: “That the thought of what he had done would prove music to him at midnight; and that the omission of it would have upbraided and made discord in his conscience, whensoever he should pass by that place; for if I be bound to pray for all that be in distress, I am sure that I am bound, so far at it is in my power, to practise what I pray for. And though I do not wish for a like occasion every day, yet let me tell you, I would not willingly pass one day of my life without comforting a sad soul, or showing mercy, and I praise God for this occasion.”
IZAAK WALTON’S Lives.
* * * * *
THE HORSE.
Hast thou given the horse
strength?
Hast thou clothed his neck
with his trembling mane?
Hast thou taught him to bound
like the locust?
How majestic his snorting!
how terrible!
He paweth in the valley; he
exulteth in his strength,
And rusheth into the midst
of arms.
He laugheth at fear; he trembleth
not,
And turneth not back from
the sword.
Against him rattle the quiver,
The flaming spear, and the
lance.
With rage and fury he devoureth
the ground;
He will not believe that the
trumpet soundeth.
At every blast of the trumpet,
he saith, Aha!
And snuffeth the battle afar
off,—
The thunder of the captains,
and the war-shout.
Job, chap. 39, NOYES’ Translation.
* * * * *
THE BIRTH OF THE HORSE.
FROM THE ARABIC.
When Allah’s breath
created first
The noble Arab
steed,—
The conqueror of all his race
In courage and
in speed,—
To the South-wind He spake:
From thee
A creature shall
have birth,
To be the bearer of my arms
And my renown
on earth.
Then to the perfect horse
He spake:
Fortune to thee
I bring;
Fortune, as long as rolls
the earth,
Shall to thy forelock
cling.
Without a pinion winged thou
art,
And fleetest with
thy load;
Bridled art thou without a
rein,
And spurred without
a goad.
BAYARD TAYLOR.
* * * * *
TO HIS HORSE.
Come, my beauty! come, my
desert darling!
On my shoulder
lay thy glossy head!
Fear not, though the barley-sack
be empty,
Here’s the
half of Hassan’s scanty bread.
Thou shalt have thy share
of dates, my beauty!
And thou know’st
my water-skin is free:
Drink and welcome, for the
wells are distant,
And my strength
and safety lie in thee.
Bend thy forehead now, to
take my kisses!
Lift in love thy
dark and splendid eye:
Thou art glad when Hassan
mounts the saddle,—
Thou art proud
he owns thee: so am I.
Let the Sultan bring his boasted
horses,
Prancing with
their diamond-studded reins;
They, my darling, shall not
match thy fleetness
When they course
with thee the desert plains!
We have seen Damascus, O my
beauty!
And the splendor
of the Pashas there;
What’s their pomp and
riches? why, I would not
Take them for
a handful of thy hair!
BAYARD TAYLOR.
* * * * *
SYMPATHY FOR HORSE AND HOUND.
Yet pity for a
horse o’erdriven,
And love in which my hound
has part,
Can hang no weight upon my
heart,
In its assumptions
up to heaven:
And I am so much
more than these
As thou, perchance, art more
than I,
And yet I would spare them
sympathy,
And I would set
their pains at ease.
TENNYSON’S In Memoriam.
* * * * *
THE BLOOD HORSE.
Gamarra is a dainty steed,
Strong, black, and of a noble
breed,
Full of fire, and full of
bone,
With all his line of fathers
known;
Fine his nose, his nostrils
thin,
But blown abroad by the pride
within!
His mane is like a river flowing,
And his eyes like embers glowing
In the darkness of the night,
And his pace as swift as light.
Look,—how ’round
his straining throat
Grace and shining beauty float!
Sinewy strength is in his
reins,
And the red blood gallops
through his veins—
Richer, redder, never ran
Through the boasting heart
of man.
He can trace his lineage higher
Than the Bourbon dare aspire,—
Douglas, Guzman, or the Guelph,
Or O’Brien’s blood
itself!
He, who hath no peer, was
born,
Here upon a red March morn;
But his famous fathers dead
Were Arabs all, and Arabs
bred,
And the last of that great
line
Trod like one of a race divine!
And yet,—he was
but friend to one
Who fed him at the set of
sun
By some lone fountain fringed
with green;
With him, a roving Bedouin,
He lived (none else would
he obey
Through all the hot Arabian
day),—
And died untamed upon the
sands
Where Balkh amidst the desert
stands!
BARRY CORNWALL.
* * * * *
THE CID AND BAVIECA.
The king looked on him kindly,
as on a vassal true;
Then to the king Ruy Diaz
spake, after reverence due,
“O king! the thing is
shameful, that any man beside
The liege lord of Castile
himself, should Bavieca ride.
“For neither Spain nor
Araby could another charger bring
So good as he, and certes,
the best befits my king,
But, that you may behold him,
and know him to the core,
I’ll make him go as
he was wont when his nostrils smelt the Moor.”
With that the Cid, clad as
he was, in mantle furred and wide,
On Bavieca vaulting, put the
rowel in his side;
And up and down, and round
and round, so fierce was his career,
Streamed like a pennon on
the wind, Ruy Diaz’ minivere.
And all that saw them praised
them,—they lauded man and horse,
As matched well, and rivals
for gallantry and force;
Ne’er had they looked
on horsemen might to this knight come near,
Nor on other charger worthy
of such a cavalier.
Thus, to and fro a-rushing,
the fierce and furious steed,
He snapped in twain his nether
rein: “God pity now the Cid!
God pity Diaz!” cried
the lords,—but when they looked again,
They saw Ruy Diaz ruling him
with the fragment of his rein;
They saw him proudly ruling
with gesture firm and calm,
Like a true lord commanding,
and obeyed as by a lamb.
And so he led him foaming
and panting to the king,
But, “No,” said
Don Alphonso, “it were a shameful thing,
That peerless Bavieca should
ever be bestrid
By any mortal but Bivar,—mount,
mount again, my Cid!”
LOCKHART’S Spanish Ballads.
* * * * *
THE KING OF DENMARK’S RIDE.
Word was brought to the Danish
king,
(Hurry!)
That the love of his heart
lay suffering,
And pined for the comfort
his voice would bring;
(Oh! ride as though
you were flying!)
Better he loves each golden
curl
On the brow of that Scandinavian
girl
Than his rich crown-jewels
of ruby and pearl;
And his Rose of
the Isles is dying.
Thirty nobles saddled with
speed;
(Hurry!)
Each one mounted a gallant
steed
Which he kept for battle and
days of need;
(Oh! ride as though
you were flying!)
Spurs were struck in the foaming
flank;
Worn-out chargers staggered
and sank;
Bridles were slackened, and
girths were burst:
But ride as they would, the
king rode first;
For his Rose of
the Isles lay dying.
His nobles are beaten, one
by one;
(Hurry!)
They have fainted, and faltered,
and homeward gone;
His little fair page now follows
alone,
For strength and
for courage trying,
The king looked back at that
faithful child:
Wan was the face that answering
smiled.
They passed the drawbridge
with clattering din:
Then he dropped; and only
the king rode in
Where his Rose
of the Isles lay dying.
The king blew a blast on his
bugle horn;
(Silence!)
No answer came, but faint
and forlorn
An echo returned on the cold
gray morn,
Like the breath
of a spirit sighing.
The castle portal stood grimly
wide;
None welcomed the king from
that weary ride;
For, dead in the light of
the dawning day,
The pale sweet form of the
welcomer lay,
Who had yearned for his voice
while dying.
The panting steed with a drooping
crest
Stood
weary.
The king returned from her
chamber of rest,
The thick sobs choking in
his breast;
And that dumb
companion eying,
The tears gushed forth, which
he strove to check;
He bowed his head on his charger’s
neck:
“O steed, that every
nerve didst strain,
Dear steed, our ride hath
been in vain,
To the halls where
my love lay dying!”
CAROLINE ELIZABETH NORTON.
* * * * *
Go forth under the open sky
and list
To Nature’s teachings.
BRYANT.
* * * * *
DO YOU KNOW?
“Yesterday we buried my pretty brown mare under the wild-cherry tree. End of poor Bess.”
When a human being dies,
Seeming scarce so good or
wise,
Scarce so high in scale of
mind
As the horse he leaves behind,
“Lo,” we cry,
“the fleeting spirit
Doth a newer garb inherit;
Through eternity doth soar,
Growing, greatening, evermore.”
But our beautiful dumb creatures
Yield their gentle, generous
natures,
With their mute, appealing
eyes,
Haunted by earth’s mysteries,
Wistfully upon us cast,
Loving, trusting, to the last;
And we arrogantly say,
“They have had their
little day;
Nothing of them but was clay.”
Has all perished? Was
no mind
In that graceful form enshrined?
Can the love that filled those
eyes
With most eloquent replies,
When the glossy head close
pressing,
Grateful met your hand’s
caressing;
Can the mute intelligence,
Baffling oft our human sense
With strange wisdom, buried
be
“Under the wild-cherry
tree?”
Are these elements that spring
In a daisy’s blossoming,
Or in long dark grasses wave
Plume-like o’er your
favorite’s grave?
Can they live in us, and fade
In all else that God has made!
Is there aught of harm believing
That, some newer form receiving,
They may find a wider sphere,
Live a larger life than here?
That the meek, appealing eyes,
Haunted by strange mysteries,
Find a more extended field,
To new destinies unsealed;
Or that in the ripened prime
Of some far-off summer time,
Ranging that unknown domain,
We may find our pets again?
HELEN BARRON BOSTWICK.
* * * * *
THE BEDOUIN’S REBUKE.
A Bedouin of true honor, good
Nebar,
Possessed a horse whose fame
was spread afar;
No other horse was half so
proud and strong;
His feet were like the north
wind swept along;
In his curved neck, and in
his flashing eye,
You saw the harbingers of
victory.
So, many came to Nebar day
by day,
And longed to take his noble
horse away;
Large sums they offered, and
with grace besought.
But, all in vain; the horse
could not be bought.
With these came Daher, of
another tribe,
To see if he might not the
owner bribe;
Yet purposeless,—no
money, skill, nor breath
Could part the owner from
his horse till death.
Then Daher, who was subtle,
mean, and sly,
Concluded, next, some stratagem
to try;
So, clothed in rags, and masked
in form and face,
He as a beggar walked with
limping pace,
And, meeting Nebar with the
horse one day,
He fell, and prostrate on
the desert lay.
The ruse succeeded; for, when
Nebar found
A helpless man in sorrow on
the ground,
He took him up, and on the
noble steed
Gave him a place; but what
a thankless deed!
For Daher shouted, laughed,
and, giving rein,
Said, “You will never
see your horse again!”
“Take him,” said
Nebar, “but, for Mercy’s sake,
Tell no man in what way you
choose to take,
Lest others, seeing what has
happened me,
Omit to do some needed charity.”
Pierced by these words, the
robber’s keen remorse
Thwarted his plan, and he
returned the horse,
Shame-faced and sorrowful;
then slunk away
As if he feared the very light
of day!
ANON.
* * * * *
FROM “THE LORD OF BUTRAGO.”
Your horse is faint, my King,
my lord! your gallant horse is sick,—
His limbs are torn, his breast
is gored, on his eye the film is thick;
Mount, mount on mine, O mount
apace, I pray thee, mount and fly!
Or in my arms I’ll lift
your Grace,—their trampling hoofs are nigh!
My King, my King! you’re
wounded sore,—the blood runs from your feet;
But only lay a hand before,
and I’ll lift you to your seat;
Mount, Juan, for they gather
fast!—I hear their coming cry,—
Mount, mount, and ride for
jeopardy,—I’ll save you, though I
die!
Stand, noble steed! this hour
of need,—be gentle as a lamb;
I’ll kiss the foam from
off thy mouth,—thy master dear I am,—
Mount, Juan, mount; whate’er
betide, away the bridle fling,
Drive on, drive on with utmost
speed,—My horse shall save my King!
LOCKART’S Spanish Ballads.
* * * * *
“BAY BILLY.”—(Extracts.)
At last from out the centre
fight
Spurred up a general’s
aid.
“That battery must silenced
be!”
He cried, as past
he sped.
Our colonel simply touched
his cap,
And then, with
measured tread,
To lead the crouching line
once more
The grand old
fellow came.
No wounded man but raised
his head
And strove to
gasp his name,
And those who could not speak
nor stir,
“God blessed
him” just the same.
This time we were not half-way
up,
When, midst the
storm of shell,
Our leader, with his sword
upraised,
Beneath our bayonets
fell.
And, as we bore him back,
the foe
Set up a joyous
yell.
Just then before the laggard
line
The colonel’s
horse we spied,
Bay Billy with his trappings
on,
His nostrils swelling
wide,
As though still on his gallant
back
The master sat
astride.
Right royally he took the
place
That was of old
his wont,
And with a neigh that seemed
to say,
Above the battle’s
brunt,
“How can the Twenty-second
charge
If I am not in
front?”
No bugle-call could rouse
us all
As that brave
sight had done.
Down all the battered line
we felt
A lightning impulse
run.
Up! up! the hill we followed
Bill,
And we captured
every gun!
And then the dusk and dew
of night
Fell softly o’er
the plain,
As though o’er man’s
dread work of death
The angels wept
again,
And drew night’s curtain
gently round
A thousand beds
of pain.
At last the morning broke.
The lark
Sang in the merry
skies
As if to e’en the sleepers
there
It bade awake,
and rise!
Though naught but that last
trump of all
Could ope their
heavy eyes.
And as in faltering tone and
slow,
The last few names
were said,
Across the field some missing
horse
Toiled up with
weary tread,
It caught the sergeant’s
eye, and quick
Bay Billy’s
name he read.
Not all the shoulder-straps
on earth
Could still our
mighty cheer;
And ever from that famous
day,
When rang the
roll-call clear,
Bay Billy’s name was
read, and then
The whole line
answered, “Here!”
FRANK H. GASSAWAY.
* * * * *
We cannot kindle when we will,
The fire that in the heart
resides;
But tasks in hours of insight
willed,
Can be through hours of gloom
fulfilled.
M. ARNOLD.
* * * * *
THE RIDE OF COLLINS GRAVES.—(Extracts.)
AN INCIDENT OF THE FLOOD IN MASSACHUSETTS, MAY 16, 1874.
What was it, that passed like
an ominous breath—
Like a shiver of fear, or
a touch of death?
What is it? The valley
is peaceful still,
And the leaves are afire on
top of the hill.
It was not a sound—nor
a thing of sense—
But a pain, like the pang
of the short suspense
That thrills the being of
those who see
At their feet the gulf of
Eternity!
The air of the valley has
felt the chill:
The workers pause at the door
of the mill;
The housewife, keen to the
shivering air,
Arrests her foot on the cottage
stair,
Instinctive taught by the
mother-love,
And thinks of the sleeping
ones above.
Why start the listeners?
Why does the course
Of the mill-stream widen?
Is it a horse—
Hark to the sound of his hoofs,
they say—
That gallops so wildly Williamsburg
way!
God! what was that, like a
human shriek
From the winding valley?
Will nobody speak?
Will nobody answer those women
who cry
As the awful warnings thunder
by?
Whence come they? Listen!
And now they hear
The sound of galloping horse-hoofs
near;
They watch the trend of the
vale, and see
The rider who thunders so
menacingly,
With waving arms and warning
scream
To the home-filled banks of
the valley stream.
He draws no rein, but he shakes
the street
With a shout and the ring
of the galloping feet;
And this the cry he flings
to the wind;
“To the hills for your
lives! The flood is behind!”
But
onward still,
In front of the roaring flood
is heard
The galloping horse and the
warning word.
Thank God! the brave man’s
life is spared!
From Williamsburg town he
nobly dared
To race with the flood and
take the road
In front of the terrible swath
it mowed.
For miles it thundered and
crashed behind,
But he looked ahead with a
steadfast mind;
“They must be warned!”
was all he said,
As away on his terrible ride
he sped.
JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY.
* * * * *
PAUL REVERE’S RIDE.
A hurry of hoofs in a village
street,
A shape in the moonlight,
a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles,
in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying
fearless and fleet:
That was all! and yet, through
the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding
that night;
And the spark struck out by
that steed in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame
with its heat.
He has left the village and
mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil
and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the
ocean tides;
And under the alders, that
skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now
loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his
steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village
clock
When he crossed the bridge
into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the
cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s
dog,
And felt the damp of the river
fog,
That rises after the sun goes
down.
It was one by the village
clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he
passed,
And the meeting-house windows,
blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral
glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would
look upon.
It was two by the village
clock,
When he came to the bridge
in Concord town
He heard the bleating of the
flock,
And the twitter of birds among
the trees,
And felt the breath of the
morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep
in his bed
Who at the bridge would be
first to fall,
Who that day would be lying
dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In
the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired
and fled,—
How the farmers gave them
ball for ball,
From behind each fence and
farm-yard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down
the lane,
Then crossing the fields to
emerge again
Under the trees at the turn
of the road,
And only pausing to fire and
load.
So through the night rode
Paul Revere;
And so through the night went
his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village
and farm,—
A cry of defiance and not
of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a
knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo
for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind
of the Past,
Through all our history, to
the last,
In the hour of darkness and
peril and need,
The people will waken and
listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of
that steed,
And the midnight message of
Paul Revere.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
SHERIDAN’S RIDE.—(Extracts.)
Up from the South at break
of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh
dismay,
The affrighted air with a
shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to
the chieftain’s door
The terrible grumble, and
rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on
once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles
away.
But there is a road from Winchester
town,
A good broad highway leading
down;
And there, through the flush
of the morning light,
A steed as black as the steeds
of night,
Was seen to pass, as with
eagle flight,
As if he knew the terrible
need;
He stretched away with his
utmost speed;
Hills rose and fell; but his
heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles
away.
Under his spurning feet the
road
Like an arrowy Alpine river
flowed,
And the landscape sped away
behind
Like an ocean flying before
the wind,
And the steed, like a bark
fed with furnace fire,
Swept on, with his wild eye
full of ire.
But lo! he is nearing his
heart’s desire;
He is snuffing the smoke of
the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles
away.
The first that the general
saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the
retreating troops,
What was done? what to do?
a glance told him both,
Then striking his spurs, with
a terrible oath,
He dashed down the line, mid
a storm of huzzas,
And the wave of retreat checked
its course there, because
The sight of the master compelled
it to pause.
With foam and with dust the
black charger was gray;
By the flash of his eye, and
the red nostril’s play,
He seemed to the whole great
army to say,
“I have brought you
Sheridan all the way
From Winchester down, to save
the day!”
Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan!
Hurrah! hurrah for horse and
man!
And when their statues are
placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union
sky,
The American soldiers’
Temple of Fame;
There with the glorious general’s
name,
Be it said, in letters both
bold and bright,
“Here is the steed that
saved the day,
By carrying Sheridan into
the fight,
From Winchester, twenty miles
away!”
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
* * * * *
GOOD NEWS TO AIX.—(Extract.)
I sprang to the stirrup, and
Joris and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped,
we galloped all three;
“Good speed!”
cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew,
“Speed!” echoed
the wall to us galloping through.
Behind shut the postern, the
lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped
abreast.
Not a word to each other;
we kept the great pace,—
Neck by neck, stride by stride,
never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and
made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup
and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the check-strap,
chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily
Roland a whit.
’Twas moonset at starting;
but while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew and
twilight dawned clear;
At Boom a great yellow star
came out to see;
At Dueffeld ’twas morning
as plain as could be;
And from Mecheln church-steeple
we heard the half-chime,—
So Joris broke silence with
“Yet there is time!”
At Aerschot, up leaped of
a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle
stood, black every one,
To stare through the mist
at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper,
Roland, at last,
With resolute shoulders, each
butting away
The haze, as some bluff river
headland its spray.
*
* * * *
(But “Roos” and the “Roan” fell dead on the way; the latter, when Aix was in sight!)
And there was my Roland to
bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could
save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits
full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for
his eye-sockets’ rim.
Then I cast loose my buff-coat,
each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack-boots,
let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned,
patted his ear,
Called my Roland his pet-name,
my horse without peer;
Clapped my hands, laughed
and sang, any noise, bad or good,
Till at length into Aix Roland
galloped and stood.
And all I remember is, friends
flocking round
As I sat with his head ’twixt
my knees on the ground,
And no voice but was praising
this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat
our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted
by common consent)
Was no more than his due who
brought good news from Ghent.
ROBERT BROWNING.
* * * * *
DYING IN HARNESS.
Only a fallen horse, stretched
out there on the road,
Stretched in the broken shafts,
and crushed by the heavy load;
Only a fallen horse, and a
circle of wondering eyes
Watching the ’frighted
teamster goading the beast to rise.
Hold! for his toil is over—no
more labor for him;
See the poor neck outstretched,
and the patient eyes grow dim;
See on the friendly stones
now peacefully rests his head—
Thinking, if dumb beasts think,
how good it is to be dead;
After the burdened journey,
how restful it is to lie
With the broken shafts and
the cruel load—waiting only to die.
Watchers, he died in harness—died
in the shafts and straps—
Fell, and the great load killed
him; one of the day’s mishaps—
One of the passing wonders
marking the city road—
A toiler dying in harness,
heedless of call or goad.
Passers, crowding the pathway,
staying your steps awhile,
What is the symbol? “Only
death? why should you cease to smile
At death for a beast of burden?”
On through the busy street
That is ever and ever echoing
the tread of the hurrying feet!
What was the sign? A
symbol to touch the tireless will.
Does he who taught in parables
speak in parables still?
The seed on the rock is wasted—on
heedless hearts of men,
That gather and sow and grasp
and lose—labor and sleep—and
then—
Then for the prize! A
crowd in the street of ever-echoing tread—
The toiler, crushed by the
heavy load, is there in his harness—dead.
* * * * *
PLUTARCH’S HUMANITY.
For my part, I cannot but charge his using his servants like so many beasts of burden, and turning them off, or selling them when they grew old, to the account of a mean and ungenerous spirit which thinks that the sole tie between man and man is interest or necessity. But goodness moves in a larger sphere than justice. The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind, but kindness and beneficence should be extended to creatures of every species; and these still flow from the breast of a well-natured man, as streams that issue from the living fountain. A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but when old and past service. Thus the people of Athens, when they had finished the temple called Hecatompedon, set at liberty the beasts of burden that had been chiefly employed in the work, suffering them to pasture at large, free from any other service. It is said that one of these afterwards came of its own accord to work, and, putting itself at the head of the laboring cattle, marched before them to the citadel. This pleased the people, and they made a decree that it should be kept at the public charge so long as it lived. The graves of Cimon’s mares, with which he thrice conquered at the Olympic games, are still to be seen near his own tomb. Many have shown particular marks of regard, in burying the dogs which they had cherished and been fond of; and amongst the rest Xantippus of old, whose dog swam by the side of his galley to Salamis, when the Athenians were forced to abandon their city, and was afterwards buried by him upon a promontory, which to this day is called the Dog’s Grave. We certainly ought not to treat living creatures like shoes or household goods, which, when worn out with use, we throw away; and were it only to learn benevolence to humankind, we should be merciful to other creatures. For my own part, I would not sell even an old ox that had labored for me; much less would I remove, for the sake of a little money, a man grown old in my service, from his usual lodgings and diet; for to him, poor man! it would be as bad as banishment, since he could be of no more use to the buyer than he was to the seller. But Cato, as if he took a pride in these things, tells us, that when consul, he left his war-horse in Spain to save the public the charge of his conveyance. Whether such things as these are instances of greatness or littleness of soul, let the reader judge for himself.
From “Cato the Censor,” in the “Lives."
* * * * *
THE HORSES OF ACHILLES.
The gentleness of chivalry, properly so called, depends on the recognition of the order and awe of lower and loftier animal life, first clearly taught in the myth of Chiron, and in his bringing up of Jason, AEsculapius, and Achilles, but most perfectly by Homer, in the fable of the horses of Achilles, and the part assigned to them, in relation to the death of his friend, and in prophecy of his own. There is, perhaps, in all the “Iliad,” nothing more deep in significance—there is nothing in all literature more perfect in human tenderness, and honor for the mystery of inferior life—than the verses that describe the sorrow of the divine horses at the death of Patroclus, and the comfort given them by the greatest of gods.
RUSKIN.
* * * * *
THE WAR HORSE.
Sir Robert Clayton, a British cavalry officer, says of some war horses which had been humanely turned out to perpetual pasture, that while the horses were grazing on one occasion, a violent thunderstorm arose; at once the animals fell into line and faced the blazing lightning under an impression that it was the flash of artillery and the fire of battle.
* * * * *
PEGASUS IN POUND.
Once into a quiet village,
Without haste
and without heed,
In the golden prime of morning,
Strayed the poet’s
winged steed.
It was Autumn, and incessant
Piped the quails
from shocks and sheaves,
And, like living coals, the
apples
Burned among the
withering leaves.
Loud the clamorous bell was
ringing
From its belfry
gaunt and grim;
’Twas the daily call
to labor,
Not a triumph
meant for him.
Not the less he saw the landscape,
In its gleaming
vapor veiled;
Not the less he breathed the
odors
That the dying
leaves exhaled.
Thus, upon the village common,
By the school-boys
he was found;
And the wise men, in their
wisdom,
Put him straightway
into pound.
Then the sombre village crier,
Ringing loud his
brazen bell,
Wandered down the street proclaiming:
There was an estray
to sell.
And the curious country people,
Rich and poor,
and young and old,
Came in haste to see the wondrous
Winged steed with
mane of gold.
Thus the day passed, and the
evening
Fell, with vapors
cold and dim;
But it brought no food nor
shelter,
Brought no straw
nor stall, for him.
Patiently, and still expectant,
Looked he through
the wooden bars,
Saw the moon rise o’er
the landscape.
Saw the tranquil,
patient stars;
Till at length the bell at
midnight
Sounded from its
dark abode,
And, from out a neighboring
farm-yard,
Loud the cock
Alectryon crowed.
Then, with nostrils wide distended,
Breaking from
his iron chain,
And unfolding far his pinions,
To those stars
he soared again.
On the morrow, when the village
Woke to all its
toil and care,
Lo! the strange steed had
departed,
And they knew
not when nor where.
But they found, upon the greensward
Where his struggling
hoofs had trod,
Pure and bright, a fountain
flowing
From the hoof-marks
in the sod.
From that hour, the fount
unfailing
Gladdens the whole
region round,
Strengthening all who drink
its waters,
While it soothes
them with its sound.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
THE HORSE.
Nay, the man hath no wit, that cannot, from the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey; it is a theme as fluent as the sea; turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all; ’tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign’s sovereign to ride on; and for the world (familiar to us and unknown), to lay apart their particular functions and wonder at him.
Henry V. Act 3, Sec. 7.
* * * * *
FROM “THE FORAY.”
Our steeds are impatient!
I hear my blithe Gray!
There is life in his hoof-clang,
and hope in his neigh;
Like the flash of a meteor,
the glance of his mane
Shall marshal your march through
the darkness and rain.
WALTER SCOTT.
* * * * *
ON LANDSEER’S PICTURE, “WAITING FOR MASTER.”
The proud steed bends his
stately neck
And patient waits
his master’s word,
While Fido listens for his
step,
Welcome, whenever
heard.
King Charlie shakes his curly
ears,
Secure his home, no harm he
fears;
Above the peaceful pigeons
coo
Their happy hymn, the long
day through.
What means this scene of quiet
joy,
This peaceful scene without
alloy!
Kind words, kind care, and
tender thought
This picture beautiful have
wrought.
Its lesson tells of care for
all
God’s creatures, whether
great or small,
And they who love “the
least of these,”
Are sure a loving God to please.
Our Dumb Animals.
* * * * *
THE BIRDS.
* * * * *
THE WATERFOWL.
Whither, ’midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day
Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek’st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,—
The desert and illimitable air,—
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Some o’er thy sheltered nest.
Thou’rt gone—the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form—yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He, who from zone to zone
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone
Will lead my steps aright.
W. C. BRYANT.
* * * * *
SEA FOWL.
Through my north window, in the
wintry weather,—
My airy oriel on the river shore,—
I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together
Where late the boatman flashed his dripping
oar.
I see the solemn gulls in
council sitting
On some broad
ice-floe, pondering long and late,
While overhead the home-bound
ducks are flitting,
And leave the
tardy conclave in debate,
Those weighty questions in
their breasts revolving,
Whose deeper meaning
science never learns,
Till at some reverend elder’s
look dissolving,
The speechless
senate silently adjourns.
He knows you! “sportsman”
from suburban alleys,
Stretched under
seaweed in the treacherous punt;
Knows every lazy, shiftless
lout that sallies
Forth to waste
powder—as he says, to “hunt.”
I watch you with a patient
satisfaction,
Well pleased to
discount your predestined luck;
The float that figures in
your sly transaction
Will carry back
a goose, but not a duck.
Shrewd is our bird; not easy
to outwit him!
Sharp is the outlook
of those pin-head eyes;
Still, he is mortal and a
shot may hit him;
One cannot always
miss him if he tries!
O Thou who carest for the
falling sparrow,
Canst Thou the
sinless sufferer’s pang forget?
Or is thy dread account-book’s
page so narrow
Its one long column
scores thy creature’s debt?
Poor, gentle guest, by nature
kindly cherished,
A world grows
dark with thee in blinding death;
One little gasp,—thy
universe has perished,
Wrecked by the
idle thief who stole thy breath!
From “My Aviary,” by O. W. HOLMES.
* * * * *
THE SANDPIPER.
Across the narrow beach we
flit,
One little sandpiper
and I,
And fast I gather, bit by
bit,
The scattered
driftwood bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their
hands for it,
The wild wind
raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we
flit,—
One little sandpiper
and I.
Above our heads the sullen
clouds
Scud black and
swift across the sky;
Like silent ghosts in misty
shrouds
Stand out the
white lighthouses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach,
I see the close-reefed
vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the
beach,—
One little sandpiper
and I.
I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet
and mournful cry.
He starts not at my fitful
song,
Or flash of fluttering
drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong;
He scans me with
a fearless eye.
Staunch friends are we, well
tried and strong,
The little sandpiper
and I.
Comrade, where wilt thou be
to-night,
When the loosed
storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn
so bright!
To what warm shelter
canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though
wroth
The tempest rushes
through the sky:
For are we not God’s
children both,
Thou, little sandpiper,
and I?
CELIA THAXTER.
* * * * *
THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH.
The robin and the bluebird, piping
loud,
Filled all the blossoming orchards with their
glee;
The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud
Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be;
And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd,
Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly,
Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said:
“Give us, O Lord, this day our daily bread!”
* * * * *
Thus came the jocund Spring in
Killingworth,
In fabulous days, some hundred years ago;
And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth,
Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow,
That mingled with the universal mirth,
Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe;
They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful
words
To swift destruction the whole race of birds.
And a town-meeting was convened
straightway
To set a price upon the guilty heads
Of these marauders, who, in lieu of pay,
Levied black-mail upon the garden beds
And cornfields, and beheld without dismay
The awful scarecrow, with his fluttering shreds;
The skeleton that waited at their feast,
Whereby their sinful pleasure was increased.
* * * * *
Rose the Preceptor,...
To speak out what was in him, clear and strong.
* * * * *
“Plato, anticipating the
Reviewers,
From his Republic banished without pity
The Poets; in this little town of yours,
You put to death, by means of a Committee,
The ballad-singers and the troubadours,
The street-musicians of the heavenly city,
The birds who make sweet music for us all
In our dark hours, as David did for Saul.
THEIR SONGS.
“The thrush that carols
at the dawn of day
From the green
steeples of the piny wood;
The oriole in the elm; the
noisy jay,
Jargoning like
a foreigner at his food;
The bluebird balanced on some
topmost spray,
Flooding with
melody the neighborhood;
Linnet and meadow-lark, and
all the throng
That dwell in nests, and have
the gift of song.
“You slay them all!
and wherefore? for the gain
Of a scant handful
more or less of wheat,
Or rye, or barley, or some
other grain,
Scratched up at
random by industrious feet,
Searching for worm or weevil
after rain!
Or a few cherries,
that are not so sweet
As are the songs these uninvited
guests
Sing at their feast with comfortable
breasts.
“Do you ne’er
think what wondrous beings these?
Do you ne’er
think who made them, and who taught
The dialect they speak, where
melodies
Alone are the
interpreters of thought?
Whose household words are
songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument
of man e’er caught!
Whose habitations in the tree-tops
even
Are half-way houses on the
road to heaven!
“Think, every morning
when the sun peeps through
The dim, leaf-latticed
windows of the grove,
How jubilant the happy birds
renew
Their old melodious
madrigals of love!
And when you think of this,
remember too
’Tis always
morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents,
from shore to shore,
Somewhere the birds are singing
evermore.
THEIR SERVICE TO MAN.
“Think of your woods
and orchards without birds!
Of empty nests
that cling to boughs and beams
As in an idiot’s brain
remembered words
Hang empty ’mid
the cobwebs of his dreams!
Will bleat of flocks or bellowing
of herds
Make up for the
lost music, when your teams
Drag home the stingy harvest,
and no more
The feathered gleaners follow
to your door?
“What! would you rather
see the incessant stir
Of insects in
the windrows of the hay,
And hear the locust and the
grasshopper
Their melancholy
hurdy-gurdies play?
Is this more pleasant to you
than the whir
Of meadow-lark,
and her sweet roundelay,
Or twitter of little field-fares,
as you take
Your nooning in the shade
of bush and brake?
“You call them thieves
and pillagers; but know,
They are the winged
wardens of your farms,
Who from the cornfields drive
the insidious foe,
And from your
harvest keep a hundred harms.
Even the blackest of them
all, the crow,
Renders good service
as your man-at-arms,
Crushing the beetle in his
coat-of-mail,
And crying havoc on the slug
and snail.
THE CLAIMS OF GENTLENESS AND REVERENCE.
“How can I teach your children
gentleness,
And mercy to the weak, and reverence
For Life, which, in its weakness or excess,
Is still a gleam of God’s omnipotence,
Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less
The selfsame light, although averted hence,
When by your laws, your actions, and your speech,
You contradict the very things I teach?”
* * * * *
The birds were doomed; and, as
the record shows,
A bounty offered for the heads of crows.
* * * * *
THE RESULT OF THEIR DESTRUCTION.
Devoured by worms, like Herod,
was the town,
Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly
Slaughtered the Innocents. From the trees
spun down
The canker-worms upon the passers-by,
Upon each woman’s bonnet, shawl, and gown,
Who shook them off with just a little cry;
They were the terror of each favorite walk,
The endless theme of all the village talk.
The farmers grew impatient,
but a few
Confessed their
error, and would not complain,
For after all, the best thing
one can do
When it is raining,
is to let it rain.
Then they repealed the law,
although they knew
It would not call
the dead to life again;
As school-boys, finding their
mistake too late,
Draw a wet sponge across the
accusing slate.
That year in Killingworth
the Autumn came
Without the light
of his majestic look,
The wonder of the falling
tongues of flame,
The illumined
pages of his Doom’s-Day book.
A few lost leaves blushed
crimson with their shame,
And drowned themselves
despairing in the brook,
While the wild wind went moaning
everywhere,
Lamenting the dead children
of the air!
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS.
But the next Spring a stranger
sight was seen,
A sight that never
yet by bard was sung,
As great a wonder as it would
have been
If some dumb animal
had found a tongue!
A wagon, overarched with evergreen,
Upon whose boughs
were wicker cages hung,
All full of singing birds,
came down the street,
Filling the air with music
wild and sweet.
From all the country round
these birds were brought,
By order of the
town, with anxious quest,
And, loosened from their wicker
prisons, sought
In woods and fields
the places they loved best,
Singing loud canticles, which
many thought
Were satires to
the authorities addressed,
While others, listening in
green lanes, averred
Such lovely music never had
been heard!
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
THE MAGPIE.
“Man is unjust, but
God is just; and finally justice
Triumphs; and well I remember
a story, that often consoled me,
When as a captive I lay in
the old French fort at Port Royal.”
This was the old man’s
favorite tale, and he loved to repeat it
When his neighbors complained
that any injustice was done them.
“Once in an ancient
city, whose name I no longer remember,
Raised aloft on a column,
a brazen statue of Justice
Stood in the public square,
upholding the scales in his left hand,
And in its right a sword,
as an emblem that justice presided
Over the laws of the land,
and the hearts and homes of the people.
Even the birds had built their
nests in the scales of the balance,
Having no fear of the sword
that flashed in the sunshine above them.
But in course of time the
laws of the land were corrupted;
Might took the place of right,
and the weak were oppressed, and the
mighty
Ruled with an iron rod.
Then it chanced in a nobleman’s palace
That a necklace of pearls
was lost, and erelong a suspicion
Fell on an orphan girl who
lived as maid in the household.
She, after form of trial condemned
to die on the scaffold,
Patiently met her doom at
the foot of the statue of Justice.
As to her Father in heaven
her innocent spirit ascended,
Lo! o’er the city a
tempest rose; and the bolts of the thunder
Smote the statue of bronze,
and hurled in wrath from its left hand
Down on the pavement below
the clattering scales of the balance,
And in the hollow thereof
was found the nest of a magpie,
Into whose clay-built walls
the necklace of pearls was inwoven.”
H. W. LONGFELLOW, in Evangeline.
* * * * *
THE MOCKING-BIRD.
Then from a neighboring thicket
the mocking-bird, wildest of singers,
Swinging aloft on a willow
spray that hung o’er the water,
Shook from his little throat
such floods of delirious music,
That the whole air and the
woods and the waves seemed silent to listen.
Plaintive at first were the
tones and sad; then soaring to madness
Seemed they to follow or guide
the revel of frenzied Bacchantes.
Single notes were then heard,
in sorrowful, low lamentation;
Till, having gathered them
all, he flung them abroad in derision,
As when, after a storm, a
gust of wind through the tree-tops
Shakes down the rattling rain
in a crystal shower on the branches.
H. W. LONGFELLOW, in Evangeline.
* * * * *
EARLY SONGS AND SOUNDS.
To hear the lark begin his
flight,
And singing startle the dull
night
From his watch-tower in the
skies
Till the dappled dawn doth
rise;
Then to come, in spite of
sorrow,
JOHN MILTON.
* * * * *
THE SPARROW’S NOTE.
I thought the sparrow’s
note from heaven,
Singing at dawn
on the alder bough;
I brought him home, in his
nest, at even,
He sings the song,
but it pleases not now,
For I did not bring home the
river and sky;
He sang to my ear, they sang
to my eye.
R. W. EMERSON.
* * * * *
THE GLOW-WORM.
Nor crush a worm, whose useful
light
Might serve, however small,
To show a stumbling-stone
by night,
And save man from a fall.
COWPER.
* * * * *
ST. FRANCIS TO THE BIRDS.
Up soared the lark into the
air,
A shaft of song, a winged
prayer,
As if a soul, released from
pain,
Were flying back to heaven
again.
St. Francis heard; it was
to him
An emblem of the Seraphim;
The upward motion of the fire,
The light, the heat, the heart’s
desire.
Around Assisi’s convent
gate
The birds, God’s poor
who cannot wait,
From moor and mere and darksome
wood
Came flocking for their dole
of food.
“O brother birds,”
St. Francis said,
“Ye come to me and ask
for bread,
But not with bread alone to-day
Shall ye be fed and sent away.
“Ye shall be fed, ye
happy birds,
With manna of celestial words;
Not mine, though mine they
seem to be,
Not mine, though they be spoken
through me.
“Oh, doubly are ye bound
to praise
The great Creator in your
lays;
He giveth you your plumes
of down,
Your crimson hoods, your cloaks
of brown.
“He giveth you your
wings to fly
And breathe a purer air on
high,
And careth for you everywhere,
Who for yourselves so little
care!”
With flutter of swift wings
and songs
Together rose the feathered
throngs,
And singing scattered far
apart;
Deep peace was in St. Francis’
heart.
He knew not if the brotherhood
His homily had understood;
He only knew that to one ear
The meaning of his words was
clear.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
WORDSWORTH’S SKYLARK.
Ethereal Minstrel! Pilgrim
of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth
where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire,
are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the
dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst
drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed,
that music still!
To the last point of vision,
and beyond,
Mount, daring warbler! that
love-prompted strain,
(’Twixt thee and thine
a never-failing bond)
Thrills not the less the bosom
of the plain:
Yet might’st thou seem,
proud privilege! to sing
All independent of the leafy
spring.
Leave to the nightingale her
shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light
is thine;
Whence thou dost pour upon
the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct
more divine;
Type of the wise who soar,
but never roam;
True to the kindred points
of heaven and home!
WORDSWORTH.
* * * * *
SHELLEY’S SKYLARK.—(Extracts.)
Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire,
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever
singest.
Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus hymeneal
Or triumphal chant
Matched with thine, would be all
But an empty vaunt—
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of
pain?
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening
now!
P. B. SHELLEY.
* * * * *
HOGG’S SKYLARK.
Bird of the wilderness,
Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o’er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place,—
Oh to abide in the desert with thee!
Wild is the day and loud
Far in the downy cloud,
Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
Where, on thy dewy wing,
Where art thou journeying?
Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.
O’er fell and mountain sheen,
O’er moor and mountain green,
O’er the red streamer that heralds the day,
Over the cloudlet dim,
Over the rainbow’s rim,
Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!
Then, when the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms
Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place,
Oh to abide in the desert with thee!
JAMES HOGG.
* * * * *
A skylark wounded on the wing
Doth make a cherub cease to
sing.
He who shall hurt a little
wren
Shall never be beloved by
men.
W. BLAKE.
* * * * *
THE SWEET-VOICED QUIRE.
Lord, should we oft forget
to sing
A thankful evening
hymn of praise,
This duty, they to mind might
bring,
Who chirp among
the bushy sprays.
For in their perches they
retire,
When first the
twilight waxeth dim;
And every night the sweet-voiced
quire
Shuts up the daylight
with a hymn.
Ten thousand fold more cause
have we
To close each
day with praiseful voice,
To offer thankful hearts to
Thee,
And in thy mercies
to rejoice.
GEORGE WITHER, 1628.
* * * * *
A CAGED LARK.
A cruel deed
It is, sweet bird, to cage thee up
Prisoner for life, with just a cup
And a box of seed,
And sod to move on barely one foot square,
Hung o’er dark street, midst foul and murky
air.
From freedom brought,
And robbed of every chance of wing,
Thou couldst have had no heart to sing,
One would have thought.
But though thy song is sung, men little know
The yearning source from which those sweet notes
flow.
Poor little bird!
As often as I think of thee,
And how thou longest to be free,
My heart is stirred,
And, were my strength but equal to my rage,
Methinks thy cager would be in his cage.
The selfish man!
To take thee from thy broader sphere,
Where thousands heard thy music clear,
On Nature’s plan;
And where the listening landscape far and wide
Had joy, and thou thy liberty beside.
A singing slave
Made now; with no return but food;
No mate to love, nor little brood
To feed and save;
No cool and leafy haunts; the cruel wires
Chafe thy young life and check thy just desires.
Brave little bird!
Still striving with thy sweetest song
To melt the hearts that do thee wrong,
I give my word
To stand with those who for thy freedom fight,
Who claim for thee that freedom as thy right.
Chambers’s Journal.
* * * * *
THE WOODLARK.
I have a friend across the
street,
We never yet exchanged
a word,
Yet dear to me his accents
sweet—
I am a woman,
he a bird.
And here we twain in exile
dwell,
Far from our native
woods and skies,
And dewy lawns with healthful
smell,
Where daisies
lift their laughing eyes.
Never again from moss-built
nest
Shall the caged
woodlark blithely soar;
Never again the heath be pressed
By foot of mine
for evermore!
Yet from that feathered, quivering
throat
A blessing wings
across to me;
No thrall can hold that mellow
note,
Or quench its
flame in slavery.
When morning dawns in holy
calm,
And each true
heart to worship calls,
Mine is the prayer, but his
the psalm,
That floats about
our prison walls.
And as behind the thwarting
wires
The captive creature
throbs and sings,
With him my mounting soul
aspires
On Music’s
strong and cleaving wings.
My chains fall off, the prison
gates
Fly open, as with
magic key;
And far from life’s
perplexing straits,
My spirit wanders,
swift and free.
Back to the heather, breathing
deep
The fragrance
of the mountain breeze,
I hear the wind’s melodious
sweep
Through tossing
boughs of ancient trees.
Beneath a porch where roses
climb
I stand as I was
used to stand,
Where cattle-bells with drowsy
chime
Make music in
the quiet land.
Fast fades the dream in distance
dim,
Tears rouse me
with a sudden shock;
Lo! at my door, erect and
trim,
The postman gives
his double knock.
And a great city’s lumbering
noise
Arises with confusing
hum,
And whistling shrill of butchers’
boys;
My day begins,
my bird is dumb.
Temple Bar.
* * * * *
KEATS’S NIGHTINGALE.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal
Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down:
The voice I heard this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for
home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like
a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! Adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side: and now ’tis
buried deep
In the next valley-glades
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—do I wake or
sleep?
J. KEATS.
* * * * *
LARK AND NIGHTINGALE.
Color and form may be conveyed
by words,
But words are weak to tell the heavenly strains
That from the throats of these celestial birds
Rang through the woods and o’er the echoing
plains;
There was the meadow-lark with voice as sweet,
But robed in richer raiment than our own;
And as the moon smiled on his green retreat,
The painted nightingale sang out alone.
Words cannot echo music’s
winged note,
One voice alone
exhausts their utmost power;
’Tis that strange bird,
whose many-voiced throat
Mocks all his
brethren of the woodlawn bower,
To whom, indeed, the gift
of tongues is given,
The musical, rich
tongues that fill the grove;
Now, like the lark, dropping
his notes from heaven,
Now cooing the
soft notes of the dove.
Oft have I seen him, scorning
all control,
Winging his arrowy
flight, rapid and strong,
As if in search of his evanished
soul,
Lost in the gushing
ecstasy of song;
And as I wandered on and upward
gazed,
Half lost in admiration,
half in fear,
I left the brothers wondering
and amazed,
Thinking that
all the choir of heaven was near.
DENIS FLORENCE MACCARTHY.
* * * * *
FLIGHT OF THE BIRDS.
Meanwhile the tepid caves,
and fens, and shores,
Their brood as numerous hatch
from the egg that soon
Bursting with kindly rupture,
forth disclosed
Their callow young; but feathered
soon and fledge
They summed their pens; and,
soaring the air sublime,
With clang despised the ground,
under a cloud
In prospect: there the
eagle and the stork
On cliffs and cedar-tops their
eyries build;
Part loosely wing the region;
part, more wise,
In common ranged in figure,
wedge their way,
Intelligent of seasons, and
set forth
Their aery caravan, high over
seas
Flying, and over lands, with
mutual wing
Easing their flight; so steers
the prudent crane
Her annual voyage, borne on
winds; the air
Floats as they pass, fanned
with unnumbered plumes:
From branch to branch the
smaller birds with song
Solaced the woods, and spread
their painted wings
Till even; nor then the solemn
nightingale
Ceased warbling, but all night
tuned her soft lays:
Others, on silver lakes and
rivers, bathed
Their downy breasts; the swan
with arched neck
Between her white wings, mantling
proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet;
yet oft they quit
The dank, and, rising on stiff
pennons, tower
The mid aerial sky: others
on ground
Walked firm; the crested cock,
whose clarion sounds
The silent hours; and the
other, whose gay train
Adorns him, colored with the
florid hue
Of rainbows and starry eyes.
MILTON: Paradise Lost, book 7.
* * * * *
A CHILD’S WISH.
I would I were a note
From a sweet bird’s
throat!
I’d float on forever,
And melt away never!
I would I were a note
From a sweet bird’s
throat!
But I am what I am!
As content as a lamb.
No new state I’ll covet;
For how long should I love
it?
No, I’ll be what I am,—
As content as a lamb!
Poetry for Children.
* * * * *
THE HUMMING-BIRD.
Emerald-plumed, ruby-throated,
Flashing like a fair star
Where the humid, dew-becoated,
Sun-illumined blossoms are—
See the fleet humming-bird!
Hark to his humming, heard
Loud as the whirr of a fairy king’s
car!
Sightliest, sprightliest, lightest, and brightest
one,
Child of the summer sun,
Shining afar!
Brave little humming-bird!
Every eye blesses thee;
Sunlight caresses thee,
Forest and field are the fairer for thee.
Blooms, at thy coming stirred,
Bend on each brittle stem,
Nod to the little gem,
Bow to the humming-bird, frolic and free.
Now around the woodbine hovering,
Now the morning-glory covering,
Now the honeysuckle sipping,
Now the sweet clematis tipping,
Now into the bluebell dipping;
Hither, thither, flashing, bright’ning,
Like a streak of emerald lightning:
Round the box, with milk-white plox;
Round the fragrant four-o’-clocks;
O’er the crimson quamoclit,
Lightly dost thou wheel and flit;
Into each tubed throat
Dives little Ruby-throat.
Bright-glowing airy thing,
Light-going fairy thing,
Not the grand lyre-bird
Rivals thee, splendid one!—
Fairy-attended one,
Green-coated fire-bird!
Shiniest fragile one,
Tiniest agile one,
Falcon and eagle tremble before thee!
Dim is the regal peacock and lory,
And the pheasant, iridescent,
Pales before the gleam and glory
Of the jewel-change incessant,
When the sun is streaming o’er thee!
Hear thy soft humming,
Like a sylph’s drumming!
Californian.
* * * * *
A little brown mother-bird
sat in her nest,
With four sleepy birdlings
tucked under her breast,
And her querulous chirrup
fell ceaseless and low,
While the wind rocked the
lilac-tree nest to and fro.
“Lie still, little nestlings!
lie still while I tell,
For a lullaby story, a thing
that befell
Your plain little mother one
midsummer morn,
A month ago, birdies—before
you were born.
“I’d been dozing
and dreaming the long summer night,
Till the dawn flushed its
pink through the waning moonlight;
When—I wish you
could hear it once!—faintly there fell
All around me the silvery
sound of a bell.
“Then a chorus of bells!
So, with just half an eye,
I peeped from the nest, and
those lilies close by,
With threads of a cobweb,
were swung to and fro
By three little rollicking
midgets below.
“Then the air was astir
as with humming-birds’ wings!
And a cloud of the tiniest,
daintiest things
That ever one dreamed of,
came fluttering where
A cluster of trumpet-flowers
swayed in the air.
“As I sat all a-tremble,
my heart in my bill—
‘I will stay by the
nest,’ thought I, ‘happen what will;’
So I saw with these eyes by
that trumpet-vine fair,
A whole fairy bridal train
poised in the air.
“Such a bit of a bride!
Such a marvel of grace!
In a shimmer of rainbows and
gossamer lace;
No wonder the groom dropped
his diamond-dust ring,
Which a little elf-usher just
caught with his wing.
“Then into a trumpet-flower
glided the train,
And I thought (for a dimness
crept over my brain,
And I tucked my head under
my wing), ’Deary me!
What a sight for a plain little
mother like me!’”
MARY A. LATHBURY.
* * * * *
THE HEN AND THE HONEY-BEE.
A lazy hen, the story goes,
Loquacious, pert, and self-conceited,
Espied a bee upon a rose,
And thus the busy insect greeted:
“I’ve marked you
well for many a day,
In garden blooms and meadow
clover;
Now here, now there, in wanton
play,
From morn till night an idle
rover.
“While I discreetly
bide at home,
A faithful wife, the best
of mothers,
About the fields you idly
roam,
Without the least regard for
others.
“While I lay eggs and
hatch them out,
You seek the flowers most
sweet and fragrant;
And, sipping honey, stroll
about,
At best a good for nothing
vagrant.”
“Nay,” said the
bee, “you do me wrong:
I’m useful, too,—perhaps
you doubt it:
Because, though toiling all
day long,
I scorn to make a fuss about
it.
“Come now with me and
see my hive,
And note how folks may work
in quiet;
To useful arts much more alive
Than you with all your cackling
riot!”
JOHN G. SAXE.
* * * * *
SONG OF THE ROBIN.
When the willows gleam along
the brooks,
And the grass grows green
in sunny nooks,
In the sunshine and the rain
I hear the robin in the lane
Singing “Cheerily,
Cheer up, cheer
up;
Cheerily, cheerily,
Cheer
up.”
But the snow is still
Along the walls and on the
hill.
The days are cold, the nights
forlorn,
For one is here and one is
gone.
“Tut, tut.
Cheerily,
Cheer up, cheer
up;
Cheerily, cheerily,
Cheer
up.”
When spring hopes seem to
wane,
I hear the joyful strain—
A song at night, a song at
morn,
A lesson deep to me is borne,
Hearing, “Cheerily,
Cheer up, cheer
up;
Cheerily, cheerily,
Cheer
up.”
Masque of Poets.
* * * * *
SIR ROBIN.
Rollicking Robin is here again.
What does he care for the
April rain?
Care for it? Glad of
it. Doesn’t he know
That the April rain carries
off the snow,
And coaxes out leaves to shadow
his nest,
And washes his pretty red
Easter vest,
And makes the juice of the
cherry sweet,
For his hungry little robins
to eat?
“Ha! ha!
ha!” hear the jolly bird laugh.
“That isn’t
the best of the story, by half!”
Gentleman Robin, he walks
up and down,
Dressed in orange-tawney and
black and brown.
Though his eye is so proud
and his step so firm,
He can always stoop to pick
up a worm.
With a twist of his head,
and a strut and a hop,
To his Robin-wife, in the
peach-tree top,
Chirping her heart out, he
calls: “My dear
You don’t earn your
living! Come here! Come here!
Ha! ha! ha!
Life is lovely and sweet;
But what would
it be if we’d nothing to eat?”
Robin, Sir Robin, gay, red-vested
knight,
Now you have come to us, summer’s
in sight.
You never dream of the wonders
you bring,—
Visions that follow the flash
of your wing.
How all the beautiful By-and-by
Around you and after you seems
to fly!
Sing on, or eat on, as pleases
your mind!
Well have you earned every
morsel you find.
“Aye!
Ha! ha! ha!” whistles robin. “My dear,
Let us all take
our own choice of good cheer!”
LUCY LARCOM.
* * * * *
THE DEAR OLD ROBINS.
There’s a call upon the housetop,
an answer from the plain,
There’s a warble in the sunshine, a twitter
in the rain.
And through my heart, at sound of these,
There comes a nameless thrill,
As sweet as odor to the rose,
Or verdure to the hill;
And all the joyous mornings
My heart pours forth this strain:
“God bless the dear old robins
Who have come back again.”
For they bring a thought of summer,
of dreamy, precious days,
Of king-cups in the summer, making a golden haze;
A longing for the clover blooms,
For roses all aglow,
For fragrant blossoms where the bees
With droning murmurs go;
I dream of all the beauties
Of summer’s golden reign,
And sing: “God keep the robins
Who have come back again.”
ANON.
* * * * *
ROBINS QUIT THE NEST.
“Now, robins, my darlings, I think it is best,”
Said old mother bird, “that you all quit the nest.
You’ve grown very plump, and the nest is so small
That really there isn’t quite room for you all.
“The day is so fair
and the sun is so bright,
I think I can teach you to
fly before night:
And, when you have learned,
you can go where you please,
As high as the gable,—yes!
high as the trees.
“Come, Dickey, hop out,
and stand up here by me;
The rest of you stand on the
branch of the tree;
Don’t be frightened,
my dears; there’s no danger at all,
For mother will not let her
dear birdies fall.
“Now all spread your
wings. Ah! but that is too high;
Just see how I do it.
Now, all again try!
Ah! that is much better.
Now try it once more.
Bravo! much better than ever
before!
“Now flutter about, up and down, here and there:
My dears, you’ll be flying before you’re aware.
Now carefully drop from the tree to the ground;
There’s nothing to fear, for there’s grass all around.
“All starting but Robbie. ‘Afraid you shall fall?’
Ah! don’t be a craven, be bravest of all.
Now up and now down, now away to yon spire:
Go on: don’t be frightened: fly higher and higher.”
* * * * *
“I’ve waited one hour, right here on the tree:
Not one of my robins has come back to me.
How soon they forget all the trouble they bring!
Never mind: I’ll fly up on the tree-top and sing.”
MRS. C. F. BERRY.
* * * * *
LOST—THREE LITTLE ROBIN’S.
Oh, where is the boy, dressed in
jacket of gray,
Who climbed up a tree in the orchard to-day,
And carried my three little birdies away?
They hardly were dressed,
When he took from the nest
My three little robins, and left me bereft.
O wrens! have you seen, in your
travels to-day,
A very small boy, dressed in jacket of gray,
Who carried my three little robins away?
He had light-colored hair,
And his feet were both bare.
Ah me! he was cruel and mean, I declare.
O butterfly! stop just one moment,
I pray:
Have you seen a boy dressed in jacket of gray,
Who carried my three little birdies away?
He had pretty blue eyes,
And was small of his size.
Ah! he must be wicked, and not very wise.
O bees! with your bags of sweet
nectarine, stay;
Have you seen a boy dressed in jacket of gray,
And carrying three little birdies away?
Did he go through the town,
Or go sneaking aroun’
Through hedges and byways, with head hanging down?
O boy with blue eyes, dressed in
jacket of gray!
If you will bring back my three robins to-day,
With sweetest of music the gift I’ll repay;
I’ll sing all day long
My merriest song,
And I will forgive you this terrible wrong.
Bobolinks! did you see my birdies
and me—
How happy we were on the old apple-tree?
Until I was robbed of my young, as you see?
Oh, how can I sing,
Unless he will bring
My three robins back, to sleep under my wing?
MRS. C. F. BERRY: Songs for Our Darlings.
* * * * *
THE TERRIBLE SCARECROW AND ROBINS.
The farmer looked at his cherry-tree,
With thick buds clustered on every bough.
“I wish I could cheat the robins,”
said he.
“If somebody only would show me how!
“I’ll
make a terrible scarecrow grim,
With threatening
arms and with bristling head;
And up in the tree I’ll
fasten him,
To frighten them
half to death,” he said.
He fashioned a scarecrow all
tattered and torn,—
Oh, ’twas
a horrible thing to see!
And very early, one summer
morn,
He set it up in
his cherry-tree.
The blossoms were white as
the light sea-foam,
The beautiful
tree was a lovely sight;
But the scarecrow stood there
so much at home
That the birds
flew screaming away in fright.
But the robins, watching him
day after day,
With heads on
one side and eyes so bright,
Surveying the monster, began
to say,
“Why should
this fellow our prospects blight?
“He never moves round
for the roughest weather,
He’s a harmless,
comical, tough old fellow.
Let’s all go into the
tree together,
For he won’t
budge till the fruit is mellow!”
So up they flew; and the sauciest
pair
’Mid the
shady branches peered and perked,
Selected a spot with the utmost
care,
And all day merrily
sang and worked.
And where do you think they
built their nest?
In the scarecrow’s
pocket, if you please,
That, half-concealed on his
ragged breast,
Made a charming
covert of safety and ease!
By the time the cherries were
ruby-red,
A thriving family
hungry and brisk,
The whole long day on the
ripe food fed.
’Twas so
convenient! they saw no risk!
Until the children were ready
to fly,
All undisturbed
they lived in the tree;
For nobody thought to look
at the guy
For a robin’s
flourishing family!
CELIA THAXTER.
* * * * *
THE SONG SPARROW.
A little gray bird with a
speckled breast,
Under my window has built
his nest;
He sits on at twig and singeth
clear
A song that overfloweth with
cheer:
“Love!
Love! Love!
Let
us be happy, my love.
Sing
of cheer.”
Sweet and true are the notes
of his song;
Sweet—and yet always
full and strong,
True—and yet they
are never sad,
Serene with that peace that
maketh glad:
“Life!
Life! Life!
Oh,
what a blessing is life;
Life
is glad!”
Of all the birds, I love thee
best,
Dear Sparrow, singing of joy
and rest;
Rest—but life and
hope increase,
Joy—whose spring
is deepest peace:
“Joy!
Life! Love!
Oh,
to love and live is joy,—
Joy
and peace.”
MISS HARRIET E. PAINE: Bird Songs of New England.
* * * * *
THE FIELD SPARROW.
A bubble of music floats
The slope of the
hillside over—
A little wandering sparrow’s
notes—
On the bloom of
yarrow and clover.
And the smell of sweet-fern
and the bayberry-leaf
On his ripple
of song are stealing;
For he is a chartered thief,
The wealth of
the fields revealing.
One syllable, clear and soft
As a raindrop’s
silvery patter,
Or a tinkling fairy-bell,
heard aloft,
In the midst of
the merry chatter
Of robin and linnet and wren
and jay,
One syllable,
oft-repeated:
He has but a word to say,
And of that he
will not be cheated.
The singer I have not seen;
But the song I
arise and follow
The brown hills over, the
pastures green,
And into the sunlit
hollow.
With the joy of a lowly heart’s
content
I can feel my
glad eyes glisten,
Though he hides in his happy
tent,
While I stand
outside and listen.
This way would I also sing,
My dear little
hillside neighbor!
A tender carol of peace to
bring
To the sunburnt
fields of labor,
Is better than making a loud
ado.
Trill on, amid
clover and yarrow:
There’s a heart-beat
echoing you,
And blessing you,
blithe little sparrow!
LUCY LARCOM.
* * * * *
THE SPARROW.
Glad to see you, little bird;
’Twas your little chirp
I heard:
What did you intend to say?
“Give me something this
cold day?”
That I will, and plenty too;
All the crumbs I saved for
you.
Don’t be frightened:
here’s a treat.
I will wait and see you eat.
Shocking tales I hear of you;
Chirp, and tell me, are they
true?
Robbing all the summer long;
Don’t you think it very
wrong?
Thomas says you steal his
wheat;
John complains his plums you
eat,
Choose the ripest for your
share,
Never asking whose they are?
But I will not try to know
What you did so long ago:
There’s your breakfast;
eat away;
Come and see me every day.
Child’s Book of Poetry.
* * * * *
PICCOLA AND SPARROW.
Poor, sweet Piccola!
Did you hear
What happened to Piccola,
children dear?
’Tis seldom Fortune
such favor grants
As fell to this little maid
of France.
’Twas Christmas-time,
and her parents poor
Could hardly drive the wolf
from the door,
Striving with poverty’s
patient pain
Only to live till summer again.
No gifts for Piccola!
Sad were they
When dawned the morning of
Christmas Day;
Their little darling no joy
might stir,
St. Nicholas nothing would
bring to her!
But Piccola never doubted
at all
That something beautiful must
befall
Every child upon Christmas
Day,
And so she slept till the
dawn was gray.
And, full of faith, when at
last she woke,
She stole to her shoe as the
morning broke;
Such sounds of gladness tilled
all the air,
’Twas plain St. Nicholas
had been there!
In rushed Piccola sweet, half
wild:
Never was seen such a joyful
child.
“See what the good saint
brought!” she cried,
And mother and father must
peep inside.
Now such a story who ever
heard?
There was a little shivering
bird!
A sparrow, that in at the
window flew,
Had crept into Piccola’s
tiny shoe!
“How good Piccola must
have been!”
She cried as happy as any
queen,
While the starving sparrow
she fed and warmed,
And danced with rapture, she
was so charmed.
Children, this story I tell
to you,
Of Piccola sweet and her bird,
is true.
In the far-off land of France,
they say,
Still do they live to this
very day.
CELIA THAXTER.
* * * * *
LITTLE SPARROW.
Touch not the little sparrow
who doth build
His home so near us.
He doth follow us,
From spot to spot, amidst
the turbulent town,
And ne’er deserts us.
To all other birds
The woods suffice, the rivers,
the sweet fields,
And Nature in her aspect mute
and fair;
But he doth herd with men.
Blithe servant! live,
Feed, and grow cheerful! on
my window’s ledge
I’ll leave thee every
morning some fit food
In payment for thy service.
BARRY CORNWALL.
* * * * *
THE SWALLOW.
A
swallow in the spring
Came to our granary, and beneath
the eaves
Essayed to make a nest, and
there did bring
Wet
earth and straw and leaves.
Day
after day she toiled
With patient art; but, ere
her work was crowned,
Some sad mishap the tiny fabric
spoiled,
And
dashed it to the ground.
She
found the ruin wrought;
But, not cast down, forth
from the place she flew,
And, with her mate, fresh
earth and grasses brought,
And
built her nest anew.
But
scarcely had she placed
The last soft feather on its
ample floor,
When wicked hands, on chance,
again laid waste,
And
wrought the ruin o’er.
But
still her heart she kept,
And toiled again; and last
night, hearing calls,
I looked,—and,
lo! three little swallows slept
Within
the earth-made walls.
What
truth is here, O man!
Hath hope been smitten in
its early dawn?
Have clouds o’ercast
thy purpose, truth, or plan?
Have
faith, and struggle on!
R. S. ANDROS.
* * * * *
THE EMPEROR’S BIRD’S-NEST.
Once the Emperor Charles of
Spain,
With his swarthy,
grave commanders,
I forget in what campaign,
Long besieged, in mud and
rain,
Some old frontier
town of Flanders.
Up and down the dreary camp,
In great boots
of Spanish leather,
Striding with a measured tramp,
These Hidalgos, dull and damp,
Cursed the Frenchmen,
cursed the weather.
Thus as to and fro they went,
Over upland and
through hollow,
Giving their impatience vent,
Perched upon the Emperor’s
tent,
In her nest, they
spied a swallow.
Yes, it was a swallow’s
nest,
Built of clay
and hair of horses,
Mane, or tail, or dragoon’s
crest,
Found on hedge-rows east and
west,
After skirmish
of the forces.
Then an old Hidalgo said,
As he twirled
his gray mustachio,
“Sure this swallow overhead
Thinks the Emperor’s
tent a shed,
And the Emperor
but a Macho!”
Hearing his imperial name
Coupled with those
words of malice,
Half in anger, half in shame,
Forth the great campaigner
came
Slowly from his
canvas palace.
“Let no hand the bird
molest,”
Said he solemnly,
“nor hurt her!”
Adding then, by way of jest,
“Golondrina is my guest,
’Tis the
wife of some deserter!”
Swift as bowstring speed,
a shaft,
Through the camp
was spread the rumor,
And the soldiers, as they
quaffed
Flemish beer at dinner, laughed
At the Emperor’s
pleasant humor.
So unharmed and unafraid
Sat the swallow
still and brooded,
Till the constant cannonade
Through the walls a breach
had made,
And the siege
was thus concluded.
Then the army, elsewhere bent,
Struck its tents
as if disbanding,
Only not the Emperor’s
tent,
For he ordered, ere he went,
Very curtly, “Leave
it standing!”
So it stood there all alone,
Loosely flapping,
torn and tattered,
Till the brood was fledged
and flown,
Singing o’er those walls
of stone
Which the cannon-shot
had shattered.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
TO A SWALLOW BUILDING UNDER OUR EAVES.
Thou too hast travelled, little
fluttering thing—
Hast seen the world, and now
thy weary wing
Thou
too must rest.
But much, my little bird,
couldst thou but tell,
I’d give to know why
here thou lik’st so well
To
build thy nest.
For thou hast passed fair
places in thy flight;
A world lay all beneath thee
where to light;
And,
strange thy taste,
Of all the varied scenes that
met thine eye—
Of all the spots for building
’neath the sky—
To
choose this waste.
Did fortune try thee? was
thy little purse
Perchance run low, and thou,
afraid of worse,
Felt
here secure?
Ah no! thou need’st
not gold, thou happy one!
Thou know’st it not.
Of all God’s creatures, man
Alone
is poor.
What was it, then? some mystic
turn of thought,
Caught under German eaves,
and hither brought,
Marring
thine eye
For the world’s loveliness,
till thou art grown
A sober thing that dost but
mope and moan,
Not
knowing why?
Nay, if thy mind be sound,
I need not ask,
Since here I see thee working
at thy task
With
wing and beak.
A well-laid scheme doth that
small head contain,
At which thou work’st,
brave bird, with might and main,
Nor
more need’st seek.
In truth, I rather take it
thou hast got
By instinct wise much sense
about thy lot,
And
hast small care
Whether an Eden or a desert
be
Thy home, so thou remain’st
alive, and free
To
skim the air.
God speed thee, pretty bird;
may thy small nest
With little ones all in good
time be blest.
I
love thee much;
For well thou managest that
life of thine,
While I! oh, ask not what
I do with mine!
Would
I were such!
MRS. THOMAS CARLYLE.
* * * * *
THE SWALLOW, THE OWL, AND THE COCK’S SHRILL CLARION IN THE “ELEGY.”
The curfew tolls the knell
of parting day,
The lowing herd
winds slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods
his weary way,
And leaves the
world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape
on the sight,
And all the air
a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels
his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings
lull the distant folds.
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled
tower
The moping owl
does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near
her secret bower,
Molest her ancient,
solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms,
that yew-tree’s shade,
Where heaves the
turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever
laid,
The rude forefathers
of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing
morn,
The swallow twittering
from the straw-built shed,
The cock’s shrill clarion,
or the echoing horn,
No more shall
rouse them from their lowly bed.
GRAY.
* * * * *
THE STATUE OVER THE CATHEDRAL DOOR.
Forms of saints and kings
are standing
The cathedral
door above;
Yet I saw but one among them
Who hath soothed
my soul with love.
In his mantle,—wound
about him,
As their robes
the sowers wind,—
Bore he swallows and their
fledglings,
Flowers and weeds
of every kind.
And so stands he calm and
child-like,
High in wind and
tempest wild;
Oh, were I like him exalted,
I would be like
him, a child!
And my songs,—green
leaves and blossoms,—
To the doors of
heaven would bear,
Calling, even in storm and
tempest,
Round me still
these birds of air.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
THE BIRD LET LOOSE.
The bird let loose in eastern
skies,
When hastening
fondly home,
Ne’er stoops to earth
her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers
roam;
But high she shoots through
air and light,
Above all low
delay,
Where nothing earthly bounds
her flight,
Nor shadow dims
her way.
So grant me, God, from every
care
And stain of passion
free,
Aloft, through Virtue’s
purer air,
To hold my course
to thee!
No sin to cloud, no lure to
stay
My soul, as home
she springs;—
Thy sunshine on her joyful
way,
Thy freedom in
her wings!
T. MOORE.
* * * * *
THE BROWN THRUSH.
There’s a merry brown
thrush sitting up in the tree.
“He’s
singing to me! He’s singing to me!”
And what does he say, little
girl, little boy?
“Oh, the
world’s running over with joy!
Don’t
you hear? Don’t you see?
Hush!
Look! In my tree
I’m as happy as happy
can be!”
And the brown thrush keeps
singing, “A nest do you see,
And five eggs,
hid by me in the juniper-tree?
Don’t meddle! don’t
touch! little girl, little boy,
Or the world will
lose some of its joy!
Now
I’m glad! now I’m free!
And
always shall be,
If you never bring sorrow
to me.”
So the merry brown thrush
sings away in the tree,
To you and to
me, to you and to me;
And he sings all the day,
little girl, little boy,
“Oh, the
world’s running over with joy!
Don’t
you know? don’t you see?
But
long it won’t be,
Unless we are as good as can
be?”
LUCY LARCOM.
* * * * *
THE GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH.
In the hot midsummer noontide,
When all other
birds are sleeping,
Still one in the silent forest,
Like a sentry,
watch in keeping,
Singing
in the pine-tops spicy:
“I see,
I see, I SEE, I SEE.”
No one ever sees you,
atom!
You are hidden
too securely.
I have sought for hours to
find you.
It is but to tease
us, surely,
That
you sing in pine-tops spicy:
“I see,
I see, I SEE, I SEE.”
HARRIET E. PAINE: Bird Songs of New England.
* * * * *
THE THRUSH.
Beside the cottage
in which Ellen dwelt
Stands a tall ash-tree; to
whose topmost twig
A thrush resorts, and annually
chants,
At morn and evening from that
naked perch,
While all the undergrove is
thick with leaves,
A time-beguiling ditty, for
delight
Of his fond partner, silent
in the nest.
“Ah why,”
said Ellen, sighing to herself,
“Why do not words, and
kiss, and solemn pledge,
And nature that is kind in
woman’s breast,
And reason that in man is
wise and good,
And fear of Him who is a righteous
Judge,—
Why do not these prevail for
human life,
To keep two hearts together,
that began
Their spring-time with one
love, and that have need
Of mutual pity and forgiveness,
sweet
To grant, or be received;
while that poor bird,—
Oh come and hear him!
Thou who hast to me
Been faithless, hear him,
though a lowly creature,
One of God’s simple
children that yet know not
The universal Parent, how
he sings
As if he wished the firmament
of heaven
Should listen, and give back
to him the voice
Of his triumphant constancy
and love;
The proclamation that he makes,
how far
His darkness doth transcend
our fickle light!”
WORDSWORTH.
* * * * *
THE AZIOLA.
“Do you not hear the
Aziola cry?
Methinks she must
be nigh,”
Said Mary, as
we sate
In dusk, ere stars were lit
or candles brought,
And I, who thought,
This Aziola was some tedious
woman,
Asked, “Who
is Aziola?” How elate
I felt to know that it was
nothing human,
No mockery of
myself to fear or hate;
And
Mary saw my soul,
And laughed and said, “Disquiet
yourself not,
’Tis nothing
but a little downy owl.”
Sad Aziola! many an eventide
Thy music I had
heard
By wood and stream, meadow
and mountain-side,
And fields and
marshes wide,
Such as nor voice, nor lute,
nor wind, nor bird,
The soul ever
stirred;
Unlike and far sweeter than
them all.
Sad Aziola! from
that moment I
Loved thee and thy sad cry.
SHELLEY.
* * * * *
THE MARTEN.
This
guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet,
does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that
the heaven’s breath
Smells wooingly here.
No jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coigne of vantage,
but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed,
and procreant cradle.
Where they most breed and
haunt, I have observed
The air is delicate.
Macbeth, Act 1, Sc. 6.
* * * * *
JUDGE YOU AS YOU ARE?
How
would you be
If He which is the top of
Judgment should
But judge you as you are?
Oh, think on that,
And Mercy then will breathe
within your lips
Like man new made.
Measure for Measure, Act 2, Sc. 2.
* * * * *
ROBERT OF LINCOLN.
Merrily singing on briar and
weed,
Near to the nest
of his little dame,
Over the mountain-side or
mead,
Robert of Lincoln
is telling his name.
Bob-o’-link,
Bob-o’-link,
Spink,
spank, spink;
Snug and safe in that nest
of ours,
Hidden among the summer flowers;
Chee,
chee, chee.
Robert of Lincoln is gayly
drest,
Wearing a bright-black
wedding coat;
White are his shoulders, and
white his crest,
Hear him call
his merry note:
Bob-o’-link,
Bob-o’-link,
Spink,
spank, spink;
Look what a nice new coat
is mine,
Sure there was never a bird
so fine;
Chee,
chee, chee.
Six white eggs on a bed of
hay,
Freckled with
purple, a pretty sight!
There as the mother sits all
day,
Robert is singing
with all his might.
Nice good wife, that never
goes out,
Keeping house while I frolic
about.
Summer wanes,—the
children are grown;
Fun and frolic
no more he knows,
Robert of Lincoln’s
a humdrum crone:
Off he flies,
and we sing as he goes,—
“When you can pipe in
that merry old strain,
Robert of Lincoln come back
again.”
W. C. BRYANT.
* * * * *
MY DOVES.
My little doves have left
a nest
Upon an Indian
tree,
Whose leaves fantastic take
their rest
Or motion from
the sea;
For, ever there, the sea-winds
go
With sunlit paces to and fro.
The tropic flowers looked
up to it,
The tropic stars
looked down,
And there my little doves
did sit,
With feathers
softly brown,
And glittering eyes that showed
their right
To general Nature’s
deep delight.
My little doves were ta’en
away
From that glad
nest of theirs,
Across an ocean rolling gray,
And tempest clouded
airs.
My little doves,—who
lately knew
The sky and wave by warmth
and blue!
And now, within the city prison,
In mist and dullness
pent,
With sudden upward look they
listen
For sounds of
past content—
For lapse of water, swell
of breeze,
Or nut-fruit falling from
the trees.
Soft falls their chant as
on the nest
Beneath the sunny
zone;
For love that stirred it in
their breast
Has not aweary
grown,
And ’neath the city’s
shade can keep
The well of music clear and
deep.
So teach ye me the wisest
part,
My little doves!
to move
Along the city-ways with heart
Assured by holy
love,
And vocal with such songs
as own
A fountain to the world unknown.
MRS. BROWNING.
* * * * *
THE DOVES OF VENICE.
I stood in the quiet piazza,
Where come rude
noises never;
But the feet of children,
the wings of doves,
Are sounding on
forever.
And the cooing of their soft
voices,
And the touch
of the rippling sea,
And the ringing clock of the
armed knight,
Came through the
noon to me.
While their necks with rainbow
gleaming,
’Neath the
dark old arches shone,
And the campanile’s
shadow long,
Moved o’er
the pavement stone.
And from every “coigne
of vantage,”
Where lay some
hidden nest,
They fluttered, peeped, and
glistened forth,
Sacred, serene,
at rest.
I thought of thy saint, O
Venice!
Who said in his
tenderness,
“I love thy birds, my
Father dear,
Our lives they
cheer and bless!
“For love is not for
men only;
To the tiniest
little things
Give room to nestle in our
hearts;
Give freedom to
all wings!”
And the lovely, still piazza,
Seemed with his
presence blest,
And I, and the children, and
the doves,
Partakers of his
rest.
LAURA WINTHROP JOHNSON.
* * * * *
SONG OF THE DOVE.
There sitteth a dove so white
and fair,
All on the lily
spray,
And she listeneth how, to
Jesus Christ,
The little children
pray.
Lightly she spreads her friendly
wings,
And to heaven’s
gate hath sped,
And unto the Father in heaven
she bears
The prayers which
the children have said.
And back she comes from heaven’s
gate,
And brings—that
dove so mild—
From the Father in heaven,
who hears her speak,
A blessing for
every child.
Then, children, lift up a
pious prayer,
It hears whatever
you say,
That heavenly dove, so white
and fair,
That sits on the
lily spray.
FREDERIKA BREMER.
* * * * *
WHAT THE QUAIL SAYS.
Whistles the quail from the
covert,
Whistles with
all his might,
High and shrill, day after
day,
“Children, tell me,
what does he say?”
Ginx—(the
little one, bold and bright,
Sure that he understands aright)—
“He says,
‘Bob White! Bob White!’”
Calls the quail from the cornfield,
Thick with stubble
set;
Misty rain-clouds floating
by
Hide the blue of the August
sky.
“What does he call now,
loud and plain?”
Gold Locks—“That’s
a sign of rain!
He calls ‘More
wet! more wet!’”
Pipes the quail from the fence-top,
Perched there
full in sight,
Quaint and trim, with quick,
bright eye,
Almost too round and plump
to fly,
Whistling, calling, piping
clear,
“What do I think
he says? My dear,
He says ‘Do
right! do right!’”
MRS. CLARA DOTY BATES.
* * * * *
CHICK-A-DEE-DEE.
The snowflakes are drifting
round windows and door;
The chilly winds whistle “Remember
the poor;”
Remember the birds, too, out
on yonder tree;
I hear one just singing a
Chick-a-dee-dee.
Throw out a few crumbs! you’ve
enough and to spare;
They need through the winter
your kindness and care;
And they will repay you with
heartiest glee,
By constantly singing a Chick-a-dee-dee.
Each morning you’ll
see them go hopping around,
Though little they find on
the cold frozen ground;
Yet never disheartened! on
each bush and tree,
They merrily carol a Chick-a-dee-dee.
Oh! sweet little songster;
so fearless and bold!
Your little pink feet—do
they never feel cold?
Have you a warm shelter at
night for your bed,
Where under your wing you
can tuck your brown head?
Though cold grows the season
you seem not to care,
But cheerily warble though
frosty the air;
Though short are the days,
and the nights are so long,
And most of your playmates
are scattered and gone.
The snowflakes are drifting
round window and door,
And chilly winds whistle behind
and before,
Yet never discouraged, on
each bush and tree,
You’ll hear the sweet
carol of Chick-a-dee-dee.
MRS. C. F. BERRY.
* * * * *
THE LINNET.
What is the happiest morning
song?
The Linnet’s.
He warbles, blithe and free,
In the sunlit
top of the old elm-tree,
Joyous and fresh, and hopeful
and strong.
The trees are not high enough,
little bird;
You mount and
wheel, and eddy and soar,
And with every
turn yet more and more
Your wonderful, ravishing
music is heard.
A crimson speck in the bright
blue sky,
Do you search
for the secret of heaven’s deep glow?
Is not heaven
within, when you carol so?
Then why, dear bird, must
you soar so high?
He answers nothing, but soars
and sings;
He heeds no doubtful
question like this.
He only bubbles
over with bliss,
And sings, and mounts on winning
wings.
HARRIET E. PAINE: Bird Songs of New England.
* * * * *
HEAR THE WOODLAND LINNET.
Books! ’tis a dull and
endless strife:
Come, hear the
woodland Linnet,
How sweet his music! on my
life,
There’s
more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the Throstle
sings!
He, too, is no
mean preacher:
Come forth into the light
of things,
Let Nature be
your teacher.
Sweet is the love which Nature
brings:
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms
of things:
We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art:
Close up these
barren leaves:
Come forth, and bring with
you a heart
That watches and
receives.
W. WORDSWORTH.
* * * * *
THE PARROT.
A TRUE STORY.
The deep affections of the
breast
That heaven to
living things imparts,
Are not exclusively possessed
By
human hearts.
A Parrot, from the Spanish
main,
Full young and
early caged came o’er,
With bright wings, to the
bleak domain
Of
Mulla’s shore.
To spicy groves where he had
won
His plumage of
resplendent hue,
His native fruits, and skies,
and sun,
He
bade adieu.
For these he changed the smoke
of turf,
A heathery land
and misty sky,
And turned on rocks and raging
surf
His
golden eye.
But petted in our climate
cold,
He lived and chattered
many a day:
Until with age, from green
and gold
His
wings grew gray.
At last when blind, and seeming
dumb,
He scolded, laughed,
and spoke no more,
A Spanish stranger chanced
to come
To
Mulla’s shore;
He hailed the bird in Spanish
speech,
The bird in Spanish
speech replied;
Flapped round the cage with
joyous screech,
Dropt
down, and died.
T. CAMPBELL.
* * * * *
THE COMMON QUESTION.
Behind us at our evening meal
The gray bird
ate his fill,
Swung downward by a single
claw,
And wiped his
hooked bill.
He shook his wings and crimson
tail,
And set his head
aslant,
And, in his sharp, impatient
way,
Asked, “What
does Charlie want?”
“Fie, silly bird!”
I answered, “tuck
Your head beneath
your wing,
And go to sleep;”—but
o’er and o’er
He asked the selfsame
thing.
Then, smiling, to myself I
said:—How
like are men and
birds!
We all are saying what he
says,
In actions or
in words.
The boy with whip and top
and drum,
The girl with
hoop and doll,
And men with lands and houses,
ask
The question of
Poor Poll.
However full, with something
more
We fain the bag
would cram;
We sigh above our crowded
nets
For fish that
never swam.
No bounty of indulgent Heaven
The vague desire
can stay;
Self-love is still a Tartar
mill
For grinding prayers
alway.
The dear God hears and pities
all;
He knoweth all
our wants;
And what we blindly ask of
Him
His love withholds
or grants.
And so I sometimes think our
prayers
Might well be
merged in one;
And nest and perch and hearth
and church
Repeat, “Thy
will be done.”
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
* * * * *
WHY NOT DO IT, SIR, TO-DAY?
“Why,
so I will, you noisy bird,
This
very day I’ll advertise you,
Perhaps
some busy ones may prize you.
A fine-tongued
parrot as was ever heard,
I’ll word it thus—set
forth all charms about you,
And say no family should be
without you.”
Thus far a gentleman
addressed a bird;
Then to his friend: “An
old procrastinator,
Sir, I am: do you wonder
that I hate her?
Though
she but seven words can say,
Twenty
and twenty times a day
She interferes with all my
dreams,
My projects, plans, and airy
schemes,
Mocking my foible to my sorrow:
I’ll advertise this
bird to-morrow.”
To this the bird seven words
did say:
“Why not do it, sir,
to-day?”
CHARLES AND MARY LAMB.
* * * * *
TO A REDBREAST.
Little bird, with bosom red,
Welcome to my humble shed!
Courtly domes of high degree
Have no room for thee and
me;
Pride and pleasure’s
fickle throng
Nothing mind an idle song.
Daily near my
table steal,
While I pick my scanty meal:—
Doubt not, little though there
be,
But I’ll cast a crumb
to thee;
Well rewarded, if I spy
Pleasure in thy glancing eye;
See thee, when thou’st
eat thy fill,
Plume thy breast and wipe
thy bill.
Come, my feathered
friend, again?
Well thou know’st the
broken pane:—
Ask of me thy daily store.
J. LANGHORNE.
* * * * *
PHOEBE.
Ere pales in heaven the morning
star,
A bird, the loneliest of its
kind,
Hears dawn’s faint footfall
from afar,
While all its mates are dumb
and blind.
It is a wee, sad-colored thing,
As shy and secret as a maid,
That, ere in choir the robins
ring,
Pipes its own name like one
afraid.
It seems pain-prompted to
repeat
The story of some ancient
ill,
But Phoebe! Phoebe! sadly
sweet,
Is all it says, and then is
still.
It calls and listens:
earth and sky,
Hushed by the pathos of its
fate,
Listen: no whisper of
reply
Comes from the doom-dissevered
mate.
Phoebe! it calls and calls again,
And Ovid, could he but have heard,
Had hung a legendary pain
About the memory of the bird;
A pain articulate so long
In penance of some mouldered crime,
Whose ghost still flies the furies’ thong
Down the waste solitudes of time;
* * * * *
Phoebe! is all it has to say
In plaintive cadence o’er and o’er,
Like children that have lost their way
And know their names, but nothing more.
Is it in type, since Nature’s lyre
Vibrates to every note in man,
Of that insatiable desire
Meant to be so, since life began?
I, in strange lands at gray
of dawn,
Wakeful, have heard that fruitless
plaint
Through memory’s chambers
deep withdrawn
Renew its iterations faint.
So nigh! yet from remotest
years
It seems to draw its magic,
rife
With longings unappeased,
and tears
Drawn from the very source
of life.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: in Scribner.
* * * * *
TO THE STORK.
Welcome, O Stork! that dost
wing
Thy flight from
the far-away!
Thou hast brought us the signs
of Spring,
Thou hast made
our sad hearts gay.
Descend, O Stork! descend
Upon our roof
to rest;
In our ash-tree, O my friend,
My darling, make
thy nest.
To thee, O Stork, I complain,
O Stork, to thee
I impart
The thousand sorrows, the
pain
And aching of
my heart.
When thou away didst go,
Away from this
tree of ours,
The withering winds did blow,
And dried up all
the flowers.
Dark grew the brilliant sky,
Cloudy and dark
and drear;
They were breaking the snow
on high,
And winter was
drawing near.
From Varaca’s rocky
wall,
From the rock
of Varaca unrolled,
The snow came and covered
all,
And the green
meadow was cold.
O Stork, our garden with snow
Was hidden away
and lost,
And the rose-trees that in
it grow
Were withered
by snow and frost.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
THE STORKS OF DELFT.
The tradition of the storks at Delft (Holland), is, however, still alive, and no traveller writes about the city without remembering them.
The fact occurred at the time of the great fire which ruined almost all the city. There were in Delft innumerable storks’ nests. It must be understood that the stork is the favorite bird of Holland; the bird of good fortune, like the swallow; welcome to all, because it makes war upon toads and frogs; that the peasants plant poles with circular floor of wood on top to attract them to make their nests, and that in some towns they may be seen walking in the streets. At Delft they were in great numbers. When the fire broke out, which was on the 3d May, the young storks were fledged, but could not yet fly. Seeing the fire approach, the parent storks attempted to carry their young out of danger; but they were too heavy; and, after having tried all sorts of desperate efforts, the poor birds were forced to give it up.
They might have saved themselves and have abandoned the little ones to their fate, as human creatures often do under similar circumstances. But they stayed upon their nests, gathered their little ones about them, covered them with their wings, as if to retard, as long as possible, the fatal moment, and so awaited death, in that loving and noble attitude.
And who shall say if, in the horrible dismay and flight from the flames, that example of self-sacrifice, that voluntary maternal martyrdom, may not have given strength and courage to some weak soul who was about to abandon those who had need of him.
DE AMICIS’ Holland.
* * * * *
THE PHEASANT.
See! from the brake the whirring
pheasant springs
And mounts exulting on triumphant
wings.
Short is his joy; he feels
the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting
beats the ground.
Ah! what avail his glossy,
varying dyes,
His purple crest, and scarlet-circled
eyes,
The vivid green his shining
plumes unfold,
His painted wings, and breast
that flames with gold!
POPE.
* * * * *
THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD.
Silent are all the sounds
of day;
Nothing I hear
but the chirp of crickets,
And the cry of the herons
winging their way
O’er the
poet’s house in the Elmwood thickets.
Call to him, herons, as slowly
you pass
To your roosts
in the haunts of the exiled thrushes,
Sing him the song of the green
morass,
And the tides
that water the reeds and rushes.
Sing him the mystical song
of the Hern,
And the secret
that baffles our utmost seeking;
For only a sound of lament
we discern,
And cannot interpret
the words you are speaking.
Sing of the air, and the wild
delight
Of wings that
uplift and winds that uphold you,
The joy of freedom, the rapture
of flight
Through the drift
of the floating mists that enfold you;
Of the landscape lying so
far below,
With its towns
and rivers and desert places;
And the splendor of light
above, and the glow
Of the limitless,
blue, ethereal spaces.
Ask him if songs of the Troubadours,
Or of Minnesingers
in old black-letter,
Sound in his ears more sweet
than yours,
And if yours are
not sweeter and wilder and better.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID.
Vogelweid the Minnesinger,
When he left this
world of ours,
Laid his body in the cloister,
Under Wuertzburg’s
minster towers.
And he gave the monks his
treasures,
Gave them all
with this behest:
They should feed the birds
at noontide
Daily on his place
of rest;
Saying, “From these
wandering minstrels
I have learned
the art of song;
Let me now repay the lessons
They have taught
so well and long.”
Thus the bard of love departed;
And, fulfilling
his desire,
On his tomb the birds were
feasted
By the children
of the choir.
Day by day, o’er tower
and turret,
In foul weather
and in fair,
Day by day, in vaster numbers,
Flocked the poets
of the air.
On the tree whose heavy branches
Overshadowed all
the place,
On the pavement, on the tombstone,
On the poet’s
sculptured face,
On the crossbars of each window,
On the lintel
of each door,
They renewed the War of Wartburg,
Which the bard
had fought before.
There they sang their merry
carols,
Sang their lauds
on every side;
And the name their voices
uttered
Was the name of
Vogelweid.
Till at length the portly
abbot
Murmured, “Why
this waste of food?
Be it changed to loaves henceforward
For our fasting
brotherhood.”
Then in vain o’er tower
and turret,
From the walls
and woodland nests,
When the minster bells rang
noontide,
Gathered the unwelcome
guests.
Then in vain, with cries discordant,
Clamorous round
the Gothic spire,
Screamed the feathered Minnesingers
For the children
of the choir.
Time has long effaced the
inscriptions
On the cloister’s
funeral stones,
And tradition only tells us
Where repose the
poet’s bones.
But around the vast cathedral,
By sweet echoes
multiplied,
Still the birds repeat the
legend,
And the name of
Vogelweid.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
THE LEGEND OF THE CROSS-BILL.
On the cross the dying Saviour
Heavenward lifts
his eyelids calm,
Feels, but scarcely feels,
a trembling
In his pierced
and bleeding palm.
And by all the world forsaken,
Sees he how with
zealous care
At the ruthless nail of iron
A little bird
is striving there.
Stained with blood, and never
tiring,
With its beak
it does not cease,
From the cross ’twould
free the Saviour,
Its Creator’s
son release.
And the Saviour speaks in
mildness:
“Blest be
thou of all the good!
Bear, as token of this moment,
Marks of blood
and holy rood!”
And that bird is called the
cross-bill;
Covered all with
blood so clear,
In the groves of pine it singeth
Songs, like legends,
strange to hear.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
PRETTY BIRDS.
Among the orchards and the
groves,
While summer days are fair
and long,
You brighten every tree and
bush,
You fill the air with loving
song.
NURSERY.
* * * * *
THE LITTLE BIRD SITS.
And what is so rare as a day
in June?
Then, if ever,
come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth
if it be in tune,
And over it softly
her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether
we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see
it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of
might,
An instinct within
it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above
it for light,
Climbs to a soul
in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well
be seen
Thrilling back
over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows
green,
The buttercup
catches the sun in its chalice,
And there’s never a
leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy
creature’s palace:
The little bird sits at his
door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom
among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being
o’errun
With the deluge
of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath
her wings,
And the heart in her dumb
breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world,
and she to her nest,—
In the nice ear of Nature
which song is the best?
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
* * * * *
THE LIVING SWAN.
Then some one
came who said, “My Prince had shot
A swan, which fell among the
roses here,
He bids me pray you send it.
Will you send?”
“Nay,” quoth Siddartha,
“if the bird were dead
To send it to the slayer might
be well,
But the swan lives; my cousin
hath but killed
The god-like speed which throbbed
in this white wing.”
And Devadatta answered, “The
wild thing,
Living or dead, is his who
fetched it down;
’Twas no man’s
in the clouds, but fall’n ’tis mine,
Give me my prize, fair Cousin.”
Then our Lord
Laid the swan’s neck
beside his own smooth cheek
And gravely spake, “Say
no! the bird is mine,
The first of myriad things
which shall be mine
By right of mercy and love’s
lordliness.
For now I know, by what within
me stirs,
That I shall teach compassion
unto men
And be a speechless world’s
interpreter,
Abating this accursed flood
of woe,
Not man’s alone; but,
if the Prince disputes,
Let him submit this matter
to the wise
And we will wait their word.”
So was it done;
In full divan the business
had debate,
And many thought this thing
and many that,
Till there arose an unknown
priest who said,
“If life be aught, the
savior of a life
Owns more the living thing
than he can own
Who sought to slay—the
slayer spoils and wastes,
The cherisher sustains, give
him the bird:”
Which judgment all found just.
Light of Asia.
* * * * *
THE STORMY PETREL.
A thousand miles from land
are we,
Tossing about on the roaring
sea—
From billow to bounding billow
cast,
Like fleecy snow on the stormy
blast.
The sails are scattered abroad
like weeds;
The strong masts shake like
quivering reeds;
The mighty cables and iron
chains;
The hull, which all earthly
strength disdains,—
They strain and they crack;
and hearts like stone
Their natural, hard, proud
strength disown.
Up and down!—up
and down!
From the base of the wave
to the billow’s crown,
And amid the flashing and
feathery foam,
The stormy petrel finds a
home.
A home, if such a place may
be
For her who lives on the wide,
wide sea,
On the craggy ice, in the
frozen air,
And only seeketh her rocky
lair
To warm her young, and to
teach them to spring
At once o’er the waves
on their stormy wing!
O’er the deep!—o’er
the deep!
Where the whale, and the shark,
and the sword-fish sleep—
Outflying the blast and the
driving rain,
The petrel telleth her tale—in
vain;
For the mariner curseth the
warning bird
Which bringeth him news of
the storm unheard!
Ah! thus does the prophet
of good or ill
Meet hate from the creatures
he serveth still;
Yet he ne’er falters—so,
petrel, spring
Once more o’er the waves
on thy stormy wing!
BARRY CORNWALL.
* * * * *
TO THE CUCKOO.
Hail, beauteous stranger of
the grove!
Thou messenger
of Spring!
Now heaven repairs thy rural
seat,
And woods thy
welcome sing.
What time the pea puts on
the bloom,
Thou fliest thy
vocal vale,
An annual guest in other lands
Another Spring
to hail.
Delightful visitant! with
thee
I hail the time
of flowers,
And hear the sound of music
sweet
From birds among
the bowers.
Sweet bird! thy bower is ever
green,
Thy sky is ever
clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy
song,
No Winter in thy
year!
Oh, could I fly, I’d
fly with thee!
We’d make,
with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o’er
the globe,
Attendants on
the Spring.
JOHN LOGAN.
* * * * *
BIRDS AT DAWN.
The beautiful day is breaking,
The first faint
line of light
Parts the shadows
of the night,
And a thousand birds are waking.
I hear the Hairbird’s
slender trill,—
So fine and perfect it doth
fill
The whole sweet silence with
its thrill.
A rosy flush creeps up the
sky,
The birds begin their symphony.
I hear the clear, triumphant
voice
Of the Robin, bidding the
world rejoice.
The Vireos catch the theme
of the song,
And the Baltimore Oriole bears
it along,
While from Sparrow, and Thrush,
and Wood Pewee,
And, deep in the pine-trees,
the Chickadee,
There’s an undercurrent
of harmony.
The Linnet sings like a magic flute,
The Lark and Bluebird touch the lute,
The Starling pipes to the shining morn
With the vibrant note of the joyous horn,
The splendid Jay
Is the trumpeter gay,
The Kingfisher, sounding his rattle,—he
May the player on the cymbals be,
The Cock, saluting the sun’s first ray,
Is the bugler sounding a reveille.
“Caw! Caw!” cries the crow, and
his grating tone
Completes the chord like a deep trombone.
But, above them all, the Robin
sings;
His song is the very soul of day,
And all black shadows troop away
While, pure and fresh, his music rings:
“Light is here!
Never fear!
Day is near!
My dear!”
MISS HARRIET E. PAINE.
* * * * *
EVENING SONGS.
Gliding at sunset in my boat,
I hear the Veery’s bubbling note;
And a Robin, flying late,
Sounds the home-call to his mate.
Then the sun sinks low
In the western glow,
And the birds go to rest. But hush!
Far off sings the sweet Wood-Thrush.
He sings—and waits—and sings
again,
The liquid notes of that holy strain.
He ceases, and all the world
is still:
And then the moon climbs over
the hill,
And I hear the cry of the
Whip-poor-will.
Tranquil, I lay me down to
sleep,
While the summer stars a vigil
keep;
And I hear from the Sparrow
a gentle trill,
Which means,
“Good Night;
Peace and Good Will.”
MISS HARRIET E. PAINE.
* * * * *
LITTLE BROWN BIRD.
A little brown bird sat on
a stone;
The sun shone thereon, but
he was alone.
“O pretty bird, do you
not weary
Of this gay summer so long
and dreary?”
The little bird opened his
black bright eyes,
And looked at me with great
surprise;
Then his joyous song broke
forth, to say,
“Weary of what?
I can sing all day.”
Posies for Children.
* * * * *
LIFE’S SIGN.
Wouldst thou the life of souls
discern,
Not human wisdom
nor divine
Helps thee by aught beside
to learn,
Love is
life’s only sign.
KEBLE.
* * * * *
A BIRD’S MINISTRY.
From his home in an Eastern
bungalow,
In sight of the everlasting
snow
Of the grand Himalayas, row
on row,
Thus wrote my friend:—
“I
had travelled far
From the Afghan towers of
Candahar,
Through the sand-white plains
of Sinde-Sagar;
“And once, when the
daily march was o’er,
As tired I sat in my tented
door,
Hope failed me, as never it
failed before.
“In swarming city, at
wayside fane,
By the Indus’ bank,
on the scorching plain,
I had taught,—and
my teaching all seemed vain.
“No glimmer of light
(I sighed) appears;
The Moslem’s Fate and
the Buddhist’s fears
Have gloomed their worship
this thousand years.
“’For Christ and
his truth I stand alone
In the midst of millions:
a sand-grain blown
Against your temple of ancient
stone
“‘As soon may
level it!’” Faith forsook
My soul, as I turned on the
pile to look;
Then, rising, my saddened
way I took
To its lofty roof, for the
cooler air:
I gazed, and marvelled;—how
crumbled were
The walls I had deemed so
firm and fair!
For, wedged in a rift of the
massive stone,
Most plainly rent by its roots
alone,
A beautiful peepul-tree had
grown:
Whose gradual stress would
still expand
The crevice, and topple upon
the sand
The temple, while o’er
its wreck should stand
The tree in its living verdure!—Who
Could compass the thought?—The
bird that flew
Hitherward, dropping a seed
that grew,
Did more to shiver this ancient
wall
Than earthquake,—war,—simoon,—or
all
The centuries, in their lapse
and fall!
Then I knelt by the riven
granite there,
And my soul shook off its
weight of care,
As my voice rose clear on
the tropic air:—
“The living seeds I
have dropped remain
In the cleft: Lord, quicken
with dew and rain,
Then temple and mosque
shall be rent in twain!”
MARGARET J. PRESTON.
* * * * *
OF BIRDS.
See, Christ makes the birds our masters and teachers! so that a feeble sparrow, to our great and perpetual shame, stands in the gospel as a doctor and preacher to the wisest of men.
MARTIN LUTHER.
* * * * *
BIRDS IN SPRING.
Listen! What a sudden
rustle
Fills
the air!
All the birds are in a bustle
Everywhere.
Such a ceaseless croon and
twitter
Overhead!
Such a flash of wings that
glitter
Wide
outspread!
Far away I hear a drumming,—
Tap,
tap, tap!
Can the woodpecker be coming
After
sap?
Butterflies are hovering over
(Swarms
on swarms)
Yonder meadow-patch of clover,
Like
snow-storms.
Through the vibrant air a-tingle
Buzzingly,
Throbs and o’er me sails
a single
Bumble-bee.
Lissom swayings make the willows
MARGARET J. PRESTON.
* * * * *
THE CANARY IN HIS CAGE.
Sing away, ay, sing away,
Merry little bird,
Always gayest of the gay,
Though a woodland roundelay
You ne’er
sung nor heard;
Though your life from youth
to age
Passes in a narrow cage.
Near the window wild birds
fly,
Trees are waving
round;
Fair things everywhere you
spy
Through the glass pane’s
mystery,
Your small life’s
small bound:
Nothing hinders your desire
But a little gilded wire.
Like a human soul you seem
Shut in golden
bars:
Placed amid earth’s
sunshine stream,
Singing to the morning beam,
Dreaming ’neath
the stars;
Seeing all life’s pleasures
clear,—
But they never can come near.
Never! Sing, bird-poet
mine,
As most poets
do;—
Guessing by an instinct fine
At some happiness divine
Which they never
knew.
Lonely in a prison bright
Hymning for the world’s
delight.
Yet, my birdie, you’re
content
In your tiny cage:
Not a carol thence is sent
But for happiness is meant—
Wisdom pure as
sage:
Teaching the pure poet’s
part
Is to sing with merry heart.
So lie down, thou peevish
pen;
Eyes, shake off
all tears;
And, my wee bird, sing again:
I’ll translate your
song to men
In these future
years.
“Howsoe’er thy
lot’s assigned,
Meet it with a cheerful mind.”
MRS. DINAH MARIA (MULOCK) CRAIK.
* * * * *
WHO STOLE THE BIRD’S-NEST.
Te-whit! te-whit! te-whee!
Will you listen to me?
Who stole four eggs I laid,
And the nice nest I made?
Not I, said the cow, moo-oo!
Such a thing I’d never
do.
I gave for you a wisp of hay,
And did not take your nest
away.
Not I, said the cow, moo-oo!
Such a thing I’d never
do.
Not I, said the dog, bow-wow!
I wouldn’t be so mean
as that, now,
I gave hairs the nest to make,
But the nest I did not take.
Not I, said the dog, bow-wow!
I wouldn’t be so mean
as that, now.
Not I, said the sheep, Oh
no!
I wouldn’t treat a poor
bird so!
I gave the wool the nest to
line,
But the nest was none of mine.
Baa! baa! said the sheep;
Oh no,
I wouldn’t treat a poor
bird so.
I would not rob a bird,
Said little Mary
Green;
I think I never heard
Of any thing so
mean.
’Tis very cruel, too,
Said little Alice
Neal;
I wonder if she knew
How sad the bird
would feel?
A little boy hung down his
head,
And went and hid behind the
bed,
For he stole that pretty nest
From poor little yellow-breast;
And he felt so full of shame
He didn’t like to tell
his name.
Hymns for Mother and Children.
* * * * *
WHO STOLE THE EGGS?
“Oh, what is the matter
with Robin,
That makes her
cry round here all day?
I think she must be in great
trouble,”
Said Swallow to
little Blue Jay.
“I know why the Robin
is crying,”
Said Wren, with
a sob in her breast;
“A naughty bold robber
has stolen
Three little blue
eggs from her nest.
“He carried them home
in his pocket;
I saw him, from
up in this tree:
Ah me! how my little heart
fluttered
For fear he would
come and rob me!”
“Oh! what little boy
was so wicked?”
Said Swallow,
beginning to cry;
“I wouldn’t be
guilty of robbing
A dear little
bird’s-nest—not I.”
“Nor I!” said
the birds in a chorus:
“A cruel
and mischievous boy!
I pity his father and mother;
He surely can’t
give them much joy.
“I guess he forgot what
a pleasure
The dear little
robins all bring,
In early spring-time and in
summer,
By the beautiful
songs that they sing.
“I guess he forgot that
the rule is,
To do as you’d
be always done by;
I guess he forgot that from
heaven
There looks down
an All-seeing Eye.”
MRS. C. F. BERRY.
* * * * *
WHAT THE BIRDS SAY.
When they chatter together,—the
robins and sparrows,
Bluebirds and
bobolinks,—all the day long;
What do they talk of?
The sky and the sunshine,
The state of the
weather, the last pretty song;
Of love and of friendship,
and all the sweet trifles
That go to make
bird-life so careless and free;
The number of grubs in the
apple-tree yonder,
The promise of
fruit in the big cherry-tree;
Of matches in prospect;—how
Robin and Jenny
Are planning together
to build them a nest;
How Bobolink left Mrs. Bobolink
moping
At home, and went
off on a lark with the rest.
Such mild little slanders!
such innocent gossip!
Such gay little
coquetries, pretty and bright!
Such happy love makings! such
talks in the orchard!
Such chatterings
at daybreak! such whisperings at night!
O birds in the tree-tops!
O robins and sparrows!
O bluebirds and
bobolinks! what would be May
Without your glad presence,—the
songs that you sing us,
And all the sweet
nothings we fancy you say?
CAROLINE A. MASON.
* * * * *
Sweet Mercy is Nobility’s true badge.
Titus Andronicus, Act 1, Sc. 2.
* * * * *
THE WREN’S NEST.
I
took the wren’s nest:
Heaven
forgive me!
Its merry architects so small
Had scarcely finished their
wee hall
That, empty still, and neat
and fair,
Hung idly in the summer air.
The mossy walls, the dainty
door,
Where Love should enter and
explore,
And Love sit carolling outside,
And Love within chirp multiplied;—
I
took the wren’s nest;
Heaven
forgive me!
How many hours of happy pains
Through early frosts and April
rains,
How many songs at eve and
morn
O’er springing grass
and greening corn,
What labors hard through sun
and shade
Before the pretty house was
made!
One little minute, only one,
And she’ll fly back,
and find it—gone!
I
took the wren’s nest:
Bird,
forgive me!
Thou and thy mate, sans let,
sans fear,
Ye have before you all the
year,
And every wood holds nooks
for you,
In which to sing and build
and woo;
One piteous cry of birdish
pain—
And ye’ll begin your
life again,
Forgetting quite the lost,
lost home
In many a busy home to come.
But I? your wee house keep
I must,
Until it crumble into dust.
I
took the wren’s nest:
God
forgive me!
DINAH MARIA (MULOCK) CRAIK.
* * * * *
ON ANOTHER’S SORROW.
Can I see another’s
woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another’s
grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow’s
share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?
Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant
fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
And can He who smiles on all Hear the wren with sorrows small, Hear the small bird’s grief and care, Hear the woes that infants bear—
And not sit beside the nest,
Pouring pity in their breast,
And not sit in the cradle
near,
Weeping tear on infant’s
tear?
And not sit both night and
day,
Wiping all our tears away?
Oh no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
WILLIAM BLAKE.
* * * * *
THE SHEPHERD’S HOME.
My banks they are furnished
with bees,
Whose murmur invites
one to sleep;
My grottoes are shaded with
trees,
And my hills are
white over with sheep.
I seldom have met with a loss,
Such health do
my fountains bestow;
My fountains all bordered
with moss,
Where the harebells
and violets blow.
Not a pine in the grove is
there seen,
But with tendrils
of woodbine is bound:
Not a beech’s more beautiful
green,
But a sweet-brier
entwines it around.
Not my fields in the prime
of the year,
More charms than
my cattle unfold;
Not a brook that is limpid
and clear,
But it glitters
with fishes of gold.
I found out a gift for my
fair,
I have found where
the wood-pigeons breed;
But let me such plunder forbear,
She will say ’twas
a barbarous deed;
For he ne’er could be
true, she averred,
Who would rob
a poor bird of its young;
And I loved her the more when
I heard
Such tenderness
fall from her tongue.
SHENSTONE (d. 1673).
* * * * *
THE WOOD-PIGEON’S HOME.
Come with me, if but in fancy,
To the wood, the
green soft shade:
’Tis a haven, pure and
lovely,
For the good of
mankind made.
Listen! you can hear the cooing,
Soft and soothing,
gentle sounds,
Of the pigeons, as they nestle
In the branches
all around.
In the city and the open,
Man has built
or tilled the land;
But the home of the wood pigeon
Bears the touch
of God’s own hand.
ANON.
* * * * *
THE SHAG.
“What is that great
bird, sister, tell me,
Perched high on
the top of the crag?”
“’Tis the cormorant,
dear little brother;
The fishermen
call it the shag.”
“But what does it there,
sister, tell me,
Sitting lonely
against the black sky?”
“It has settled to rest,
little brother;
It hears the wild
gale wailing high.”
“But I am afraid of
it, sister,
For over the sea
and the land
It gazes, so black and so
silent!”
“Little
brother, hold fast to my hand.”
“Oh, what was that,
sister? The thunder?
Did the shag bring
the storm and the cloud,
The wind and the rain and
the lightning?”
“Little
brother, the thunder roars loud.
“Run fast, for the rain
sweeps the ocean;
Look! over the
lighthouse it streams;
And the lightning leaps red,
and above us
The gulls fill
the air with their screams.”
O’er the beach, o’er
the rocks, running swiftly,
The little white
cottage they gain;
And safely they watch from
the window
The dance and
the rush of the rain.
But the shag kept his place
on the headland,
And, when the
brief storm had gone by,
He shook his loose plumes,
and they saw him
Rise splendid
and strong in the sky.
Clinging fast to the gown
of his sister,
The little boy
laughed as he flew:
“He is gone with the
wind and lightning!
And—I
am not frightened,—are you?”
CELIA THAXTER.
* * * * *
THE LOST BIRD.
My
bird has flown away,
Far out of sight has flown,
I know not where.
Look
in your lawn, I pray,
Ye
maidens kind and fair,
And see if my beloved bird
be there.
His
eyes are full of light;
The eagle of the rock has
such an eye;
And
plumes, exceeding bright,
Round
his smooth temples lie,
And sweet his voice and tender
as a sigh.
Look
where the grass is gay
With summer blossoms, haply
there he cowers;
And
search, from spray to spray,
The
leafy laurel bowers,
For well he loves the laurels
and the flowers.
Find
him, but do not dwell,
With eyes too fond, on the
fair form you see,
Nor
love his song too well;
Send
him, at once, to me,
Or leave him to the air and
liberty.
For
only from my hand
He takes the seed into his
golden beak,
And
all unwiped shall stand
The
tears that wet my cheek,
Till I have found the wanderer
I seek.
My
sight is darkened o’er,
Whene’er I miss his
eyes, which are my day,
And
when I hear no more
The
music of his lay,
My heart in utter sadness
faints away.
From the Spanish of CAROLINA CORONADO DE PERRY.
Translated by W. C. BRYANT.
* * * * *
THE BIRDS MUST KNOW.
The birds must know.
Who wisely sings
Will
sing as they;
The common air has generous
wings,
Songs
make their way.
No messenger to run before,
Devising
plan;
No mention of the place or
hour
To
any man;
No waiting till some sound
betrays
But while he sighs, remembering
How
sweet the song,
The little bird on tireless
wing,
Is
borne along
In other air; and other men
With
weary feet,
On other roads, the simple
strain
Are
finding sweet.
The birds must know.
Who wisely sings
Will
sing as they;
The common air has generous
wings,
Songs
make their way.
H. H.
* * * * *
THE BIRD KING.
Dost thou the monarch eagle
seek?
Thou’lt
find him in the tempest’s maw,
Where thunders with tornadoes
speak,
And forests fly
as though of straw;
Or on some lightning-splintered
peak,
Sceptred with
desolation’s law,
The shrubless mountain in
his beak,
The barren desert
in his claw.
ALGER’S Oriental Poetry.
* * * * *
SHADOWS OF BIRDS.
In darkened air, alone with
pain,
I lay. Like links of
heavy chain
The minutes sounded, measuring
day,
And slipping lifelessly away.
Sudden across my silent room
A shadow darker than its gloom
Swept swift; a shadow slim
and small,
Which poised and darted on
the wall,
And vanished quickly as it
came.
A shadow, yet it lit like
flame;
A shadow, yet I heard it sing,
And heard the rustle of its
wing,
Till every pulse with joy
was stirred;
It was the shadow of a bird!
Only the shadow! Yet
it made
Full summer everywhere it
strayed;
And every bird I ever knew
Back and forth in the summer
flew,
And breezes wafted over me
The scent of every flower
and tree;
Till I forgot the pain and
gloom
And silence of my darkened
room.
Now, in the glorious open
air
I watch the birds fly here
and there;
And wonder, as each swift
wing cleaves
The sky, if some poor soul
that grieves
In lonely, darkened, silent
walls,
Will catch the shadow as it
falls!
H. H.
* * * * *
THE BIRD AND THE SHIP.
“The rivers rush into
the sea,
By castle and
town they go;
The winds behind them merrily
Their noisy trumpets
blow.
“The clouds are passing
far and high,
We little birds
in them play;
And everything, that can sing
and fly,
Goes with us,
and far away.
“I greet thee, bonny
boat! Whither or whence,
With thy fluttering
golden band?”
“I greet thee, little
bird! To the wide sea,
I haste from the
narrow land.
“Full and swollen is
every sail;
I see no longer
a hill,
I have trusted all to the
sounding gale,
And it will not
let me stand still.
“And wilt thou, little
bird, go with us?
Thou mayest stand
on the mainmast tall,
For full to sinking is my
house
With merry companions
all.”
“I need not and seek
not company,
Bonny boat, I
can sing all alone;
For the mainmast tall too
heavy am I,
Bonny boat, I
have wings of my own.
“High over the sails,
high over the mast,
Who shall gainsay
these joys?
When thy merry companions
are still, at last,
Thou shalt hear
the sound of my voice.
“Who neither may rest,
nor listen may,
God bless them
every one!
I dart away, in the bright
blue day,
And the golden
fields of the sun.
“Thus do I sing my weary
song,
Wherever the four
winds blow;
And this same song, my whole
life long,
Neither Poet nor
Printer may know.”
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
A MYTH.
Afloating, afloating
Across the sleeping
sea,
All night I heard a singing
bird
Upon the topmast
tree.
“Oh, came you from the
isles of Greece,
Or from the banks
of Seine?
Or off some tree in forests
free
That fringe the
western main?”
“I came not off the
old world,
Nor yet from off
the new;
But I am one of the birds
of God
Which sing the
whole night through.”
“Oh, sing and wake the
dawning!
Oh, whistle for
the wind!
The night is long, the current
strong,
My boat it lags
behind.”
“The current sweeps
the old world,
The current sweeps
the new;
The wind will blow, the dawn
will glow,
Ere thou hast
sailed them through.”
C. KINGSLEY.
* * * * *
THE DOG.
* * * * *
CUVIER ON THE DOG.
“The domestic dog,” says Cuvier, “is the most complete, the most singular, and the most useful conquest that man has gained in the animal world. The whole species has become our property; each individual belongs entirely to his master, acquires his disposition, knows and defends his property, and remains attached to him until death; and all this, not through constraint or necessity, but purely by the influences of gratitude and real attachment. The swiftness, the strength, the sharp scent of the dog, have rendered him a powerful ally to man against the lower tribes; and were, perhaps, necessary for the establishment of the dominion of mankind over the whole animal creation. The dog is the only animal which has followed man over the whole earth.”
* * * * *
A HINDOO LEGEND.
In the Mahabharata, one of the two great Hindoo poems, and of unknown antiquity, there is a recognition of the obligation of man to a dependent creature not surpassed in pathos in all literature.
We copy only such portions of the legend as bear upon this point.
The hero, Yudhistthira, leaves his home to go to Mount Meru, among the Himalayas, to find Indra’s heaven and the rest he so much desired; and with him,
“The five brothers set forth,
and Draupadi, and the seventh was a
dog that followed them.”
On the way the Princess Draupadi perished, and, after her, one brother after another, until all had died, and the hero reached his journey’s end accompanied only by his dog.
Lo! suddenly, with a sound which
rang through heaven and earth,
Indra came riding on his chariot, and he cried
to the king, “Ascend!”
Then, indeed, did the lord of justice look
back to his fallen
brothers,
And thus unto Indra he spoke, with a sorrowful
heart:
“Let my brothers, who yonder lie fallen,
go with me;
Not even unto thy heaven would I enter, if they
were not there.
And yon fair-faced daughter of a king, Draupadi
the all-deserving,
Let her too enter with us! O Indra,
approve my prayer!”
INDRA.
In heaven thou shalt find thy brothers,—they
are already there
before thee;
There are they all, with Draupadi; weep not, then,
O son of Bharata!
Thither have they entered, prince, having thrown
away their mortal
weeds;
But thou alone shalt enter still wearing thy body
of flesh.
YUDHISTTHIRA.
O Indra, and what of this dog?
It hath faithfully followed me through;
Let it go with me into heaven, for my soul is
full of compassion.
INDRA.
Immortality and fellowship
with me, and the height of joy and felicity,
All these hast thou reached
to-day; leave, then, the dog behind thee.
YUDHISTTHIRA.
The good may oft act an evil part,
but never a part like this;
Away, then, with that felicity whose price is
to abandon the faithful!
INDRA.
My heaven hath no place for dogs;
they steal away our offerings on
earth:
Leave, then, thy dog behind thee, nor think in
thy heart that it is
cruel.
YUDHISTTHIRA.
To abandon the faithful and devoted
is an endless crime, like the
murder of a Brahmin;
Never, therefore, come weal or woe, will I abandon
yon faithful dog.
Yon poor creature, in fear and distress, hath
trusted in my power
to save it:
Not, therefore, for e’en life itself will
I break my plighted word.
INDRA.
If a dog but beholds a sacrifice,
men esteem it unholy and void;
Forsake, then, the dog, O hero, and heaven is
thine own as a reward.
Already thou hast borne to forsake thy fondly
loved brothers, and
Draupadi;
Why, then, forsakest thou not the dog? Wherefore
now fails thy heart?
YUDHISTTHIRA.
Mortals, when they are dead, are
dead to love or hate,—so runs the
world’s belief;
I could not bring them back to life, but while
they lived I never left
them.
To oppress the suppliant, to kill a wife, to rob
a Brahmin, and to
betray one’s friend,
These are the four great crimes; and to forsake
a dependent I count
equal to them.
ALGER’S Oriental Poetry.
* * * * *
ULYSSES AND ARGUS.
This story, from the Odyssey, is also of an unknown antiquity. Ulysses, after many years of absence, returns to his home to find himself unrecognized by his family. With Eumaeus Ulysses walked about the familiar grounds:
Thus near the
gates conferring as they drew,
Argus, the dog, his ancient
master knew;
He, not unconscious of the
voice and tread,
Lifts to the sound his ear,
and rears his head;
Bred by Ulysses, nourished
at his board,
But, ah! not fated long to
please his lord!
To him, his swiftness and
his strength were vain;
The voice of glory called
him o’er the main.
Till then, in every sylvan
chase renowned,
With Argus, Argus, rung the
woods around:
With him the youth pursued
the goat or fawn,
Or traced the mazy leveret
o’er the lawn;
Now left to man’s ingratitude
he lay,
Unhoused, neglected in the
public way.
He knew his lord:
he knew, and strove to meet;
In vain he strove to crawl,
and kiss his feet;
Yet (all he could) his tail,
his ears, his eyes.
Salute his master, and confess
his joys.
Soft pity touched the mighty
master’s soul;
Adown his cheek a tear unhidden
stole,
Stole unperceived: he
turned his head and dried
The drop humane: then
thus impassioned cried:
“What noble
beast in this abandoned state
Lies here all helpless at
Ulysses’ gate?
His bulk and beauty speak
no vulgar praise:
If, as he seems, he was in
better days,
Some care his age deserves;
or was he prized
For worthless beauty? therefore
now despised:
Such dogs and men there are,
mere things of state,
And always cherished by their
friends the great.”
Not Argus so (Eumaeus
thus rejoined),
But served a master of a nobler
kind,
Who never, never, shall behold
him more!
Long, long since perished
on a distant shore!
Oh, had you seen him, vigorous,
bold, and young,
Swift as a stag, and as a
lion strong:
Him no fell savage on the
plain withstood,
None ’scaped him bosomed
in the gloomy wood;
His eye how piercing, and
his scent how true,
To wind the vapor in the tainted
dew!
Such, when Ulysses left his
natal coast:
Now years unnerve him, and
his lord is lost.
Odyssey, Pope’s translation.
* * * * *
TOM.
Yes, Tom’s the best
fellow that ever you knew.
Just
listen to this:—
When the old mill took fire,
and the flooring fell through,
And I with it, helpless there,
full in my view
What do you think my eyes
saw through the fire
That crept along, crept along,
nigher and nigher,
But Robin, my baby-boy, laughing
to see
The shining? He must
have come there after me,
Toddled alone from the cottage
without
Any one’s missing him.
Then, what a shout—
Oh! how I shouted, “For
Heaven’s sake, men,
Save little Robin!”
Again and again
They tried, but the fire held
them back like a wall.
I could hear them go at it,
and at it, and call,
“Never mind, baby, sit
still like a man!
We’re coming to get
you as fast as we can.”
They could not see him, but
I could. He sat
Still on a beam, his little
straw hat
Carefully placed by his side;
and his eyes
Stared at the flame with a
baby’s surprise,
Calm and unconscious, as nearer
it crept.
The roar of the fire up above
must have kept
The sound of his mother’s
voice shrieking his name
From reaching the child.
But I heard it. It came
Again and again. O God,
what a cry!
The axes went faster; I saw
the sparks fly
Where the men worked like
tigers, nor minded the heat
That scorched them,—when,
suddenly, there at their feet,
The great beams leaned in—they
saw him—then, crash,
Down came the wall! The
men made a dash,—
Jumped to get out of the way,—and
I thought,
“All’s up with
poor little Robin!” and brought
Slowly the arm that was least
hurt to hide
The sight of the child there,—when
swift, at my side,
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.
* * * * *
WILLIAM OF ORANGE SAVED BY HIS DOG.
On the night of the 11th and 12th of September, 1572, a chosen band of six hundred Spaniards made an attack within the lines of the Dutch army. The sentinels were cut down, the whole army surprised and for a moment powerless. The Prince of Orange and his guards were in profound sleep; “but a small spaniel dog,” says Mr. Motley, “who always passed the night upon his bed, was a most faithful sentinel. The creature sprang forward, barking furiously at the sound of hostile footsteps, and scratching his master’s face with his paws. There was but just time for the Prince to mount a horse which was ready saddled, and to effect his escape through the darkness, before his enemies sprang into the tent. His servants were cut down, his master of the horse and two of his secretaries, who gained their saddles a moment later, all lost their lives, and but for the little dog’s watchfulness, William of Orange, upon whose shoulders the whole weight of his country’s fortune depended, would have been led within a week to an ignominious death. To his death, the Prince ever afterwards kept a spaniel of the same race in his bed-chamber.”
MOTLEY’S Rise of the Dutch Republic.
* * * * *
The mausoleum of William the Silent is at Delft. It is a sort of small temple in black and white marble, loaded with ornaments and sustained by columns between which are four statues representing Liberty, Providence, Justice, and Religion. Upon the sarcophagus lies the figure of the Prince in white marble, and at his feet the effigy of the little dog that saved his life at the siege of Malines.
DE AMICIS’ Holland.
* * * * *
THE BLOODHOUND.
Come, Herod, my hound, from
the stranger’s floor!
Old friend—we must
wander the world once more!
For no one now liveth to welcome
us back;
So, come!—let us
speed on our fated track.
What matter the region,—what
matter the weather,
So you and I travel, till
death, together?
And in death?—why,
e’en there I may still be found
By the side of my beautiful
black bloodhound.
We’ve traversed the
desert, we’ve traversed the sea,
And we’ve trod on the
heights where the eagles be;
Seen Tartar, and Arab, and
swart Hindoo;
(How thou pull’dst down
the deer in those skies of blue;)
No joy did divide us; no peril
could part
The man from his friend of
the noble heart;
Aye, his friend; for
where, where shall there ever be found
A friend like his resolute,
fond bloodhound?
What, Herod, old hound! dost
remember the day
When I fronted the wolves
like a stag at bay?
When downward they galloped
to where we stood,
Whilst I staggered with fear
in the dark pine wood?
Dost remember their howlings?
their horrible speed?
God, God! how I prayed for
a friend in need!
And—he came!
Ah, ’twas then, my dear Herod, I found
That the best of all friends
was my bold bloodhound.
Men tell us, dear friend,
that the noble hound
Must forever be lost in the
worthless ground:
Yet “Courage,”
“Fidelity,” “Love” (they say),
Bear Man, as on wings,
to his skies away.
Well, Herod—go
tell them whatever may be,
I’ll hope I may ever
be found by thee.
If in sleep,—in
sleep; if with skies around,
Mayst thou follow e’en
thither, my dear bloodhound!
BARRY CORNWALL.
* * * * *
HELVELLYN.
This fine poem was suggested by the affection of a dog, which kept watch over the dead body of its master until found by friends three months afterwards. The young man had lost his way on Helvellyn. Time, 1805.
I climbed the dark brow of
the mighty Helvellyn,
Lakes and mountains
beneath me gleamed misty and wide;
All was still, save by fits,
when the eagle was yelling,
And starting around
me the echoes replied.
On the right, Striden-edge
round the Red-tarn was bending,
And Catchedicam its left verge
was defending,
One huge nameless rock in
the front was ascending,
When I marked
the sad spot where the wanderer had died.
Dark green was that spot ’mid
the brown mountain heather,
Where the Pilgrim
of Nature lay stretched in decay,
Like the corpse of an outcast
abandoned to weather
Till the mountain-winds
wasted the tenantless clay.
Nor yet quite deserted, though
lonely extended,
For, faithful in death, his
mute favorite attended,
The much-loved remains of
her master defended,
And chased the
hill-fox and the raven away.
How long didst thou think
that his silence was slumber?
When the wind
waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?
How many long days and long
weeks didst thou number,
Ere he faded before
thee, the friend of thy heart?
And, oh! was it meet, that—no
requiem read o’er him—
No mother to weep, and no
friend to deplore him,
And thou, little guardian,
alone stretched before him—
Unhonored the
Pilgrim from life should depart?
When a Prince to the fate
of the Peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves
dark round the dim-lighted hall;
With scutcheons of silver
the coffin is shielded,
And pages stand
mute by the canopied pall:
Through the courts, at deep
midnight, the torches are gleaming;
In the proudly-arched chapel
the banners are beaming,
Far adown the long isle the
sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a Chief
of the People should fall.
But meeter for thee, gentle
lover of nature,
To lay down thy
head like the meek mountain lamb,
When, ’wildered he drops
from some cliff huge in stature,
And draws his
last sob by the side of his dam.
And more stately thy couch
by this desert lake lying,
Thy obsequies sung by the
gray plover flying,
With one faithful friend but
to witness thy dying,
In the arms of
Helvellyn and Catchedicam.
WALTER SCOTT.
* * * * *
LLEWELLYN AND HIS DOG.
The spearmen heard the bugle
sound,
And cheerily smiled
the morn,
And many a brach, and many
a hound,
Attend Llewellyn’s
horn.
And still he blew a louder
blast,
And gave a louder
cheer;
“Come, Gelert! why art
thou the last,
Llewellyn’s horn to
hear?
“Oh, where does faithful
Gelert roam?
The flower of
all his race!
So true, so brave—a
lamb at home,
A lion in the
chase!”
That day Llewellyn little
loved
The chase of hart
or hare;
And scant and small the booty
proved,
For Gelert was
not there.
Unpleased, Llewellyn homeward
hied,
When near the
portal seat,
His truant Gelert he espied,
Bounding his lord
to greet.
But when he gained the castle
door,
Aghast the chieftain
stood:
The hound was smeared with
drops of gore;
His lips and fangs
ran blood.
Llewellyn gazed with wild
surprise,
Unused such looks
to meet;
His favorite checked his joyful
guise,
And crouched and
licked his feet.
Onward in haste Llewellyn
passed,
(And on went Gelert
too;)
And still, where’er
his eyes were cast,
Fresh blood-drops
shocked his view.
O’erturned his infant’s
bed he found,
The blood-stained
cover rent
And all around the walls and
ground
With recent blood
besprent.
He called his child—no
voice replied;
He searched—with
terror wild;
Blood! blood! he found on
every side,
But nowhere found
the child!
“Monster, by thee my
child’s devoured!”
The frantic father
cried,
And to the hilt his vengeful
sword
He plunged in
Gelert’s side.
His suppliant, as to earth
he fell,
No pity could
impart;
But still his Gelert’s
dying yell,
Passed heavy o’er
his heart.
Aroused by Gelert’s
dying yell,
Some slumberer
wakened nigh:
What words the parent’s
joy can tell
To hear his infant
cry!
Concealed beneath a mangled
heap
His hurried search
had missed:
All glowing from his rosy
sleep,
His cherub boy
he kissed.
Nor scratch had he, nor harm,
nor dread;
But the same couch
beneath
Lay a great wolf, all torn
and dead—
Tremendous still
in death.
Ah, what was then Llewellyn’s
pain!
For now the truth
was clear;
The gallant hound the wolf
had slain
To save Llewellyn’s
heir.
Vain, vain was all Llewellyn’s
woe—
“Best of
thy kind, adieu!
The frantic deed which laid
thee low
This heart shall
ever rue.”
And now a gallant tomb they
raise,
With costly sculpture
decked;
And marbles, storied with
his praise,
Poor Gelert’s
bones protect.
Here never could the spearman
pass,
Or forester unmoved;
Here oft the tear-besprinkled
grass
Llewellyn’s
sorrow proved.
And here he hung his horn
and spear;
And oft, as evening
fell,
In fancy’s piercing
sounds would hear
Poor Gelert’s
dying yell.
SPENSER.
* * * * *
LOOKING FOR PEARLS.
AN ORIENTAL LEGEND.
The Master came one evening
to the gate
Of a far city; it was growing
late,
And sending his disciples
to buy food,
He wandered forth intent on
doing good,
As was his wont. And
in the market-place
He saw a crowd, close gathered
in one space,
Gazing with eager eyes upon
the ground.
Jesus drew nearer, and thereon
he found
A noisome creature, a bedraggled
wreck,—
A dead dog with a halter round
his neck.
And those who stood by mocked
the object there,
And one said scoffing, “It
pollutes the air!”
Another, jeering, asked, “How
long to-night
Shall such a miscreant cur
offend our sight?”
“Look at his torn hide,”
sneered a Jewish wit,—
“You could not cut even
a shoe from it,”
And turned away. “Behold
his ears that bleed,”
A fourth chimed in; “an
unclean wretch indeed!”
“He hath been hanged
for thieving,” they all cried,
And spurned the loathsome
beast from side to side.
Then Jesus, standing by them
in the street,
Looked on the poor spent creature
at his feet,
And, bending o’er him,
spake unto the men,
“Pearls are not whiter
than his teeth.” And then
The people at each other gazed,
asking,
“Who is this stranger
pitying the vile thing?”
Then one exclaimed, with awe-abated
breath,
“This surely is the
Man of Nazareth;
This must be Jesus, for none
else but he
Something to praise in a dead
dog could see!”
And, being ashamed, each scoffer
bowed his head,
And from the sight of Jesus
turned and fled.
ALGER’S Eastern Poetry.
* * * * *
ROVER.
“Kind traveller, do
not pass me by,
And thus a poor
old dog forsake;
But stop a moment on your
way,
And hear my woe
for pity’s sake!
“My name is Rover; yonder
house
Was once my home
for many a year;
My master loved me; every
hand
Caressed young
Rover, far and near.
“The children rode upon
my back,
And I could hear
my praises sung;
With joy I licked their pretty
feet,
As round my shaggy
sides they clung.
“I watched them while
they played or slept;
I gave them all
I had to give:
My strength was theirs from
morn till night;
For them I only
cared to live.
“Now I am old, and blind,
and lame,
They’ve
turned me out to die alone,
Without a shelter for my head,
Without a scrap
of bread or bone.
“This morning I can
hardly crawl,
While shivering
in the snow and hail;
My teeth are dropping, one
by one;
I scarce have
strength to wag my tail.
“I’m palsied grown
with mortal pains,
My withered limbs
are useless now;
My voice is almost gone you
see,
And I can hardly
make my bow.
“Perhaps you’ll
lead me to a shed
Where I may find
some friendly straw
On which to lay my aching
limbs,
And rest my helpless,
broken paw.
“Stranger, excuse this
story long,
And pardon, pray,
my last appeal;
You’ve owned a dog yourself,
perhaps,
And learned that
dogs, like men, can feel.”
Yes, poor old Rover, come
with me;
Food, with warm
shelter, I’ll supply;
And Heaven forgive the cruel
souls
Who drove you
forth to starve and die!
J. T. FIELDS.
* * * * *
TO MY DOG “BLANCO.”
My dear dumb friend, low lying
there,
A willing vassal
at my feet,
Glad partner of my home and
fare,
My shadow in the
street.
I look into your great brown
eyes,
Where love and
loyal homage shine,
And wonder where the difference
lies
Between your soul
and mine!
For all of good that I have
found
Within myself
or humankind,
Hath royalty informed and
crowned
Your gentle heart
and mind.
I scan the whole broad earth
around
For that one heart
which, leal and true,
Bears friendship without end
or bound,
And find the prize
in you.
I trust you as I trust the
stars;
Nor cruel loss,
nor scoff of pride,
Nor beggary, nor dungeon-bars,
Can move you from
my side!
As patient under injury
As any Christian
saint of old,
As gentle as a lamb with me,
But with your
brothers bold;
More playful than a frolic
boy,
More watchful
than a sentinel,
By day and night your constant
joy,
To guard and please
me well:
I clasp your head upon my
breast—
And while you
whine and lick my hand—
And thus our friendship is
confessed
And thus we understand!
Ah, Blanco! did I worship
God
As truly as you
worship me,
Or follow where my master
trod
With your humility;
Did I sit fondly at His feet,
As you, dear Blanco,
sit at mine,
And watch him with a love
as sweet,
My life would
grow divine!
J. G. HOLLAND.
* * * * *
THE BEGGAR AND HIS DOG.
“Pay down three dollars
for my hound!
May lightning strike me to
the ground!
What mean the Messieurs of
police?
And when and where shall this
mockery cease?
“I am a poor, old, sickly
man,
And earn a penny I no wise
can;
I have no money, I have no
bread,
And live upon hunger and want,
instead.
“Who pitied me, when
I grew sick and poor,
And neighbors turned me from
their door?
And who, when I was left alone
In God’s wide world,
made my fortunes his own?
“Who loved me, when
I was weak and old?
And warmed me, when I was
numb with cold?
And who, when I in poverty
pined,
Has shared my hunger and never
whined?
“Here is the noose,
and here the stone,
And there the water—it
must be done!
Come hither, poor Pomp, and
look not on me,
One kick—it is
over—and thou art free!”
As over his head he lifted
the band,
The fawning dog licked his
master’s hand;
Back in an instant the noose
he drew,
And round his own neck in
a twinkling threw.
The dog sprang after him into
the deep,
His howlings startled the
sailors from sleep;
Moaning and twitching he showed
them the spot:
They found the beggar, but
life was not!
They laid him silently in
the ground,
His only mourner the whimpering
hound
Who stretched himself out
on the grave and cried
Like an orphan child—and
so he died.
Chamisso, tr. by C. T. BROOKS.
* * * * *
DON.
This is Don, the dog of dogs,
sir,
Just as lions outrank frogs,
sir,
Just as the eagles are superior
To buzzards and that tribe
inferior.
He’s a shepherd lad—a
beauty—
And to praise him seems a
duty,
But it puts my pen to shame,
sir,
When his virtues I would name,
sir.
“Don! come here and
bend your head now,
Let us see your best well-bred
bow!”
Was there ever such a creature!
Common sense in every feature!
“Don! rise up and look
around you!”
Blessings on the day we found
you.
Sell him! well, upon my word, sir, That’s a notion too absurd, sir. Would I sell our little Ally, Barter Tom, dispose of Sally? Think you I’d negotiate For my wife, at any rate?
Sell our Don! you’re surely joking, And ’tis fun at us you’re poking! Twenty voyages we’ve tried, sir, Sleeping, waking, side by side, sir, And Don and I will not divide, sir; He’s my friend, that’s why I love him,— And no mortal dog’s above him!
He prefers a life aquatic,
But never dog was less dogmatic.
Years ago when I was master
Of a tight brig called the
Castor,
Don and I were bound for Cadiz,
With the loveliest of ladies
And her boy—a stalwart,
hearty,
Crowing one-year infant party,
Full of childhood’s
myriad graces,
Bubbling sunshine in our faces
As we bowled along so steady,
Half-way home, or more, already.
How the sailors loved our
darling!
No more swearing, no more
snarling;
On their backs, when not on
duty,
Round they bore the blue-eyed
beauty,—
Singing, shouting, leaping,
prancing,—
All the crew took turns in
dancing;
Every tar playing Punchinello
With the pretty, laughing
fellow;
Even the second mate gave
sly winks
At the noisy mid-day high
jinks.
Never was a crew so happy
With a curly-headed chappy,
Never were such sports gigantic,
Never dog with joy more antic.
While thus jolly, all together,
There blew up a change of
weather,
Nothing stormy, but quite
breezy,
And the wind grew damp and
wheezy,
Like a gale in too low spirits
To put forth one half its
merits,
But, perchance, a dry-land
ranger
Might suspect some kind of
danger.
Soon our stanch and gallant
vessel
With the waves began to wrestle,
And to jump about a trifle,
Sometimes kicking like a rifle
When ’tis slightly overloaded,
But by no means nigh exploded.
’Twas the coming on of twilight, As we stood abaft the skylight, Scampering round to please the baby, (Old Bill Benson held him, maybe,) When the youngster stretched his fingers Towards the spot where sunset lingers, And with strong and sudden motion Leaped into the weltering ocean! “What did Don do?” Can’t you guess, sir? He sprang also—by express, sir; Seized the infant’s little dress, sir, Held the baby’s head up boldly From the waves that rushed so coldly; And in just about a minute Our boat had them safe within it.
Sell him! Would
you sell your brother?
Don and I love one
another.
J. T. FIELDS.
* * * * *
GEIST’S GRAVE.
Four years!—and
didst thou stay above
The ground, which hides thee
now, but four?
And all that life, and all
that love,
Were crowded, Geist! into
no more?
Only four years those winning
ways,
Which make me for thy presence
yearn,
Called us to pet thee or to
praise,
Dear little friend! at every
turn?
That loving heart, that patient
soul,
Had they indeed no longer
span,
To run their course, and reach
their goal,
And read their homily to man?
That liquid, melancholy eye,
From whose pathetic, soul-fed
springs
Seemed surging the Virgilian
cry.[1]
The sense of tears in mortal
things—
That steadfast, mournful strain,
consoled
By spirits gloriously gay,
And temper of heroic mould—
What, was four years their
whole short day?
Yes, only four!—and
not the course
Of all the centuries to come,
And not the infinite resource
Of nature, with her countless
sum.
Of figures, with her fulness
vast
Of new creation evermore,
Can ever quite repeat the
past,
Or just thy little self restore.
Stern law of every mortal
lot!
Which man, proud man, finds
hard to bear,
And builds himself I know
not what
Of second life I know not
where.
But thou, when struck thine
hour to go,
On us, who stood despondent
by,
A meek last glance of love
didst throw,
And humbly lay thee down to
die.
Yet would we keep thee in
our heart—
Would fix our favorite on
the scene,
Nor let thee utterly depart
And be as if thou ne’er
hadst been.
And so there rise these lines of verse On lips that rarely form them now; While to each other we rehearse: Such ways, such arts, such looks hast thou!
We stroke thy broad, brown
paws again,
We bid thee to thy vacant
chair,
We greet thee by the window-pane,
We hear thy scuffle on the
stair;
We see the flaps of thy large
ears
Quick raised to ask which
way we go:
Crossing the frozen lake appears
Thy small black figure on
the snow!
Nor to us only art thou dear
Who mourn thee in thine English
home;
Thou hast thine absent master’s
tear,
Dropt by the far Australian
foam.
Thy memory lasts both here
and there,
And thou shalt live as long
as we.
And after that—thou
dost not care?
In us was all the world to
thee.
Yet fondly zealous for thy
fame,
Even to a date beyond thine
own
We strive to carry down thy
name,
By mounded turf, and graven
stone.
We lay thee, close within
our reach,
Here, where the grass is smooth
and warm,
Between the holly and the
beech,
Where oft we watched thy couchant
form,
Asleep, yet lending half an
ear
To travellers on the Portsmouth
road—
There choose we thee, O guardian
dear,
Marked with a stone, thy last
abode!
Then some, who through the
garden pass,
When we too, like thyself,
are clay,
Shall see thy grave upon the
grass,
And stop before the stone,
and say:—
People who lived here long ago Did by this stone, it seems, intend To name for future times to know The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend.
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
[1] Sunt lacrimae rerum.
* * * * *
ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE OLD SPANIEL.
Poor old friend,
how earnestly
Would I have pleaded for thee!
thou hadst been
Still the companion of my
boyish sports;
And as I roamed o’er
Avon’s woody cliffs,
From many a day-dream has
thy short, quick bark
Recalled my wandering soul.
I have beguiled
Often the melancholy hours
at school,
Soured by some little tyrant,
with the thought
Of distant home, and I remembered
then
Thy faithful fondness; for
not mean the joy,
Returning at the happy holidays,
I felt from thy dumb welcome.
Pensively
Sometimes have I remarked
thy slow decay,
Feeling myself changed too,
and musing much
On many a sad vicissitude
of life.
Ah, poor companion! when thou
followedst last
Thy master’s parting
footsteps to the gate
Which closed forever on him,
thou didst lose
Thy truest friend, and none
was left to plead
For the old age of brute fidelity.
But fare thee well! Mine
is no narrow creed;
And He who gave thee being
did not frame
The mystery of life to be
the sport
Of merciless man. There
is another world
For all that live and move—a
better one!
Where the proud bipeds, who
would fain confine
Infinite Goodness to the little
bounds
Of their own charity, may
envy thee.
ROBERT SOUTHEY.
* * * * *
EPITAPH IN GREY FRIARS’ CHURCHYARD.
The monument erected at Edinburgh to the memory of “Grey Friars’ Bobby” by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts has a Greek inscription by Professor Blackie. The translation is as follows:
This monument was erected by a noble lady, THE BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS, to the memory of GREY FRIARS’ BOBBY, a faithful and affectionate LITTLE DOG, who followed the remains of his beloved master to the churchyard, in the year 1858, and became a constant visitor to the grave, refusing to be separated from the spot until he died in the year 1872.
* * * * *
FROM AN INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG.
When some proud son of man
returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld
by birth,
The sculptor’s art exhausts
the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who
rests below;
When all is done, upon the
tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what
* * * * *
Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on,—it honors none you wish to mourn;
To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one,—and here he lies.
LORD BYRON, 1808.
* * * * *
THE DOG.
Poor friend and sport of man,
like him unwise,
Away! Thou
standest to his heart too near,
Too close for
careless rest or healthy cheer;
Almost in thee the glad brute
nature dies.
Go scour the fields in wilful
enterprise,
Lead the free
chase, leap, plunge into the mere,
Herd with thy
fellows, stay no longer here,
Seeking thy law and gospel
in men’s eyes.
He cannot go; love holds him
fast to thee;
More than the
voices of his kind thy word
Lives in his heart; for him
thy very rod
Has flowers: he only
in thy will is free.
Cast him not out,
the unclaimed savage herd
Would turn and rend him, pining
for his God.
EMILY PFEIFFER.
* * * * *
JOHNNY’S PRIVATE ARGUMENT.
A poor little tramp of a doggie,
one day,
Low-spirited,
weary, and sad,
From a crowd of rude urchins
ran limping away,
And followed a
dear little lad.
Whose round, chubby face,
with the merry eyes blue,
Made doggie think, “Here
is a good boy and true!”
So, wagging his tail and expressing
his views
With a sort of
affectionate whine,
Johnny knew he was saying,
“Dear boy, if you choose,
To be any
dog’s master, be mine.”
And Johnny’s blue eyes
opened wide with delight,
And he fondled the doggie
and hugged him so tight.
But alas! on a day that to
Johnny was sad,
A newspaper notice
he read,
“Lost a dog: limped
a little, and also he had
A spot on the
top of his head.
Whoever returns him to me
may believe
A fair compensation he’ll
surely receive.”
Johnny didn’t want money,
not he; ’twasn’t that
That made him
just sit down to think,
And made a grave look on his
rosy face fat,
And made those
blue eyes of his wink
To keep back the tears that
were ready to flow,
As he thought to himself,
“Must the dear doggie go?”
’Twas an argument Johnny
was holding just there
With his own little
conscience so true.
“It is plain,”
whispered conscience, “that if you’d be
fair,
There is only
one thing you can do;
Restore to his owner the dog;
don’t delay,
But attend to your duty at
once, and to-day!”
No wonder he sat all so silent
and still,
Forgetting to
fondle his pet—
The poor little boy thinking
hard with a will;
While thought
doggie, “What makes him forget,
I wonder, to frolic and play
with me now,
And why does he wear
such a sorrowful brow?”
Well, how did it end?
Johnny’s battle was fought,
And the victory
given to him:
The dearly-loved pet to his
owner was brought,
Tho’ it
made little Johnny’s eyes dim.
But a wag of his tail doggie
gives to this day
Whenever our Johnny is passing
that way.
MARY D. BRINE.
* * * * *
THE HARPER.
On the green banks of Shannon,
when Sheelah was nigh,
No blithe Irish lad was so
happy as I;
No harp like my own could
so cheerily play,
And wherever I went was my
poor dog Tray.
When at last I was forced
from my Sheelah to part,
She said (while the sorrow
was big at her heart),
Oh, remember your Sheelah
when far, far away!
And be kind, my dear Pat,
to our poor dog Tray.
Poor dog! he was faithful
and kind, to be sure;
He constantly loved me although
I was poor;
When the sour-looking folks
turned me heartless away,
I had always a friend in my
poor dog Tray.
When the road was so dark,
and the night was so cold,
And Pat and his dog were grown
weary and old,
How snugly we slept in my
old coat of gray!
And he licked me for kindness,—my
poor dog Tray.
Though my wallet was scant,
I remembered his case,
Nor refused my last crust
to his pitiful face;
But he died at my feet on
a cold winter day,
And I played a sad lament
for my poor dog Tray.
Where now shall I go, poor,
forsaken, and blind?
Can I find one to guide me,
so faithful and kind?
To my sweet native village,
so far, far away,
I can never return with my
poor dog Tray.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
* * * * *
“FLIGHT.”
Never again shall her leaping
welcome
Hail my coming
at eventide;
Never again shall her glancing
footfall
Range the fallow
from side to side.
Under the raindrops, under
the snowflakes,
Down in a narrow
and darksome bed,
Safe from sorrow, or fear,
or loving,
Lieth my beautiful,
still and dead.
Mouth of silver, and skin
of satin,
Foot as fleet
as an arrow’s flight,
Statue-still at the call of
“steady,”
Eyes as clear
as the stars of night.
Laughing breadths of the yellow
stubble
Now shall rustle
to alien tread,
And rabbits run in the dew-dim
clover
Safe—for
my beautiful lieth dead.
“Only a dog!”
do you say, Sir Critic?
Only a dog, but
as truth I prize,
The truest love I have won
in living
Lay in the deeps
of her limpid eyes.
Frosts of winter nor heat
of summer
Could make her
fail if my footsteps led;
And memory holds in its treasure-casket
The name of my
darling who lieth dead.
S. M. A. C. in Evening Post.
* * * * *
THE IRISH WOLF-HOUND.
As fly the shadows o’er
the grass,
He flies with
step as light and sure.
He hunts the wolf through
Tostan Pass,
And starts the
deer by Lisanoure.
The music of the Sabbath bells,
O Con! has not
a sweeter sound,
Than when along the valley
swells
The cry of John
McDonnell’s hound.
His stature tall, his body
long,
His back like
night, his breast like snow,
His fore leg pillar-like and
strong,
His hind leg bended
like a bow;
Rough, curling hair, head
long and thin,
His ear a leaf
so small and round;
Not Bran, the favorite dog
of Fin,
Could rival John
McDonnell’s hound.
DENIS FLORENCE MACCARTHY.
* * * * *
SIX FEET.
My little rough dog and I
Live a life that
is rather rare,
We have so many good walks
to take,
And so few bad
things to bear;
So much that gladdens and
recreates,
So little of wear
and tear.
Sometimes it blows and rains,
But still the
six feet ply;
No care at all to the following
four
If the leading
two knows why,
’Tis a pleasure to have
six feet we think,
My little rough
dog and I.
And we travel all one way;
’Tis a thing
we should never do,
To reckon the two without
the four,
Or the four without
the two;
It would not be right if any
one tried,
Because it would
not be true.
And who shall look up and
say,
That it ought
not so to be,
Though the earth that is heaven
enough for him,
Is less than that
to me,
For a little rough dog can
wake a joy
That enters eternity.
Humane Journal.
* * * * *
THERE’S ROOM ENOUGH FOR ALL.
Ah, Rover, by those lustrous
eyes
That follow me
with longing gaze,
Which sometimes seem so human-wise,
I look for human
speech and ways.
By your quick instinct, matchless
love,
Your eager welcome,
mute caress,
That all my heart’s
emotions move,
And loneliest
moods and hours bless,
I do believe, my dog, that
you
Have some beyond, some future
new.
Why not? In heaven’s
inheritance
Space must be
cheap where worldly light
In boundless, limitless expanse
Rolls grandly
far from human sight.
He who has given such patient
care,
Such constancy,
such tender trust,
Such ardent zeal, such instincts
rare,
And made you something
more than dust,
May yet release the speechless
thrall
At death—there’s
room enough for all.
Our Continent.
* * * * *
HIS FAITHFUL DOG.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose
untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears
him in the wind;
His soul proud science never
taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or
milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope
has given,
Behind the cloud-topped hill,
an humbler heaven;
Some safer world in depth
of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the
watery waste,
Where slaves once more their
native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians
thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural
desire,
He asks no angel’s wing,
no seraph’s fire;
But thinks, admitted to that
equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear
him company.
POPE.
* * * * *
THE FAITHFUL HOUND.
A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
* * * * *
MISCELLANEOUS.
* * * * *
THE SPIDER’S LESSON.
Robert, the Bruce, in his
dungeon stood,
Waiting the hour
of doom;
Behind him the palace of Holyrood,
Before him—a
nameless tomb.
And the foam on his lip was
flecked with red,
As away to the past his memory
sped,
Upcalling the day of his past
renown,
When he won and he wore the
Scottish crown:
Yet
come there shadow or come there shine,
The
spider is spinning his thread so fine.
“Time and again I have
fronted the tide
Of the tyrant’s
vast array,
But only to see on the crimson
tide
My hopes swept
far away;—
Now a landless chief and a
crownless king,
On the broad, broad earth
not a living thing
To keep me court, save this
insect small,
Striving to reach from wall
to wall:”
For
come there shadow or come there shine,
The
spider is spinning his thread so fine.
“Work! work like a fool,
to the certain loss,
Like myself, of
your time and pain;
The space is too wide to be
bridged across,
You but waste
your strength in vain!”
And Bruce for the moment forgot
his grief,
His soul now filled with the
sure belief
That, howsoever the issue
went,
For evil or good was the omen
sent:
And
come there shadow or come there shine,
The
spider is spinning his thread so fine.
As a gambler watches the turning
card
On which his all
is staked,—
As a mother waits for the
hopeful word
For which her
soul has ached,—
It was thus Bruce watched,
with every sense
Centred alone in that look
intense;
All rigid he stood, with scattered
breath—
Now white, now red, but as
still as death:
Yet
come there shadow or come there shine,
The
spider is spinning his thread so fine.
Six several times the creature
tried,
When at the seventh,
“See, see!
He has spanned it over!”
the captive cried;
“Lo! a bridge
of hope to me;
Thee, God, I thank, for this
lesson here
Has tutored my soul to PERSEVERE!”
And it served him well, for
erelong he wore
In freedom the Scottish crown
once more:
And
come there shadow or come there shine,
The
spider is spinning his thread so fine.
JOHN BROUGHAM.
* * * * *
THE SPIDER AND STORK.
Who taught the natives of
the field and flood
To shun their poison and to
choose their food?
Prescient, the tides or tempests
to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch
beneath the sand?
Who made the spider parallels
design
Sure as De Moivre, without
rule or line?
Who bid the stork Columbus-like
explore
Heavens not his own, and worlds
unknown before?
WHO CALLS THE COUNCIL, STATES
THE CERTAIN DAY,
WHO FORMS THE PHALANX, AND
WHO POINTS THE WAY?
POPE.
* * * * *
THE HOMESTEAD AT EVENING.—EVANGELINE’S BEAUTIFUL HEIFER.
Now recommenced the reign of
rest and affection and stillness.
Day with its burden and heat had departed, and
twilight descending
Brought back the evening star to the sky, and
the herds to the
homestead.
Pawing the ground they came, and resting their
necks on each other,
And with their nostrils distended inhaling the
freshness of evening.
Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline’s
beautiful heifer,
Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that
waved from her
collar,
Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human
affection.
Then came the shepherd back with his bleating
flocks from the seaside,
Where was their favorite pasture. Behind
them followed the watch-dog,
Patient, full of importance, and grand in the
H. W. LONGFELLOW: Evangeline.
* * * * *
THE CATTLE OF A HUNDRED FARMS.
And now, beset with many ills,
A toilsome life
I follow;
Compelled to carry from the
hills,
These logs to the impatient
mills,
Below there in
the hollow.
Yet something ever cheers
and charms
The rudeness of
my labors;
Daily I water with these arms
The cattle of a hundred farms,
And have the birds
for neighbors.
H. W. LONGFELLOW: Mad River.
* * * * *
CAT-QUESTIONS.
Dozing, and dozing, and dozing!
Pleasant enough,
Dreaming of sweet cream and
mouse-meat,—
Delicate stuff!
Waked by a somerset, whirling
From cushion to
floor;
Waked to a wild rush for safety
From window to
door.
Waking to hands that first
smooth us,
And then pull
our tails;
Punished with slaps when we
show them
The length of
our nails!
These big mortal tyrants even
grudge us
A place on the
mat.
Do they think we enjoy for
our music
Staccatoes of
“scat”?
To be treated, now, just as
you treat us,—
The question is
pat,—
To take just our chances in
living,
Would you
be a cat?
LUCY LARCOM.
* * * * *
THE NEWSBOY’S CAT.
Want any papers, Mister?
Wish you’d
buy ’em of me—
Ten year old, an’ a
fam’ly,
An’ bizness
dull, you see.
Fact, Boss! There’s
Tom, an’ Tibby,
An’ Dad,
an’ Mam, an Mam’s cat,
None on ’em earning
money—
What do you think
of that?
Couldn’t Dad work?
Why yes, Boss,
He’s working
for gov’ment now,—
They give him his board for
nothin’,—
All along of a
drunken row.
An’ Mam?
Well, she’s in the poorhouse,—
Been there a year
or so;
So I’m taking care of
the others,
Doing as well
as I know.
Oughtn’t to live
so? Why, Mister,
What’s a
feller to do?
Some nights, when I’m
tired an’ hungry,
Seems as if each
on ’em knew—
They’ll all three cuddle
around me,
Till I get cheery,
and say:
Well, p’raps I’ll
have sisters an’ brothers,
An’ money
an’ clothes, too, some day.
But if I do git rich, Boss,
(An’ a lecturin’
chap one night
Said newsboys could be Presidents
If only they acted
right);
So, if I was President, Mister,
The very first
thing I’d do,
I’d buy poor Tom an’
Tibby
A dinner—an’
Mam’s cat, too!
None o’ your scraps
an’ leavin’s,
But a good square
meal for all three;
If you think I’d skimp
my friends, Boss,
That shows you
don’t know me.
So ’ere’s your
papers—come take one,
Gimme a lift if
you can—
For now you’ve heard
my story,
You see I’m
a fam’ly man!
E. T. CORBETT.
* * * * *
THE CHILD AND HER PUSSY.
I like little pussy, her coat
is so warm,
And if I don’t hurt
her, she’ll do me no harm;
So I’ll not pull her
tail, nor drive her away,
But pussy and I very gently
will play:
She shall sit by my side,
and I’ll give her some food;
And she’ll love me,
because I am gentle and good.
I’ll pat little pussy,
and then she will purr,
And thus show her thanks for
my kindness to her.
E. TAYLOR.
* * * * *
THE ALPINE SHEEP.
They in the valley’s
sheltering care,
Soon crop the
meadow’s tender prime,
And when the sod grows brown
and bare,
The shepherd strives
to make them climb
To airy shelves of pastures
green
That hang along
the mountain’s side,
Where grass and flowers together
lean,
And down through
mists the sunbeams slide:
But nought can tempt the timid
things
The steep and
rugged paths to try,
Though sweet the shepherd
calls and sings,
And seared below
the pastures lie,—
Till in his arms their lambs
he takes
Along the dizzy
verge to go,
Then heedless of the rifts
and breaks
They follow on
o’er rock and snow.
And in those pastures lifted
fair,
More dewy soft
than lowland mead,
The shepherd drops his tender
care,
And sheep and
lambs together feed.
MARIA LOWELL.
* * * * *
LITTLE LAMB.
Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life and made thee
feed
By the stream and o’er
the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,—
Softest clothing, woolly,
bright?
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice;
Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little lamb, I’ll tell
thee;
Little lamb, I’ll tell
thee;
He is callen by thy name,
For he calls himself a lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little lamb, God bless thee!
Little lamb, God bless thee!
WILLIAM BLAKE.
* * * * *
COWPER’S HARE.
Well—one at least
is safe. One sheltered hare
Has never heard the sanguinary
yell
Of cruel man, exulting in
her woes.
Innocent partner of my peaceful
home,
Whom ten long years’
experience of my care
Has made at last familiar,
she has lost
Much of her vigilant instinctive
dread,
Not needful here, beneath
a roof like mine.
Yes—thou mayst
eat thy bread, and lick the hand
That feeds thee; thou mayst
frolic on the floor
At evening, and at night retire
secure
To thy straw-couch, and slumber
unalarmed;
For I have gained thy confidence,
have pledged
All that is human in me to
protect
Thine unsuspecting gratitude
and love.
If I survive thee I will dig
thy grave,
And when I place thee in it,
sighing say,
I knew at least one hare that
had a friend.
COWPER.
* * * * *
TURN THY HASTY FOOT ASIDE.
Turn, turn thy hasty foot
aside,
Nor crush that
helpless worm!
The frame thy wayward looks
deride
Required a God
to form.
The common lord of all that
move,
From whom thy
being flowed,
A portion of his boundless
love
On that poor worm
bestowed.
Let them enjoy their little
day,
Their humble bliss
receive;
Oh! do not lightly take away
The life thou
canst not give!
T. GISBORNE.
* * * * *
THE WORM TURNS.
I’ve despised you, old
worm, for I think you’ll admit
That you never
were beautiful even in youth;
I’ve impaled you on
hooks, and not felt it a bit;
But all’s
changed now that Darwin has told us the truth
Of your diligent life, and
endowed you with fame:
You begin to inspire
me with kindly regard.
I have friends of my own,
clever worm, I could name,
Who have ne’er
in their lives been at work half so hard.
It appears that we owe you
our acres of soil,
That the garden
could never exist without you,
That from ages gone by you
were patient in toil,
Till a Darwin
revealed all the good that you do.
Now you’ve turned with
a vengeance, and all must confess
Your behavior
should make poor humanity squirm;
For there’s many a man
on this planet, I guess,
Who is not half
so useful as you, Mister worm.
PUNCH.
* * * * *
GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET.
Green little vaulter in the
sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at
the feet of June,
Sole voice that’s heard
amidst the lazy noon,
Whenever the bees lag at the
summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper,
who class
With those who think the candles
come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with
your tricksome tune
Nicks the glad silent moments
as they pass.
O sweet and tidy cousins,
that belong
One to the fields, the other
to the hearth,
Both have your sunshine:
both, though small, are strong
At your clear hearts; and
both seem given to earth
To ring in thoughtful ears
this natural song—
Indoors and out, summer and
winter, Mirth.
LEIGH HUNT.
* * * * *
THE HONEY-BEES.
Therefore
doth Heaven divide
The state of man in divers
functions,
Setting endeavor in continual
motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim
or butt,
Obedience: for so work
the honey-bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule
in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled
kingdom.
They have a king and officers
of sorts:
Where some, like magistrates,
correct at home;
Others, like soldiers, armed
in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer’s
velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry
march bring home
To the tent royal of their
emperor:
Who, busied in his majesty,
surveys
THE SINGING MASONS BUILDING
ROOFS OF GOLD;
The civil citizens kneading
up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters
crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his
narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with
his surly hum,
Delivering o’er to the
executioner’s pale
The lazy, yawning drone.
SHAKESPEARE: Henry V., Act 1, Sc. 2.
* * * * *
CUNNING BEE.
Said a little wandering maiden
To a bee with honey laden,
“Bee, at all the flowers
you work,
Yet in some does poison lurk.”
“That I know, my little
maiden,”
Said the bee with honey laden;
“But the poison I forsake,
And the honey only take.”
“Cunning bee with honey
laden,
That is right,” replied
the maiden;
“So will I, from all
I meet,
Only draw the good and sweet.”
ANON.
* * * * *
AN INSECT.
Only an insect; yet I know
It felt the sunlight’s
golden glow,
And the sweet morning made
it glad
With all the little heart
it had.
It saw the shadows move; it
knew
The grass-blades glittered,
wet with dew;
And gayly o’er the ground
it went;
It had its fulness of content.
Some dainty morsel then it
spied,
And for the treasure turned
aside;
Then, laden with its little
spoil,
Back to its nest began to
toil.
An insect formed of larger
frame,
Called man, along the pathway
came.
A ruthless foot aside he thrust,
And ground the beetle in the
dust.
Perchance no living being
missed
The life that there ceased
to exist;
Perchance the passive creature
knew
No wrong, nor felt the deed
undue;
Yet its small share of life
was given
By the same hand that orders
heaven.
’Twas for no other power
to say,
Or should it go or should
it stay.
ANON.
* * * * *
THE CHIPMUNK.
I know an old couple that
lived in a wood—
Chipperee, chipperee,
chip!
And up in a tree-top their
dwelling it stood—
Chipperee, chipperee,
chip!
The summer it came, and the
summer it went—
Chipperee, chipperee,
chip!
And there they lived on, and
they never paid rent—
Chipperee, chipperee,
chip!
Their parlor was lined with
the softest of wool—
Chipperee, chipperee,
chip!
Their kitchen was warm, and
their pantry was full—
Chipperee, chipperee,
chip!
And four little babies peeped
out at the sky—
Chipperee, chipperee,
chip!
You never saw darlings so
pretty and shy—
Chipperee, chipperee,
chip!
Now winter came on with its
frost and its snow—
Chipperee, chipperee,
chip!
They cared not a bit when
they heard the wind blow—
Chipperee, chipperee,
chip!
For, wrapped in their furs,
they all lay down to sleep—
Chipperee, chipperee,
chip!
But oh, in the spring, how
their bright eyes will peep—
Chipperee, chipperee,
chip!
UNKNOWN.
* * * * *
MOUNTAIN AND SQUIRREL.
The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel;
And the former called the
latter “Little Prig.”
Bun replied,
“You are doubtless very
big;
But all sorts of things and
weather
Must be taken in together
To make up a year
And a sphere;
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I’m not so large
as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.
I’ll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track.
Talents differ; all is well
and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests
on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut.”
EMERSON.
* * * * *
TO A FIELD-MOUSE.
Wee sleekit, cow’rin’,
tim’rous beastie,
Oh, what a panic’s in
thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae
hasty,
Wi’
bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin and
chase thee
Wi’
murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry man’s
dominion
Has broken nature’s
social union,
And justifies that ill opinion
Which
makes thee startle
At me, thy poor earth-born
companion
And
fellow-mortal!
Thou saw the fields lay bare
and waste
And weary winter comin’
fast,
And cozie here, beneath the
blast,
Thou
thought to dwell,
Till, crash! the cruel coulter
past
Out
thro’ thy cell.
But, Mousie, thou art no thy
lane[2]
In proving foresight may be
bain:
The best laid schemes o’
mice and men
Gang
aft a-gley,
And lea’e us nought
but grief and vain,
For
promised joy.
BURNS.
[2] Not alone.
* * * * *
A SEA-SHELL.
See what a lovely shell,
Small and pure
as a pearl,
Lying close to my foot.
Frail, but a work
divine,
Made so fairily well
With delicate
spire and whorl.
How exquisitely minute
A miracle of design!
The tiny cell is forlorn,
Void of the little
living will
That made it stir on the shore.
Did he stand at
the diamond door
Of his house in a rainbow
frill?
Did he push when
he was uncurled,
A golden foot or a fairy horn
Through his dim
water-world?
Slight, to be crushed with
a tap
Of my finger-nail
on the sand;
Small, but a work divine:
Frail, but of
force to withstand,
Year upon year, the shock
Of cataract seas
that snap
The three-decker’s oaken
spine,
Athwart the ledges
of rock,
Here on the Breton strand.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
* * * * *
THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.
This is the ship of pearl,
which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed
main,—
The venturous
bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its
purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where
the Siren sings,
And coral reefs
lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise
to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no
more unfurl;
Wrecked is the
ship of pearl!
And every chambered
cell,
Where its dim dreaming life
was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped
his growing shell,
Before thee lies
revealed,—
Its irised ceiling rent, its
sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the
silent toil
That spread his
lustrous coil;
Still, as the
spiral grew,
He left the past year’s
dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft steps its
shining archway through,
Built up its idle
door,
Stretched in his last-found
home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message
brought by thee,
Child of the wandering
sea,
Cast from her
lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer
note is born
Than ever Triton blew from
wreathed horn!
While on mine
ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of
thought I hear a voice that sings:—
“Build thee more stately
mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons
roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted
past!
Let each temple, nobler than
the last,
Shut thee from heaven within
a dome more vast,
Till thou at length
art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell
by life’s unwresting sea!”
O. W. HOLMES.
* * * * *
HIAWATHA’S BROTHERS.
When he heard the owls at
midnight,
Hooting, laughing in the forest,
“What is that?”
he cried in terror;
“What is that?”
he said, “Nokomis?”
And the good Nokomis answered:
“That is but the owl
and owlet,
Talking in their native language,
Talking, scolding at each
other.”
Then the little
Hiawatha
Learned of every bird its
language,
Learned their names and all
their secrets,
How they built their nests
in Summer,
Where they hid themselves
in Winter,
Talked with them whene’er
he met them,
Called them “Hiawatha’s
Chickens.”
Of all beasts
he learned the language,
Learned their names and all
their secrets,
How the beavers built their
lodges,
Where the squirrels hid their
acorns,
How the reindeer ran so swiftly,
Why the rabbit was so timid,
Talked with them whene’er
he met them,
Called them “Hiawatha’s
Brothers.”
Then Iagoo, the
great boaster,
He the marvellous story-teller,
He the traveller and the talker,
He the friend of old Nokomis,
Made a bow for Hiawatha;
From a branch of ash he made
it,
From an oak-bough made the
arrows,
Tipped with flint, and winged
with feathers,
And the cord he made of deer-skin.
Then he said to
Hiawatha:
“Go, my son, into the
forest,
Where the red deer herd together,
Kill for us a famous roebuck,
Kill for us a deer with antlers!”
Forth into the
forest straightway
All alone walked Hiawatha
Proudly, with his bow and
arrows;
And the birds sang ruffed
him, o’er him,
“Do not shoot us, Hiawatha!”
Sang the robin, the Opechee,
Sang the bluebird, the Owaissa,
H. W. LONGFELLOW: Hiawatha.
* * * * *
UNOFFENDING CREATURES.
The Being that is in the clouds
and air,
That is in the green leaves
among the groves,
Maintains a deep and reverential
care
For the unoffending creatures
whom he loves.
One lesson, Shepherd, let
us two divide,
Taught both by what He shows,
and what conceals,
Never to blend our pleasure
or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest
thing that feels.
WORDSWORTH.
* * * * *
SEPTEMBER.
And sooth to say, yon vocal
grove
Albeit uninspired by love,
By love untaught to ring,
May well afford to mortal
ear
An impulse more profoundly
dear
Than music of the spring.
But list! though winter storms
be nigh
Unchecked is that soft harmony:
There lives Who can provide,
For all his creatures:
and in Him,
Even like the radiant Seraphim,
These choristers confide.
WORDSWORTH.
* * * * *
THE LARK.
Happy,
happy liver,
With a soul as strong as a
mountain river,
Pouring out praises to the
Almighty Giver.
WORDSWORTH.
* * * * *
THE SWALLOW.
When weary, weary winter
Hath melted into
air,
And April leaf and blossom
Hath clothed the
branches bare,
Came round our English dwelling
A voice of summer
cheer:
’Twas thine, returning
swallow,
The welcome and
the dear.
Far on the billowy ocean
A thousand leagues
are we,
Yet here, sad hovering o’er
our bark,
What is it that
we see?
Dear old familiar swallow,
What gladness
dost thou bring:
Here rest upon our flowing
sail
Thy weary, wandering
wing.
MRS. HOWITT.
* * * * *
RETURNING BIRDS.
Birds, joyous birds of the
wandering wing
Whence is it ye come with
the flowers of spring?
“We come from the shores
of the green old Nile,
From the land where the roses
of Sharon smile,
From the palms that wave through
the Indian sky,
From the myrrh trees of glowing
Araby.”
MRS. HEMANS.
* * * * *
THE BIRDS.
With elegies of love
Make vocal every spray.
CUNNINGHAM.
* * * * *
THRUSH.
Whither hath the wood thrush
flown
From our greenwood
bowers?
Wherefore builds he not again
Where the wild
thorn flowers?
Bid him come! for on his wings
The sunny year
he bringeth,
And the heart unlocks its
springs
Wheresoe’er
he singeth.
BARRY CORNWALL.
* * * * *
LINNET.
Within the bush her covert
nest
A little linnet
fondly prest,
The dew sat chilly on her
breast
Sae early in the
morning.
She soon shall see her tender
brood
The pride, the
pleasure o’ the wood,
Among the fresh green leaves
bedewed,
Awake the early
morning.
BURNS.
* * * * *
NIGHTINGALE.
But thee no wintry skies can
harm
Who only needs
to sing
To make even January charm
And every season
Spring.
COWPER.
* * * * *
SONGSTERS.
Little feathered songsters
of the air
In woodlands tuneful woo and
fondly pair.
SAVAGE.
* * * * *
MOHAMMEDANISM.
THE CATTLE.[3]
The “Chapter of the
Cattle:” Heaven is whose,
And whose is earth? Say
Allah’s, That did choose
On His own might
to lay the law of mercy.
He, at the Resurrection, will
not lose
One of His own. What
falleth, night or day,
Falleth by His Almighty word
alway.
Wilt thou have
any other Lord than Allah,
Who is not fed, but feedeth
all flesh? Say!
For if He visit thee with
woe, none makes
The woe to cease save He;
and if He takes
Pleasure to send
thee pleasure, He is Master
Over all gifts; nor doth His
thought forsake
The creatures of the field,
nor fowls that fly;
They are “a people”
also: “These, too, I
Have set,”
the Lord saith, “in My book of record;
These shall be gathered to
Me by and by.”
With Him of all things secret
are the keys;
None other hath them, but
He hath; and sees
Whatever is in
land, or air, or water,
Each bloom that blows, each
foam-bell on the seas.
E. ARNOLD: Pearls of the Faith.
[3] Koran, chap. vi.
* * * * *
I cannot believe that any creature was created for uncompensated misery; it would be contrary to God’s mercy and justice.
MARY SOMERVILLE.
* * * * *
THE SPIDER AND THE DOVE.
The spider and the dove,—what
thing is weak
If Allah makes it strong?
The spider and the dove! if
He protect,
Fear thou not foeman’s
wrong.
From Mecca to Medina fled
our Lord,
The horsemen followed fast;
Into a cave to shun their
murderous rage,
Mohammed, weary, passed.
Quoth Aba Bekr, “If
they see me die!”
Quoth Eba Foheir, “Away!”
The guide Abdallah said, “The
sand is deep,
Those footmarks will betray.”
Then spake our Lord “We
are not four but Five;
He who protects is here.
‘Come! Al-Muhaimin’
now will blind their eyes;
Enter, and have no fear.”
The band drew nigh; one of
the Koreish cried,
“Search ye out yonder
cleft,
I see the print of sandalled
feet which turn
Thither, upon the left!”
But when they drew unto the
cavern’s mouth,
Lo, at its entering in,
A ring-necked desert-dove
sat on her eggs;
The mate cooed soft within.
And right athwart the shadow
of the cave
A spider’s web was spread;
The creature hung upon her
web at watch;
Unbroken was each thread;
“By Thammuz’ blood,”
the unbelievers cried,
“Our toil and time are
lost;
Where doves hatch, and the
spider spins her snare,
No foot of man hath crossed!”
Thus did a desert bird and
spider guard
The blessed Prophet then;
For all things serve their
maker and their God
Better than thankless men.
Pearls of the Faith.
* * * * *
THE YOUNG DOVES.
There came before our Lord
a certain one
Who said, “O Prophet!
as I passed the wood
I heard the voice of youngling
doves which cried,
While near the nest their
pearl-necked mother cooed.
“Then in my cloth I
tied those fledglings twain,
But all the way the mother
fluttered nigh;
See! she hath followed hither.”
Spake our Lord:
“Open thy knotted cloth,
and stand thou by.”
But when she spied her nestlings,
from the palm
Down flew the dove, of peril
unafeared,
So she might succor these.
“Seest thou not,”
Our Lord said, “how
the heart of this poor bird
“Grows by her love,
greater than his who rides
Full-face against the spear-blades?
Thinkest thou
Such fire divine was kindled
to be quenched?
I tell ye nay! Put back
upon the bough
“The nest she claimeth thus: I tell ye nay!
From Allah’s self cometh this wondrous love:
Yea! And I swear by Him who sent me here,
He is more tender than a nursing dove,
“More pitiful to men than
she to these.
Therefore fear God in whatsoe’er ye deal
With the dumb peoples of the wing and hoof.”
* * * * *
Pearls of the Faith.
* * * * *
FORGIVEN.
Verily there are rewards for our doing good to dumb animals, and giving them water to drink. A wicked woman was forgiven who, seeing a dog at a well holding out his tongue from thirst, which was near killing him, took off her boot, and tied it to the end of her garment, and drew water in it for the dog, and gave him to drink; and she was forgiven her sin for that act.
Table Talk of Mohammed.
* * * * *
PRAYERS.
It is recorded of the Prophet, that when, being on a journey, he alighted at any place, he did not say his prayers until he had unsaddled his camel.
POOLE’S Mohammed.
* * * * *
DUMB MOUTHS.
By these dumb mouths be ye
forgiven,
Ere ye are heard pleading
with heaven.
Pearls of the Faith.
* * * * *
THE PARSEES.
FROM THE ZEND AVESTA.
Of all and every kind of sin which I have committed against the creatures of Ormazd, as stars, moon, sun, and the red-burning fire, the Dog, the Birds, the other good creatures which are the property of Ormazd, if I have become a sinner against any of these, I repent.
* * * * *
“If a man gives bad food to a shepherd Dog, of what sin is he guilty?”
Ahura Mazda[4] answered:
“It is the same guilt as though he should serve bad food to a master of a house of the first rank.”
* * * * *
“The dog, I, Ahura Mazda, have made self-clothed and self-shod, watchful, wakeful, and sharp-toothed, born to take his food from man and to watch over man’s goods.
“I, Ahura Mazda, have made the dog strong of body against the evil-doer and watchful over your goods, when he is of sound mind.”
[4] Ahura Mazda or Ormazd
is the King of Light; the Good. The Zend
Avesta
is of great but uncertain antiquity; believed to be
three
thousand
years old.
* * * * *
HINDOO.
He who, seeking his own happiness, does not punish or kill beings who also long for happiness, will find happiness after death.
Dhammapada.
Whoever in this world harms living beings, and in whom there is no compassion for living beings, let one know him as an outcast.
Sutta Nipata.
* * * * *
THE TIGER.
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the
fire?
And what shoulder and what
art
Could twist the sinews of
thy heart?
And, when thy heart began
to beat,
What dread hand forged thy
dread feet?
What the hammer? what the
chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What
dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down
their spears,
And watered heaven with their
tears,
Did He smile his work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make
thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
WILLIAM BLAKE.
* * * * *
VALUE OF ANIMALS.
Nobody doubts their general value, as nobody doubts the value of sunlight; but a more practical appreciation may be felt of their moneyed value if we look at that aspect of the question in some of its details.
We quote from a hand-book published for the South Kensington Museum:—
“CLASS I.—Animal Substances employed for Textile Manufactures and Clothing. Division I. Wool, Mohair, and Alpaca. Division II. Hair, Bristles, and Whalebone. Division III. Silk. Division IV. Furs. Division V. Feathers, Down, and Quills. Division VI. Gelatin, Skins, and Leathers.
“CLASS II.—Animal Substances used for Domestic and Ornamental Purposes. Division I. Bone and Ivory. Division II. Horns and Hoofs. Division III. Tortoise-shell. Division IV. Shells and Marines. Animal Products for Manufacture, Ornaments, etc. Division V. Animal Oils and Fats.
“CLASS III.—Pigments and Dyes yielded by Animals."—Division I. Cochineal and Kermes. Division II. Lac and its applications. Division III. Nutgalls, Gall Dyes, Blood, etc. Division IV. Sepia, Tyrian Purple, Purree, etc.
“CLASS IV.—Animal Substances used in Pharmacy and in Perfumery." Division I. Musk, Civet, Castorem, Hyraceum, and Ambergris. Division II. Cantharides, Leeches, etc.
“CLASS V.—Application of Waste Matters. Division I. Entrails and Bladders. Division II. Albumen, Casein, etc. Division III. Prussiates of Potash and Chemical Products of Bone, etc. Division IV. Animal Manures—Guano, Coprolites, Animal Carcases, Bones, Fish Manures, etc.”
From a table of the value of imports of animal origin brought into the United Kingdom in the year 1875, we take a few items:—
“Live animals, L8,466,226. Wool of various kinds, L23,451,887. Silk, manufactures of all kinds, L12,264,532. Silk, raw and thrown, L3,546,456. Butter, L8,502,084. Cheese, L4,709,508. Eggs, L2,559,860. Bacon and hams, L6,982,470. Hair of various kinds, L1,483,984. Hides, wet and dry, L4,203,371. Hides, tanned or otherwise prepared, L2,814,042. Guano, L1,293,436. Fish, cured or salted, L1,048,546.”
The value of the domestic stock in Great Britain and Channel Islands, in 1875, is stated to have been:—
“Horses, 1,349,691 at L16, L21,587,056. Cattle, 6,050,797 at L10, L60,507,970. Sheep, 29,243,790 at L1 10s., L43,865,685. Swine, 2,245,932 at L1 5s., L2,807,415. Total, L128,768,126.”
“When we find,” says the compiler of the statistics from which we have quoted, “that the figures give an estimated money value exceeding L331,000,000 sterling, and that to this has to be added all the dairy produce; the poultry and their products for Great Britain; the annual clip of British wool, which may be estimated at 160,000,000 lbs., worth at least L8,000,000; the hides and skins, tallow, horns, bones, and other offal, horse and cow hair, woollen rags collected, the game and rabbits, the sea and river fisheries; besides the products of our woollen, leather, glove, silk, soap, and comb manufactures retained for home consumption, furs, brushes, and many other articles, we ought to add a great many millions more to the aggregate value or total.”—SIMMONDS: Animal Products, p. xix.
* * * * *
SOCIETIES FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.
The first society formed under this name, or for this object, was the “Royal,” of London, in 1825.
The first in America was that of New York, in 1866; that of Pennsylvania, in 1867; and that of Massachusetts, in 1868.
They all sprang from the same Christian root with the other great voluntary organizations for religious and moral purposes which distinguished the century just passed. All helped to widen the consciousness of the world, and to prepare the way for reformations not then thought of.
In this goodly company of voluntary societies, those for the Protection of Animals are entitled to an honorable place. It is not too much to say that any list would be incomplete without them.
But they have gone beyond Europe and America, and are spreading over the world. Among their devoted members are found the professors of many religions.
These “Voices,” it is hoped, may impel their readers, wherever they may be, to help on, through such Societies, a long delayed work of justice to the humbler creatures of God. In many countries the young may find juvenile societies to promote the cause in schools and neighborhoods.
But whether inside or outside of organizations, the words of Mr. Longfellow suggest a universal duty,—
“Act, act in the living
present,
Hearts within and God o’erhead.”
* * * * *
Achilles, Horses of
Action
Ahura-Mazda
Aix, Good News to
Alexander
Allah
Among the Noblest
Ancient Mariner
Animals and Human Speech
Animals, Feeling for
Animals, Happiness
Baby, Human
Bavieca
Bay Billy
Beaver
Bedouin’s Rebuke
Bees, The
Beetle
Beggar and Dog
Be Kind
Bess, Poor
Bible
Bird and Ship
Bird King
Bird, Lost
Bird of the Wilderness
Birds
Birds and Mohammed
Birds at Dawn
Bird’s Evening Song
Birds In Spring
Birds Learning to Fly
Birds Let Loose
Bird’s Ministry
Birds Must Know
Birds, Our Teachers
Birds Returning
Birds, Shadows of
Birthday Address
Birth of the Horse
Blanco
Bloodhound
Bluebird
Bob-o’-link
Bride
Brotherhood
Buddhism
Butrago, Lord of
Cage
Canary
Can they Suffer?
Cat
Care for the Lowest
Chick-a-dee-dee
Child, Lydia Maria
Chipmunk
Choir, Hymeneal
Choir, Invisible
Cid and Bavieca
Cock’s Shrill Clarion
Compassion
Concord
Cormorant
Crane
Cricket
Crow
Cruelty, Effect of, on Man
Cuckoo
Damascus
Darwin, Charles
Delft
Dog
Dog “Blanco”
Dog “Don”
Dog “Flight”
Dogs, Dead
Dogs, Domestic
Dogs, Epitaph on
Dogs “Faithful”
Dog’s Grave
Doves
Do with your Own
Do you Know?
Drudge
Ducks
Dumb
Dumb Mouths
Duty
Duty and Fame
Dying in Harness
Eagle
Eggs
Egyptian Ritual
Elegy
Elephants
Emperor’s Bird’s-Nest
Epitaph
Erskine, Lord
Exulting Sings
Failures
Fame and Duty
Feathered Tribes
Feeling for Animals
Field Sparrow
Fire
Firmness and Faithfulness
Foray, The
Freedom to Beasts
Friend of every Friendless Beast
Friends
Future, The
Gamarra
Geist’s Grave
Gelert
Generosity
Gentleness
Giant’s Strength
Glow-Worm
God’s Children
Good News to Aix
Good Samaritan
Good Will
Grasshoppers
Graves, Collins, Ride of
Grey Friars’ Bobby
Growth of Humane Ideas
Gulls
Happiness of Animals
Hare
Harness, Dying in
Harper, The
Heart Service
Helvellyn
Hen and Honey Bee
Herbert, George
Herod, my Hound
Heroes
Herons of Elmwood
Hiawatha’s Brothers
Hill-Star’s Nest
Hippopotamus
Honor and Revere
Horse. See Rides.
Horse
Horse, Birth of
Horse, Blood
Horse, Fallen
Horse of Achilles
Horse Waiting for Master
Horse, War
Hound
Howard, John
Hindoo Poem
Hindooism
Humanity
Humming-Bird
Hundred Farms
Hymns
Immortality
India
Indian
In Holy Books
Inscriptions
Insect
Instinct
Introduction
Irish Wolf-Hound
Jay
June Day
Justice
Killingworth, Birds of
Kindness
Kindness to Aged Creatures
King of Denmark’s Ride
Kites
L’Allegro
Lamb
Lark
Lark (Sky)
Lark (Wood)
Leaders
Learn from the Creatures
Legend of Cross-Bill
Lexington
Life is Glad
Lincoln, Robert of
Linnet
Little Brown Bird
Little by Little
Living Swan
Llewellyn and Gelert
Looking for Pearls
Lord of Butrago
Lost
Love
Loyalty
Magpie
Man’s Morality on Trial
Man’s Rule
Man’s Supremacy
Marriage Feast
Martin
Mausoleum
Measureless Gulfs
Mercy
Misery
Monkey
Moral Lessons
Mother’s Care
Mountain and Squirrel
Mouse, A Field
Myth
Nautilus
Natural Rights
Nature, Animated
Nature’s Teachings
Nest
Newfoundland Dog
Newsboy
Nightingale
Nobility
No Ceremony
No Grain of Sand
Non-interference
Not born for Death
Not Contempt
Nothing Alone
Odyssey
Old Mill
Old Spaniel
One Hundred Years Ago
Open Sky
Oriole
Our Pets
Owl
Ox
Pain to Animals
Papers
Parrots
Parsees
Peacock
Peepul Tree
Pegasus in Pound
Persevere
Petrel, Stormy
Pets, Our
Pheasant
Phoebe
Piccola
Pity
Plutarch
Poor Dog Tray
Prayers
Pretty Birds
Pussy
Quail
Questions
Quit the Nest
Reason
Returning Birds
Ride of Collins Graves
Ride of King of Denmark
Ride of Paul Revere
Ride of Sheridan
Ride of “The Colonel”
Ride to Aix
Rights Must Win
Rights, Natural
Ring Out
Robins
Roland
Rooks
Room Enough
Rover
Sake of the Animals
Sand, No Grain of
Sandpiper
Scarecrow
Sea-Fowl
Sea Shell
September
Shadows of Birds
Shaftesbury, Earl of
Shag
Sheep
Shepherd’s Home
She-Wolf
Ship of Pearl
Siddartha
Sin
Six Feet
Skylark
Societies for Protection of Animals
Solitude
Songs
Sorrow
Sounds and Songs
Sparrow
Spider
Squirrel
Statue over the Cathedral Door
St. Francis
Stole the Eggs
Stole the Nest
Stork
Study of Animals
Suffer, Can they?
Suffering
Sultan
Swallow
Swan
Sympathy
Tame Animals
Teeth of Dog
Tenderness
Te whit, te who
Texts. See Bible.
Thrush
Tiger
Tiger Moth
Tom
Tramp
Trotwood, Betsy
Troubadour
Trust
Truth
Ulysses
Upward
Value of Animals to Man
Venice, Doves of
Village Sounds
Vireos
Virtue
Vision
Vivisection
Vogelweid, Walter von der
Waiting for Master
War-Horse
Waterfowl
Way to Sing
Wedding Guest
Wedding, The Fairy
What the Birds Say
Whippoorwill
Who Stole the Bird’s Eggs?
Who Stole the Bird’s Nest?
Who Taught?
William of Orange
Williamsburg
Winchester
Wish, A
Wolf
Wolf-Hound
Wood Lark
Wood Pigeons
Workman of God
Worm
Worm Turns, The
Wren
Yudhistthira
* * * * *
Akenside, Mark
Alger’s Oriental Poetry
Amicis, de E.
Andros, R. S.
Anonymous. See Unknown.
Aristotle
Arnold, Edwin
Arnold, Matthew
Asoka, Emperor
Barbauld, Mrs.
Bates, Mrs. C. D.
Bentham, Jeremy
Berry, Mrs. C. F.
Bible
Blackie, Professor
Blake, William
Blanchard, Laman
Bostwick, Helen B.
Bremer, Frederika
Bright, John
Brine, Mary D.
Brooks, Rev. C. T.
Brougham, John
Browning, Mrs. E. B.
Browning, Robert
Bryant, W. C.
Buddhism. See Hindoo.
Burns, Robert
Butler, Bishop
Byron, Lord
Caird, Rev. Dr.
Californian
Campbell, Thomas
Carlyle, Mrs. Thomas
Carpenter, Rev. H. B.
Carpenter, Rev. J. E.
Chamber’s Journal
Chamisso
Child’s Book of Poetry
Cincinnati Humane Appeal
Clayton, Sir Robert
Clough, Arthur H.
Cobbe, Miss F. P.
Coleridge, Hartley
Coleridge, S. T.
Corbett, E. T.
Cornwall, Barry
Cowper, William
Craik, Mrs. Dinah M.
Cunningham, Allen
Cuvier, Baron
Davids, T. W. R.
Dickens, Charles
Dryden, John
Egyptian Ritual
Eliot, George
Emerson, R. W.
Faber, F. W.
Fields, James T.
Gassaway, F. H.
Gisborne, Thomas
Goethe
Goldsmith, O.
Gray
H. H.
Hathaway, E.
Hedge, Rev. Dr. F. H.
Helps, Arthur
Hemans, Mrs.
Herbert, George
Hindoo
Hogg, James
Holland, J. G.
Holmes, O. W.
Homer
Howitt, Mary
Humane Journal
Hunt, Leigh
Hymns for Mothers
Ingelow, Jean
Jackson, Mrs. See H. H.
Job
Johnson, Laura W.
Keats, John
Keble, J.
Kingsley, Charles
Lamb, Charles and Mary
Langhorne, J.
Larcom, Lucy
Lathbury, Mary A.
Lawrence, Kate
Lewes, Mrs. See George Elliot.
Lillie, Arthur
Lockhart, J. G.
Logan, John
Longfellow, H. W.
Lord, Miss Emily B.
Lowell, James R.
Lowell, Maria
Luther, Martin
Mahabharata
Mackenzie
MacCarthy, Denis F.
Mason, Caroline A.
Masque of Poets
McLeod, Norman
Mill, John Stuart
Milton, John
Mohammed
Moore, Thomas
Motley, J. L.
Mueller, Max
Muloch. See Mrs. Dinah M. Craik.
Norton, Mrs. C. E.
Odyssey
O’Reilly, John Boyle
Paine, Miss Harriet E.
Parseeism
Perry, Carolina Coronado de
Pfeiffer, Emily
Plutarch
Poole, Stanley
Pope, Alexander
Preston, Margaret J.
Procter. See Barry Cornwall.
Punch
Read, T. B.
Ruskin, John
Savage, Richard
Saxe, John G.
Schiller
Scott, Walter
Scudder, Eliza
Shakespeare, W.
Shelley, P. B.
Shenstone, W.
Sheppard, Mary.
Simmonds
Somerville, Mary
Southey, Robert
Spenser, W. R.
Stanley, A. P.
Sterling, John
Swing, David
Taylor, Bayard
Taylor, Emily
Taylor, Henry
Temple Bar
Tennyson, Alfred
Thaxter, Mrs. Celia
Unknown
Verplanck, Julia C.
Walton, Izaak
Whittier, J. G.
Wilcox
Wither, George
Woolson, C. F.
Wordsworth, W.
Zend Avesta