(Published in the Methodist Review, July, 1919).
O little artist, of rarest modesty,
Why hide thyself and sing?
Thy music fills my soul with ecstasy,
And makes the woodland ring.
Draw near, draw near, thou shy, yet happy one;
I plead with thee—draw near;
I’d share thy rapture; ’twould be heaven begun;
O Hermit sweet, appear.
Still thou wilt not, and while I long and dream
Of all that’s best for us—
The King, His primal ministers—what gleam
Of highest genius?
Sing on, elusive bird, in thy retreat,
Songs to my waiting soul;
Some day inviting rounds will be complete,
Some day, the promised goal.
And then some disappearing portion high,
Some joy just out of reach;
The more immortals yield to devotion’s tie,
The more must they beseech.
Sing on, blest bird, beyond my poor purview,
But near my home and heart:
“I love, I _love_, I LOVE; yes I love YOU!”[8]
This, thy crescendo art.
I find myself quite charmed, yet almost lost,
At the modern opera grand;
What stirs my soul so deep, what I love most,
Thy song—and I understand.
But O that I could see thy beaming eye—
Mine eye on thee, all song!
Why so secretive, yet seductive—why?
My suit, renewed, so strong.
That tree, those leaves around thee—if they knew
Their day and honored hour,
Each leaf and branch would homage pay, thy due,
Aflame with joy that bower.
Such rich and rounded notes proceed from thee,
Enchanting naiveté:
From sleep thou wakest me with highborn glee,
When comes the King of day.
At eventide thou callest me to prayer,
More clear than churchly chime,
In wood and sky, in pure, perfumed air—
His temple, thine and mine.
No passing wonder, sing Nightingales
In Russ or Tuscan clime;
No hope have they in these Columbic vales
To match thy tones and time.
[7] If anyone thinks the author has overdrawn the artistic merits of
the bird, he is referred to the expert opinion of F. Schuyler Mathews
in his “Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music,” pages 234-246,
wherein this musician and lover of birds convincingly compares and
contrasts, by musical scales and other data, the powers of the Hermit
and Nightingale in favor of the former.—C. J.
[8] With slight change the interpretation by Mathews of the song of the
Olive Back Thrush.
[Illustration: THE HERMIT THRUSH.]
Like cooling streams in a parched, desert land,
To thirsting souls and worn;
Like evening’s changing charms, no artist’s hand
Can set in painted bourn;
Like sweetest dreams to troubled hearts in slumbers,
Uplift to heaven’s heights—
Just so thy symphonies, heard in rolling numbers,
Thy high and holy flights.
O anchoret, near Nature’s heart, again
I pray, come forth and sing.
Ah, there—O joy! I glimpsed thee, Hermit fain—
Now gone on gentle wing.
My eye too piercing, and my quest too keen,
Unfathomable bird.
Once more contented I—remain unseen,
And yet thy harmony heard.
This I have found, as fast thou holdeth me:
Thou startest full, and risest;
And all doth thrill—sweet, moving melody,
Climbing to the highest.
No pipe, no flute, organ or organist,
Can reach thine allegro,
And thy cadenza, thou transcendentalist—
’Tis music with naught of woe.
Whence come from singers proud their hard-won notes?
In truth from the music master,
By repetition oft and untrained throats—
To hearers, near disaster.
The master’s whence, the singing pioneer,
Great Haydn or Beethoven?
Sing on, my thrilling thrush, but wilt thou hear?
From thee, and thou from Heaven!
Long hours I’ve listened lone, in deep delight,
To thy glad musicals;
And when I breathe my last, O anchorite,
Sing soft angelicals.
[Illustration: Turtle Dove and Bluebirds.]
[Illustration: Chipmunk—Note his pockets well-filled with grain to be
carried to his granary.]
[Illustration: “Brownie,” a young pet Thrasher, raised by Artena.]
[Illustration: At Lunch—Snapped at the Memphis Zoo.]
[Illustration: Pet Macaw. See p. 84.]
[Illustration: His Majesty, The Swan.]
Photos by the Author.
[Illustration]