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.
JOHN BOYLE
* * * * *
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, Æsculapius,
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 wingèd 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
Wingèd 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,
And at my window bid good-morrow
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin;
And to the stack, or the barn door,
Stoutly struts his dames before;
Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill.
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 wingèd 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.