The Judgement of the Flood :: :: University of Virginia Library

Then came the Birds that fly, perch, walk, or swim:
For each hath on the globe its proper site.
Highest in air the Birds of Prey upsoar,
On trees the Insessorial station hold,
Midway 'twixt air, and earth; on earth itself
The Gallinaceous tribes nest, feed, and walk,
Their wings for flight unsuited; fens among

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And marshes, haunt the Waders; and on brook
And lake and river float the Swimmer race:
All these are here; for even the ocean brood
Flood would destroy, and shipwreck of a world.
All these, according to their several kinds,
Their classes, orders, and their families.

The Condor, and the Vulture Californ,
Both large of bulk; one caruncled of beak,
And void of comb, but both with ruff of down,
Female, and male, about the neck ornate.
Dwellers in air upon the peak of snow;
Nor from such height descending save brought down
By hunger; when with beak, and talons they
Subdue their victim, next to banquet fall,
Till gorged, their wings avail not for the flight,
Then on them comes the hunter, and with ease,
Surprising with the lasso, them secures.

The Caracarra, darkly beautiful,
And dignified of walk; inhabitant
Of tree, and bush, and preying upon all;
Also the Vulturine, of attitude
Erect, like eagles, in their prime of pride.
—The gorgeous Harpy, short of wing, robust
Of leg, and strong of beak, and talons curved,
To prey on larger kinds, a crested bird,
Imperial but ferocious, sternly wild,
Boldly destructive, fearing not or man,
Or beast; but rare, else with tremendous power
'Twould rule alone—even as it loves to live,
Far in the solitary depth, and gloom
Of thickest forests, perched on tree aloft,
In voiceless, and in motionless repose—
Sans rival, or sans subject, species sole.

The Owl—the snowy Owl—nocturnal bird,
Untufted, small of ear, and large of eye;
Hairy of leg even to the very claw;

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Of plumage soft, close, thick; meet armour warm
For arctic region, burying even the beak
Within the feathery disks: the Eagle-Owl,
Plumèd of head, with beak, and back, and leg,
Covered with plumage, sable-fawn of hue;
Singular bird, and lover of the dark,
By day in dusk, and solitary place
Retires he, waiting twilight, silent perched,
In all the unconscious gravity of sleep,
The type of Wisdom. Him thus sadly set
The smaller birds attack, in hate, or sport,
With wanton insult: teazed, but not awaked,
About his dusk retreat the dreaming Owl
Shuffles from spot to spot, or standing fixed,
His plumage ruffles, changes attitude,
Grotesque display: meanwhile his opening eyes,
And shutting, mirth provoke; yet then his beak,
Hissing, or clattering, would premonish well
Of wrath reserved for sunset, when, with eye
And ear capacious to detect slight sound
Of rustling leaf, or herbage, he wings forth
On the poor bird retiring to its nest,
Or tiny creature to its burrow bound.
Stern, and terrific, in the wilderness,
His sudden shout by moonlight, to the lone
Traveller benighted there, from slumber roused,
Startled with screams, suppressed, and suffocate.
Of humbler grade the Barn-Owl, friend of man,
Defence of cornfield, and of granary
From rodent swarms: but now in mutual peace
With their small prey. And these, even with the Fowl
The farmer would protect, come on in groups
Associate, nor unaccompanied
With household feelings to the poet dear.

The Linnet, and the Finch; and chief, that One
Gorgeous of lengthened tail, and bright of hue:

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The Starling, Hornbill, and the Humming-Bird:
The Blackbird, and the Crows, with bill prolonged;
The Toucan, broad as well—a feathered sylph;
The Cockatoos, with rose crest falling back,
Or sulphur upward curved, of plumage white;
And the Macaws, all hues: the Parrot tribe
Magnificent, Bird-Monkies, but with voice
Human sometimes, in mockery of speech:
The Meleagris beautifully wild,
Increasing in its splendour with its years—
Strutting it came, obstreperous in pomp,
Of self-importance full. The gorgeous Fowl,
Whose plumage in a tropic sun presents
An orb of many colours, and his crest
A jewellery tiara, blue, and green,
Crowning the gracefullest of crownèd heads:
The Bird of Gold, with long and archèd tail,
Varied with scarlet, white, and dusky brown,
A princely bird: the Silver Pheasant, too,
A hardier race, though elegant of form,
And hue, and attitude; also the kind
With ring-encircled neck. With them came on
The Crested Partridge, the Raloul, and Grous,
With Tinamous, and Francolins, and Quails,
A graceful brood, and various. There too were
The Plaintive Turtles, of Love's Queen loved Birds—
Aye-coupled, ever-wooing, ever-wed;
Heard in the season of that pleasant time,
When the birds sing, and flowers appear on earth,
And puts the fig-tree forth her verdant figs,
And with the tender grape the vines are fragrant,
The winter past, the rain all gone, and over:
The Pigeon, bearer of the word of man,
Epistolary, through the air afar,
And specially renowned for all who love
The story of the Deluge, as 'twas sung

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By Musah, the great poet, skilled in lore
Of Mitzraim, leader thence of Israel
Through Sea, and Cloud unto the promised land.
Thrice Noah sent the Pigeon from the Ark
He enters now; the second time she found
Rest for her sole; but to the Patriarch brought
The branch of olive back—then Noah knew
The waters were abated from the earth;
Hence seven days after, when he let her free,
No more returned, she made the air her home.

The scarlet Ibis, mythologic bird,
And sacred, with its slender long-arched bill
And scalèd legs, and plumage brilliant, walked,
Inviting worship by its stateliness:
The Anser, whose migrations shall invade
The silent desolation of the pole,
Countries unknown, by icy barriers shut
From human vision; with the queenly Swan,
Pure white, and sable both, and tame, and wild;
And Cereopsis, and the humbler Duck,
Yet beautiful full oft, with hues of green,
And violet, and brown, with ornament
Of crescent, and of undulating lines,
Embellished on the neck, and breasts, and cheeks.

Birds of all climes—both of the East, and West—
Of England, native land. Birds of the air
I breathe; sweet are ye, and I raise, like you,
Both morn, and even, hallelujahs high,
That ye found rescue once, and were restored
To hymn the Highest, in the ear of man,
Singing your guileless loves, from death redeemed.
Dear birds of England, of her woods, and groves,
Her fields, and running rivers, hills, and vales,
Streamlets, and brooks. The Blackbird, largest kind,
Of all thy Birds of Song, my native land;
Whose notes are out before the leaves, and woo

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His partner to embraces, ere the frost
Has melted from the fields, and boast his young
Even in the March-wind's eye. The Song-thrush next,
No summer bird alone, he winter charms:
The Missel-Bird, the Red-wing, and that One
Who builds on heaths: the Starling, hardy tribe;
The docile Bullfinch; both of human words
Articulant: the Goldfinch, gay of hue;
The lavish Chaffinch, and the Greenfinch strong:
The Linnet sweet, and curious in his lay;
The Twite, a sojourner, all mirth, and glee;
The Sky-Lark, who builds deepest, highest soars,
And sings as he upward flies; the Wood-Lark, too,
The rival of the Nightingale; and thou,
O Nightingale, wert there, whom, as a type
Of my sage theme, these epic numbers oft
Have honourably mentioned. Thou wert, too,
Saved in the Ark, and, with the Wood-Lark, triedst
Thy skill; while Noah listened, and his Sons,
And Chavah, and her Daughters, to the strife.
Also were there sweet birds of humbler type:
The Titlark, finely feathered, and the free
Redbreast, familiar, shrill of melody;
The Redpole, winter race, and emigrant;
The small Redstart, and shy; the common Wren,
A tiny minstrel, high, and bold of song;
The Yellow-Hammer, and the Reed-Sparrow;
And he who haunts the hedges: and the Bird
That comes in barley-seed-time, and departs
In Spring—brief visitant unto the land
I love; even like this song of mine, which now
The present for the past must quit again,
And England leave for Eden.

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Thus into
The Ark were entered Bird and Beast; nor lacked
The Phœnix, bird of ages; nor, I ween
That wondrous Hippogriff, whom antient fame
Spake near the sources of the ocean born,
Straight leaving earth for heaven, or dwelling on
The mount, he smote with his impatient foot,
That raised the Hippocrene; thereafter he,
Bellerophon cast off, soared to the skies,
By Jove among the constellations placed.
Well ween I the poetic animal
Stayed not behind, but in the mystic Ark,
Bare heavenly Fancies on his wingèd back,
Divinely moving to the sound of song;
A sacred courser, taught there, and preserved
For such, among the future race of men,
As with ambitious soul would visit heaven,
And bring therefrom celestial airs to earth,
For human voices to repeat enrapt.
And while the heart of man was thus poured forth,
Spirit divine upon the Cherubim
Descended glorious, and his mind became
The chariot of its God. And so was sung,
Not uninspired, the harmony which kept
The kinds now reconciled in bands of love,
Link joined on link, throughout the wonderous chain
Of regular gradation, shading oft
Resemblance into difference, multitudes,
And tribes of animals, diverse of shape,
But beauteous all to the instructed eye;
Nor was forgotten that prophetic time,
When Eden's peace shall reign once more on earth,
And the meek Lamb with the fierce Wolf repose,
The Lion, and the Leopard, and the Kid;
—But still the dust shall be the Serpent's meat.

Straight from the wilderness, whence hand Divine

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Led Man to Eden, and along the Vale
Of Armon, and across the common plain,
Even to the Mount of Paradise, defiled
The Living Circle, infinite degrees—
From the most perfect of all animals,
The articulated, sensible of nerve,
Strong, persevering, swift, and diligent,
Docile, long-living, various in pursuit,
Sagacious for set ends, to such as are
But as self-moving plants, whose lowest groups
Pass to the vegetable kinds, immersed
In mass insentient. Hence, into itself
The living circle upward aye returns:
White-blooded race compact of scattered parts,
Threaded with nerves together, gifted but
To taste—to touch—to see; and the clothed tribes
That, having no distinction in the sense,
Breathe yet, and concentrate a nervous mass,
And circulate the blood; the groups affine
Of vertebrated life, that bodily
Connects the inferiour Animal with Man.

Such was the long array: a throng so huge,
That, passing from yon Antre to the Ark,
Where they were safely stalled, from morn to eve,
From earliest morn to latest eve, seven days
They took in their progression. Such the time
Was granted, that the wicked might be warned,
Even on the eve of Judgement, if they would.
—And now the inferiour creatures all have passed
Into the place of refuge. But proud man
Seeks none in his repentance, doomed to die.

And thus within the Ark was furnished all;
Not only ranged the race of animals,
According to their kinds, but Enoch's Book
Had Shem deposited, rightly preserved
For the instruction of the World restored;

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And Japhet of his art the workmanship
Contributed, for ornament, those forms
Prophetic, by his God-directed hand
Sculptured.—Sage Brouma, of the mystic line
Of Magog, who Japetan energy
Inherited, and over Asia
Carried successful arms, and over Ind
Diffused the arts; of doctrine authour he
Braminical, and Scythian creeds, and rites
Of wise mythology o'er Egypt spread,
Phœnicia, Greece, and Asian continent;
That group symbolic, too, which shewed the Roman,
Brave son of Japhet's race, victorious o'er
The servile seed of Canaan, realm of slaves;
Their petty princes, from the earliest time,
The tributary vassals of the land
And monarchy of old Assyria,
From Asshur sprung, the second son of Shem.
In later ages, fled the Canaanite
From Joshua's conquering arms; the remnant left,
Expelled by David, were in Africa
Found of the she-wolf's foundlings, vanquished soon,
And to their sway subdued. There, too, was he,
Great Alexander, Victor of the East,
Who made encroachment on the lines of Shem—
By Aristotle taught, the sage on whom
Thy mantle, Plato, fell, but worn reversed.
Yet peaceful meaning had the oracle,
No less than warlike, by its prophecy
Of Japhet's dwelling in the tents of Shem.
This Portugal, this England, Holland, France
May witness; Japhet's race, part settled now
In Ind, and bringing there to realms once dark
The light of Truth. And Commerce vouches, too,
The passage by the Cape to orient climes,
And by thy straits, Magellan. Crowning all

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The figure of Messiah, central form,
Gave meaning to the statues, and the Ark
Made radiant with the glory of his brow.
But all were beautiful, and when released
From that their place of refuge, and beheld
By the new world, with admiration smote
Hearts, who their purpose understood but ill,
And bent to worship blind religious zeal,
That soon to mere idolatry declined.
—So in abuse corrupt the best of things,
Their origin forgotten; and, abased,
Conduce to foreign ends, and evil aims.

The Hedge-Sparrow.

The Aberdivine, called in Sussex the Barley Bird.