 | The music-lesson of Confucius, And Other Poems |  |
THE WONDERFUL CROW.
Erfordiensis quidam civis corvum in deliciis habuisse dicitur quem spiritum ejusmodi fuisse (i.e. spiritus aeri) quod sequitur evincit. Quum quidam die tacitum et tristem videret, ‘quid tu,’ inquit jocabundus, ‘mi corve ita mæstus es; quidve cogitas? Heîc ex improviso ingeminat: Cogitavi dies antiquos et annos æternos in mente habui. Statimque ex oculis heri disparuit.
‘There was a certain citizen of Erfurth who had a pet crow which was one of these spirits of the air, as the following fully proves. For seeing him one day sad and silent, the master said in joke: “Well, my crow, why are you so sorrowful, and of what are you thinking?” To whom the crow mournfully made answer from the seventy-seventh Psalm: “I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.” Having said this he suddenly disappeared from the eyes of his lord.’—
Henrici Kornmanni. Opera Curiosa Francofurti, A.M., A.D. 1694.Where nightingales sing all summer long,
By the river Gesar Erfurth stands,
A town well-known in many lands;
For there—as all the histories tell—
Great Luther had a cloister cell.
Enough—of him no further word,
My song is of a humbler bird
Than the great Reformation swan,
Whose notes were heard in freedom's dawn.
A gentleman once tamed a crow,
Which proved to be a wondrous bird,
If we may trust a writer's word:
For he cawed to the horses in the stable,
Could dance a hornpipe on the table,
Beat time with his bill to the harper's tunes,
Pilfered honey and hid the spoons,
Kissed the maidens and bullied the cats,
Played with the children and chased the rats,
Frolicked about in the kitchen dens
Where he earned a living by driving hens,
Broke with his bill the window panes,
And was always tangled in ladies' trains,
Till everybody declared that he
Was the life and soul of the family.
A change came over that jolly crow.
No more he heeded the harper's tunes,
No longer he pilfered honey or spoons,
No more to the hens was a constable grim,
And the cats quite lost their awe of him;
While after dinner he danced no more
His ‘wheel-about’ jigs on table or floor,
And his health and spirits sunk so low
That he seemed to be quite a converted crow.
‘Crow! what fancies are in your head,
Or what mighty sorrow is on your soul,
That you mope and hide like a frightened mole?
Crow, my Crony—’
The master started and opened his eyes,
While a sense of doubt and terror stole o'er him,
As though a ghost had jumped up before him.
The crow uplifted his voice and spoke,
In good clear tones, with no awe or qualms,
From the Seventy-seventh of David's Psalms:
‘Cogitavi dies antiquos’—
(Here he paused)—‘et annos æternos.’
He spoke with great solemnity,
Setting forth this ancient Chronology;
But ere a second breath they drew
He spread his wings, and away he flew
Far over river and road and plain,
And never in Erfurth was seen again.
MORAL.
'Tis common in every placeTo set forth by a crow the negro race,
As Gilmore Simms long years ago
Made known in his tale of The Lazy Crow.
And 'tis very fine, if you are able,
To have them work on your farm or stable,
Dance your jigs and beat your call,
And ‘never pay them nothing at all.’
But it cannot last for ever, you know,
For a time will come when every crow,
After being silent and perplexed,
Will search the Scriptures and find a text,—
A text of the wonderful days of old,
When truth was to white and black unrolled,
Then find his tongue. Fire melts all frost;
E'en the negro will find his Pentecost—
And, speaking out, like a soul set free,
Will rise to knowledge and liberty.
| The music-lesson of Confucius, And Other Poems | |