Carol and Cadence :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ye, that demi-spirits are,
Angels of our nether air,
From the far
Distance of the None-knows-where
Flying, faring here and there,
Dear o'er all you are to me
For your fashions fair and free
And for that you come, meseems,
From the country of my dreams,
From the worlds 'twixt star and star,
Where the souls of poets dwell,
Bow'red in beds of asphodel,
Till the wave of Birth resurgent bear them over Being's bar.

Birds, meseemeth, you the link
Are betwixten Heaven and man,
On the brink
Of the lands Elysian
Hovering, since the world began,
In the spheres crepuscular,
Hearkening, through the gates ajar,
To the angels' carol sweet
In the Golden City's street,
Till, your lesson learnt, you sink
Down to this our earth of sorrow
And with echoes, which you borrow,
Faint, yet fair, of Heaven's music give our ravished ears to drink.

Nay, whilst hearkening to your song,
As you pipe on tree and thatch,
Sweet and strong,
Now and then I think to catch,
From afar as 'twere, some snatch
Of the music that the spheres
Make for other-worldly ears;
And the endeavour what you teach
In our tedious earthly speech
Of Heaven's echoes to prolong,
Faint and failing though it be,
Cheers the sorry soul in me,
Heartens me to live and labour in this world of woe and wrong.

So forever blesséd be,
Singing spirits of our skies,
Birds, of me
And of all men enough wise
Who your pleasance are to prize,
That to this our world of night
Snatches bear of love and light,
With your flitting and your tune,
From the spheres beyond the moon!
Blest and honoured still be ye,
Who to our remembrance bring,
With your carol and your wing,
That which passing Life and Death is and which else forgot had we!

THE THRUSH.

The thrush sings loud
In the rosy cloud
Of the blossoming apple-tree;
The tireless story
Of April's glory
He tells for you and me.

Was ever a song
So sweet and strong
To do away annoy?
My old eyes glisten,
As here I listen,
With tears of love and joy.

In April's time
Of love and rhyme,
There is no God but Spring;
And thou, o throstle,
Art His apostle.
Heav'n strengthen thee to sing!

THE CUCKOO.

I hear the cuckoo's chime,
That reckless double rhyme
Of his; he challenges the world to match it.
There's not another bird
To take him at his word;
No rhymer in the world, he knows, can catch it.

Hope once, in dreams inane,
Showed me a vision vain,
A heaven of love, there is no wealth might buy it;
And in this world of men
I've gone about since then,
Seeking a mortal maid to whom I might apply it.

Ah, cuckoo, thou and I,
For somewhat, sure, we sigh,
That is not in our world of shreds and patches;
And that is why we shun
Our fellows and the sun
And only tell our tale by scraps and snatches.

THE BLACKBIRD.

[_]

(A reminiscence of the New Forest.)

Whilst to the meadows and the river-reaches,
From Heaven's rim,
The setting sun his daily sermon preaches,
The blackbird warbles, on the leafing beeches,
His solemn evening hymn.

With trails of glory to his grave escorted,
The sun hath set;
The light fades fast: but from the boughs, unthwarted,
By his poetic rapture still transported,
The blackbird warbles yet.

No common jubilance it is that stirs him,
No mortal mirth:
None, with an understanding ear that hears him,
Can doubt that that which to such rapture spurs him
Is not of this our earth.

If any heaven for the soul's upwinging
To sense were known,
A heaven with harps angelic ever ringing,
Thou, blackbird, must have been a seraph singing
Before the Great White Throne.

THE NIGHTINGALE.

I hear thee, nightingale;
But thou and I one tale
Tell not, though like they seem as day and morrow;
Thou sing'st of love turned hate
And I for love I rate
Nought that to anything more bitter turns than sorrow.

Ah, nightingale, ma mie,
'Tis little wise of thee,
After five thousand years, to chew the cud of passion:
There's nothing upon earth,
Believe me, that is worth
Remembering for so long and after such a fashion.

Come, counsel from me take
And sigh for vengeance' sake
No more; no thing on earth is worth our rancour;
And when a love is dead,
'Tis better o'er its head
The roses of regret to sow than let it canker.

THE LARK.

A shrill voice cleaves the air:
Who is it doth the day unto the world declare,
Before the night is gone?
It is the lark,
That, through the dark,
Upmounting, sounds aloft the clarion-call of dawn.

A black speck in the sky,
Toward the unseen sun already mounting high,
Whilst yet the world in gloom
Is clad, he knows
Day's coming rose
And soars secure to where faith tells him it will bloom.

The cock, too, tells the day;
But none his voice from earth uplifted suffer may:
Head under wing, he calls.
Dear lark, but thee
All love, with glee
That wingest, singing, up unto the heavenly halls.

Ah singing, springing soul,
That soarest up secure toward thy heavenly goal,
Would we as thou were free!
Would by this mesh
Of fretting flesh
As little we for flight as thou might hindered be!

Would heaven thy faith, dear lark,
We had and might no less, beyond this world of dark,
Like thee, the light divine!
Alack, our eyes
Pierce not Life's skies
Of gloom nor may avail to find the sun, like thine!

THE HAWFINCH.

The hawfinch comes
And roosts in May upon my budding plums.
Hawfinch, thou art not beautiful, in fine;
Thou hast no song
And (right or wrong)
The songbirds seem to shun that Hebrew beak of thine.

Thy toucan bill,
I know not if it be for good or ill;
But this I know, that when, on plum or pear,
The blackbird cons
Thy conk of bronze,
He straight bethinks himself of business otherwhere.

Nay, when thy pitch
Thou mak'st with me, my garden air, that rich
With song is wont to be in blossom-time,
Straight silent sure
Becomes and poor
Is May for me in half the pleasance of the Prime.

So, without thought
Of lack of courtesy to thee in aught,
Might I suggest that thou belike too soon
Hast by mistake
Forsook the brake?
How if thou wentest back and cam'st again in June?

More welcome thou
(I mean no slight) to me wert then than now.
These singing birds are fanciful, God knows,
Like tenors all,
Both great and small,
And apt to take offence at anybody's nose.

THE FINCH.

[_]

(A reminiscence of the Black Forest.)

Finch, that the ways of the world and its business abhorrest,
Yet that before me flitt'st on without cease through the forest,
Still looking back,
Like to the wood-nymph that fled of old time from Apollo,
Over thy shoulder, to see and be sure that I follow
Fast in thy track,

Whither and what is the wood-nook whereto thou wouldst lead me?
What is the lesson that thou with thy fluting wouldst read me,
Bird of the brake?
'Tis as thou feltest that Nature hath me, who her features
Better than those of my mates know, with love for her creatures
Filled for her sake;

'Tis as thou knewest that I, too, the sun-ways, where riper
Cluster Life's grapes, shun, that I too, like thee, am a piper
Under the shade,
Haunter of dell-deeps, like thee, where a dream the air darkens,
Singer of songs in the silence, whereunto none hearkens,
When they are made.

Bird of the wilds and the woodlands, say, what is thy will with me?
Why, thou shy shunner of humankind, lingerest thou still with me,
Hovering near?
Haply some message thou bearest at heart, worth the telling,
Or peradventure some tale of delight soul-compelling
Hast for mine ear?

Say, art thou minded to bring me where, far from Life's Babel,
Wait their return to Olympus the Gods of old fable,
In the wood-deep,
Or to some wonderland lead me wouldst thou, where no care is,
Where there is solace for sorrow, where wood nymphs and fairies
Sing it to sleep?

Or wouldst thou show me where, hidden in solitudes shady,
Waits me, close shut in some castle of Faerie, the lady
Whom in my dreams
Still day and night have I looked on and loved and there only,
She for whose sake I have wandered lifelong by the lonely
Beaches and streams?

Vain, all in vain is my asking! Nought, nought thou repliest.
Still with thy questioning ditty before me thou fliest,
Answer unknown.
Sudden a sun-ray there falls on the bough where thou littest;
And on the wings of the light, like a sunbeam, thou flittest,
Leaving me lone.

THE SWALLOW.

The swallow's made her nest;
With blossom blithe from East is the laughing land
To West.
Love's old nest in my heart

Long, long hath fallen apart;
There's no bird in my breast
To tell that the time
Of the pleasant Prime
For me is near at hand.

The swallow's flying low;
There's rain a-coming, — at least, the weather-wise
Say so.
The heart sinks low in me
And lower. Can it be
(Who's wise enough to know?)
That storm and rain
Are a-brew again
In my life's leaden skies?

The swallow's on the wing;
She's off to morrow to lands where Summer still
Is King.
When will the time, old soul,
For thee come, tow'rd the goal
Of Life's adventuring
To take thy flight,
To lands of light,
Beyond this world of Will?

THE CUSHAT.

The cushat on my limes
Her station takes bytimes
And in the middle night,
Especially when light
The season is or if the moon shine pale,
Croons out, till nigh on dawn, her melancholy tale.

No song it is of sleep;
Nay, rather, it to keep
The drowsy eyes unclosed
Would seem disposed;
For still it tells, with cadence hoarse and slow,
Of old disconsolate days and dreams of long ago.

Nay, cushat, is't not time
That thou shouldst change thy chime
And tune thy sorry song
Of far forgotten wrong
To some more modern ditty, bright and new?
'Twas all so long agone, belike it is not true.

And when one comes to think,
For sparrow, starling, spink,
The fashion were absurd;
But for a lady bird
Of thy repute and age all night to croon!
Nay, do but take a thought. A bird and bay the moon!

Come, listen, then, to me
And let the matter be.
None ever died of love;
And thou, too, turtle-dove,
Wilt, whatsoe'er thou deemest, soon or late,
Think better of the case and take another mate.

THE SEDGE-WARBLER.

Sedge-warbler, what's to do?
Thy chatter pierces through
The flutter of the fields, the whisper of the wood;
And yet, meseems, their voice
Doth rather say, “Rejoice!”
Than “Grieve!” The world is well enough and life is good.

The world is all a-dream.
Why not, then, by the stream
Suffer thyself be rocked and cradled in thy nest?
To scold in Winter drear
Is time enough; but, here
When Summer is, to dream the hours away is best.

The year hath but one June;
It passeth oversoon
And Autumn comes apace, for Winter to prepare.
So for the Summer day
Behoveth all be gay
And give a longsome tryst to thought-taking and care.

THE LINNET.

Listen! 'Tis the linnet,
On the bramble glorying in the gladness of the minute,
Lilting out the lightsomeness, that Springtide wakens in it.

Pleasanter thy note is,
Holding all the homely joy that in th'air afloat is,
To mine ear than many a song from a stronger throat is.

Trill on trill ensuing,
How it tells of Winter past and the world's renewing,
All the winsome dear delights of the time of wooing,

All the cares of nesting,
All the happy hatching time, all the toils of questing!
Then, when flown the fledglings are, come the days of resting.

In the fields of stubble,
All the pleasant duties done, all the pretty trouble,
Gladsomer thine autumn is, sweeter because double.

Then, when Yule is nighing,
When the woods are sad with snow and the winds are sighing,
Happy is thy death and thou hast no pang in dying.

Would that I might borrow
This thy fashion, linnet mine, careless for the morrow,
Living without greed of gain, dying without sorrow.

WHAT THE WHITETHROAT SANG.

Love may have its root in folly,
As they say, the foolish wise:
Life without it melancholy
Is, the wiser fool replies.
Where's the text without the glose?
When was kissing out of fashion,
Pain because there is in passion
And a thorn to every rose?
Mistletoe still pairs with holly;
Clouds will come in summer skies:
Sager than the Sages Seven
Is the lover who his heaven
Findeth in his lady's eyes.

Love, and you will, for your wages,
Reap repentance soon or late;
So the rhyme runs through the ages,
Since with Adam Eve did mate.
Overhigh might be the price,
If this life should last for ever;
But to-morrow since we sever,
Why from present Paradise
Turn for what they say, the sages?
Kisses at the market-rate
Still I'll buy, whilst life is lent me.
Kiss me, sweet, till I repent me
Or till kissing's out of date.

THE LORIOT.

Thy golden flute,
Loriot, I hear, when else the meads are mute
For middle June.
Yonder, where down the hills together lean
And in their blossom-broidered lap of green
The cherry orchards hold,
I catch thy frank, contentful, frolic tune.
At thee the tomtits scold,
Jealous, belike, for that their time of song
Is past, whilst thou thy ditty dost prolong,
Though Summer's silence is on wood and wold:
But thou,
Unheeding, caroll'st on the bending bough,
Content to live and drive thy purple beak
Into the cherry's red and white and yellow cheek.

To France's fields
Thy homely strain its gentle glamour yields,
Where else, in time
Of cherries ripe and ruddy on the trees
And oxeye daisies in the luscious leas,
The sunny summer day
Might fare forlorn and sad for lack of rhyme.
None grudgeth thee, in pay
Of thy sweet song, the cherries thou dost eat
And all the world thy singing enough sweet
Holdeth, now songtide over is with May,
As one,
Whose blossom-time of Life is overrun,
Unto some lowly love for solacement
Turns of his empty heart and is with peace content.

THE WREN.

The wren
Pipes on the fence and mocks at foolish men,
Who waste their little lives in quests beyond their ken.

Small king,
Thou'rt happier than we who cannot sing,
To sweeten life, who pine to fly and have no wing.

No breath
Thou wast'st, as we, on what the dullard saith;
And when thy life is done, thou hast no fear of death.

Too wise
Thou art, the things that pass away to prize
Or waste a thought on that which is beyond the skies.

Scant store,
Wise wren, thou settest by our loveless lore;
Content art thou thy life to live and ask no more.

How vain,
Compared with thine, our lives of stress and strain!
How void the quests in which we weary heart and brain!

Well might
We lesson take from thee and live, whilst light
Abides with us, content to pass away at night.

Lat. Regulus, Fr. Roitelet, Ger. Zaunkönig.

THE FIELDFARE.

The fieldfares flit before me, as I go,
Now flying low,
Now tripping o'er the furrows, row by row.

Strange bird,
Whose voice, mute here
That is, in other lands, belike, is heard,
That comest, in the falling of the year,
From worlds beyond the seas,
And as we mark thee, seemest without rest,
Still running, flitting o'er the flowerless leas,
To strive towards the West,
Thou as the poet art, whose voice too oft
Is overhearkened in the fields of life,
Whose speech too soft,
Too subtle is to pierce the din of strife,
Whose songs for other ears than ours are sung,
Whose music speaks an other-worldly tongue
And who, for peace, when life and strife are done,
Still to the Westward looks and to the setting sun.

THE CROW.

The crow
Goes, calling, to and fro,
In that harsh voice
Of his, whose cadence sad
Is not, nor is it glad,
As if he neither knew to sorrow or rejoice.

Caw! Caw!
He voices Nature's law
Of unconcern
For what we mortals feel,
Joy, sorrow, woe or weal,
So but the mills of Life, as she will have them, turn.

What end,
I know not, crow my friend,
For Nature's sake
It serveth us to live,
Since she hath nought to give
But life and such scant pains to sweeten it doth take.

What worth
To us is death or birth,
There's none doth know.
Why not, then, leave the strife
To hold death off from life?
And as for Nature's ends, why let the hussy go

THE ROBIN.

Autumn from tree to tree
Its tapestries of brown and gold and crimson weaves.
Who is't in each wood-run
That sings so cheerily?
Who is it flits and fleets among the mottled leaves,
When all that hath a voice is mute for Summer done?

Dear robin, it is thou,
That biddest us for sun and Summer passed away
Take heart and sorrow not;
For, though 'tis Autumn now
And Winter's at the door, from out its frost-tombs grey
Sweet Spring will rise again and Summer yet wax hot.

Nay, with a graver note,
Thou mindest us that life is like the labouring year
And that, though Summer cease
And still each songbird's throat,
Yet, with the Autumn come, the end of toil is near,
When over-weathered earth beneath the snows hath peace.

And what can better be?
No matter what of load and labour life have known,
Of travail and of woes,
When once the soul is free
Of stress and strife and lies at last beneath the stone,
All is forgot and sweet for ever is repose.

THE WOODPECKER.

Tap! Tap! Tap!
The woodpecker hammers the beech and the lime,
To get at the worm
In the core:
And so, when the worm's at Life's heart
And its term
Is o'er,
Death comes with his chopper and drums at the door;
Rap! Rap!
“It is time,”
He says; “it is time to pack up and depart!”

Ho! Ho! Ho!
The woodpecker laughs. “Thou mayst hide, worm my friend;
But my beak over long
Is for thee.”
And so, when Death calleth the close
Of the song,
“From me
“It nothing availeth to hide,” quoth he.
“No! No!
“An end
“There cometh for everything, rush or rose.”

BIRDS OF PASSAGE.

I.

Birds in flight,
In the last of the light,
To the Western seas and the sunset-strand,
What is't you seek
In the distance bleak?
What think ye to find in the unknown land?

The world is round;
There is nothing found
The skyline under, that here is not;
And life's the same,
Be it wild or tame,
In the Arctic cold and the Tropics hot.

What need to roam?
If not at home,
Peace is not, the wise say, far or nigh;
There's nothing to find,
The sun behind,
Save the same old earth and the same old sky.

II. (The Birds' Answer.)

We reck not a straw
Of your sages' law;
The things that you seek are those we shun.
You live in the night
And we in the light;
You follow the darkness, we the sun.

Your weakling wit
You hug and fit
Your dullard lives to its darkling lore:
But we, to find
The light behind
The dark, make wing for the unknown shore.

You cannot see
The things that be,
So busy you are with those that seem:
There's nothing, heigho!
But death can show
Which true, your life, is, or this our dream.