The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 74, December, 1863. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.

      "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.

      "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 whirr

              Of meadow-lark, and its sweet roundelay,

      Or twitter of little fieldfares, 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 harvests 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.

      "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 self-same light, although averted hence,

      When by your laws, your actions, and your speech,

              You contradict the very things I teach?"

      With this he closed; and through the audience went

              A murmur, like the rustle of dead leaves;

      The farmers laughed and nodded, and some bent

              Their yellow heads together like their sheaves:

      Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment

              Who put their trust in bullocks and in beeves.

      The birds were doomed; and, as the record shows,

              A bounty offered for the heads of crows.

      There was another audience out of reach,

              Who had no voice nor vote in making laws,

      But in the papers read his little speech,

              And crowned his modest temples with applause;

      They made him conscious, each one more than each,

              He still was victor, vanquished in their cause:

      Sweetest of all the applause he won from thee,

              O fair Almira at the Academy!

      And so the dreadful massacre began;

              O'er fields and orchards, and o'er woodland crests,

      The ceaseless fusillade of terror ran.

              Dead fell the birds, with blood-stains on their breasts,

      Or wounded crept away from sight of man,

              While the young died of famine in their nests:

      A slaughter to be told in groans, not words,

              The very St. Bartholomew of Birds!

      The Summer came, and all the birds were dead;

              The days were like hot coals; the very ground

      Was burned to ashes; in the orchards fed

              Myriads of caterpillars, and around

      The cultivated fields and garden-beds

              Hosts of