One watches, to no purpose, I suppose,
And yet I cannot give the watching o'er.
One step beyond my doorway, nay! one look
Up from my papers, and the charm begins
Its wayward magic on me—a circle drawn
About me wide as all the universe,
While I sit captivated, not by thought,
But things that throng the channels of the sense;
The sunny green veiling the silver limbs
Where on the upland hangs my well-loved crowd
Of beeches, loveliest of all forest trees;
The marsh where newts breed, and our peasants find
Coins with the Cæsars' superscript and sign.
Why do such things engage me?—trifling still,
Playing with facts as children sift the sand
Through their small fingers—yet I do find things
Memorable indeed. Was I not first to mark
Hedge-sparrows flirt their wings in breeding-time?
Who noted first the black-cap's double chant,
That, fluttering, pipes so deep, so loud, and wild,
Then, sitting calmly to engage in song,
Pours forth a sweet but inward melody?
Somehow that is important. Barrington
Is half aware of it. Who else but I?
Those great men up in London think a bird
Is but a bird. If in my darkened mind,
It be not, ah! so much more, what strange madness
Has overta'en one country curate more?
We are too civilized. These elegant times
Have sold some birth-right. The golden-crested wren
Tells me of that somehow, as if between
Two halves of mine own nature, separated
By an unbridgeable chasm, the bright thing flew,
To lead me to a strangeness in myself,
Regions I wish to tread, tropical worlds,
Electric with a life I wish to feel.
They say the swallows sleep all winter long,
Conglobulated in our ponds. I dream
A stranger thing, what palm-crowned Cape de Verde
They glide to through blue air over blue seas.
And I have made migration in myself,
Mysterious, in pursuit of those small wings,
And found Americas, Caribbean isles,
And vasty rivers of the Amazons.
“Radit iter liquidum,” what says the Poet?
She skims the liquid pathway—“Celeres
“Neque commovet alas,”—nor moves her rapid wings.
Virgil, too, had his inner continent,
Or he had not drawn the swift bird-flight so well.
What Atlantéan world!
My letter? The post?
I had forgot Daines Barrington almost.
And yet I cannot give the watching o'er.
One step beyond my doorway, nay! one look
Up from my papers, and the charm begins
Its wayward magic on me—a circle drawn
About me wide as all the universe,
While I sit captivated, not by thought,
But things that throng the channels of the sense;
The sunny green veiling the silver limbs
Where on the upland hangs my well-loved crowd
Of beeches, loveliest of all forest trees;
The marsh where newts breed, and our peasants find
Coins with the Cæsars' superscript and sign.
Why do such things engage me?—trifling still,
Playing with facts as children sift the sand
Through their small fingers—yet I do find things
Memorable indeed. Was I not first to mark
Hedge-sparrows flirt their wings in breeding-time?
Who noted first the black-cap's double chant,
That, fluttering, pipes so deep, so loud, and wild,
Then, sitting calmly to engage in song,
Pours forth a sweet but inward melody?
Somehow that is important. Barrington
Is half aware of it. Who else but I?
Those great men up in London think a bird
Is but a bird. If in my darkened mind,
It be not, ah! so much more, what strange madness
Has overta'en one country curate more?
We are too civilized. These elegant times
Have sold some birth-right. The golden-crested wren
Tells me of that somehow, as if between
Two halves of mine own nature, separated
By an unbridgeable chasm, the bright thing flew,
To lead me to a strangeness in myself,
Regions I wish to tread, tropical worlds,
Electric with a life I wish to feel.
They say the swallows sleep all winter long,
Conglobulated in our ponds. I dream
A stranger thing, what palm-crowned Cape de Verde
They glide to through blue air over blue seas.
And I have made migration in myself,
Mysterious, in pursuit of those small wings,
And found Americas, Caribbean isles,
And vasty rivers of the Amazons.
“Radit iter liquidum,” what says the Poet?
She skims the liquid pathway—“Celeres
“Neque commovet alas,”—nor moves her rapid wings.
Virgil, too, had his inner continent,
Or he had not drawn the swift bird-flight so well.
What Atlantéan world!
My letter? The post?
I had forgot Daines Barrington almost.