Voices for the Speechless Part 25

The deep affections of the breast That heaven to living things imparts, Are not exclusively possessed By human hearts.

A Parrot, from the Spanish main, Full young and early caged came o'er, With bright wings, to the bleak domain Of Mulla's sh.o.r.e.

To spicy groves where he had won His plumage of resplendent hue, His native fruits, and skies, and sun, He bade adieu.

For these he changed the smoke of turf, A heathery land and misty sky, And turned on rocks and raging surf His golden eye.

But petted in our climate cold, He lived and chattered many a day: Until with age, from green and gold His wings grew gray.

At last when blind, and seeming dumb, He scolded, laughed, and spoke no more, A Spanish stranger chanced to come To Mulla's sh.o.r.e;

He hailed the bird in Spanish speech, The bird in Spanish speech replied; Flapped round the cage with joyous screech, Dropt down, and died.

T. CAMPBELL.

THE COMMON QUESTION.

Behind us at our evening meal The gray bird ate his fill, Swung downward by a single claw, And wiped his hooked bill.

He shook his wings and crimson tail, And set his head aslant, And, in his sharp, impatient way, Asked, "What does Charlie want?"

"Fie, silly bird!" I answered, "tuck Your head beneath your wing, And go to sleep;"--but o'er and o'er He asked the selfsame thing.

Then, smiling, to myself I said:--How like are men and birds!

We all are saying what he says, In actions or in words.

The boy with whip and top and drum, The girl with hoop and doll, And men with lands and houses, ask The question of Poor Poll.

However full, with something more We fain the bag would cram; We sigh above our crowded nets For fish that never swam.

No bounty of indulgent Heaven The vague desire can stay; Self-love is still a Tartar mill For grinding prayers alway.

The dear G.o.d hears and pities all; He knoweth all our wants; And what we blindly ask of Him His love withholds or grants.

And so I sometimes think our prayers Might well be merged in one; And nest and perch and hearth and church Repeat, "Thy will be done."

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

WHY NOT DO IT, SIR, TO-DAY?

"Why, so I will, you noisy bird, This very day I'll advertise you, Perhaps some busy ones may prize you.

A fine-tongued parrot as was ever heard, I'll word it thus--set forth all charms about you, And say no family should be without you."

Thus far a gentleman addressed a bird; Then to his friend: "An old procrastinator, Sir, I am: do you wonder that I hate her?

Though she but seven words can say, Twenty and twenty times a day She interferes with all my dreams, My projects, plans, and airy schemes, Mocking my foible to my sorrow: I'll advertise this bird to-morrow."

To this the bird seven words did say: "Why not do it, sir, to-day?"

CHARLES AND MARY LAMB.

TO A REDBREAST.

Little bird, with bosom red, Welcome to my humble shed!

Courtly domes of high degree Have no room for thee and me; Pride and pleasure's fickle throng Nothing mind an idle song.

Daily near my table steal, While I pick my scanty meal:-- Doubt not, little though there be, But I'll cast a crumb to thee; Well rewarded, if I spy Pleasure in thy glancing eye; See thee, when thou'st eat thy fill, Plume thy breast and wipe thy bill.

Come, my feathered friend, again?

Well thou know'st the broken pane:-- Ask of me thy daily store.

J. LANGHORNE.

PHOEBE.

Ere pales in heaven the morning star, A bird, the loneliest of its kind, Hears dawn's faint footfall from afar, While all its mates are dumb and blind.

It is a wee, sad-colored thing, As shy and secret as a maid, That, ere in choir the robins ring, Pipes its own name like one afraid.

It seems pain-prompted to repeat The story of some ancient ill, But Phoebe! Phoebe! sadly sweet, Is all it says, and then is still.

It calls and listens: earth and sky, Hushed by the pathos of its fate, Listen: no whisper of reply Comes from the doom-dissevered mate.

Phoebe! it calls and calls again, And Ovid, could he but have heard, Had hung a legendary pain About the memory of the bird;

A pain articulate so long In penance of some mouldered crime, Whose ghost still flies the furies' thong Down the waste solitudes of time;

Phoebe! is all it has to say In plaintive cadence o'er and o'er, Like children that have lost their way And know their names, but nothing more.

Is it in type, since Nature's lyre Vibrates to every note in man, Of that insatiable desire Meant to be so, since life began?

I, in strange lands at gray of dawn, Wakeful, have heard that fruitless plaint Through memory's chambers deep withdrawn Renew its iterations faint.

So nigh! yet from remotest years It seems to draw its magic, rife With longings unappeased, and tears Drawn from the very source of life.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: in _Scribner_.

TO THE STORK.