The
Sparrow
(To My Father)
This sparrow
who
comes to sit at my window
is a poetic truth
more than a natural one.
His voice,
his movements,
his habits--
how
he loves to
flutter his wings
in the dust--
all
attest it;
granted, he does it
to rid himself of lice
but
the relief he feels
makes him
cry out lustily
which
is a trait
more related to music
than otherwise.
Wherever he finds
himself
in early spring,
on back streets
or
beside palaces,
he carries on
unaffectedly
his
amours.
It begins
in the egg,
his sex genders it:
What is more pretentiously
useless
or about which
we
more pride ourselves?
It leads
as often as not
to our undoing.
The cockerel, the crow
with their challenging voices
cannot surpass
the
insistence
of his cheep!
Once
at
toward evening,
I saw--and heard!--
ten
thousand sparrows
who had come in from
the desert
to
roost. They filled the trees
of a small park. Men
fled
(with ears ringing!)
from
their droppings,
leaving the premises
to the alligators
who
inhabit
the fountain. His
image
is familiar
as
that of the aristocratic
unicorn, a pity
there are not more oats eaten
nowadays
to make a living easier
for him.
At that,
his small size,
keen eyes,
serviceable
beak
and general truculence
assure his survival--
to
say nothing
of his innumerable
brood.
Even the Japanese
know him
and have painted him
sympathetically,
with profound insight
Into his minor
characteristics.
Nothing
even remotely
subtle
about
his lovemaking.
He
crouches
before the female,
drags
his wings,
waltzing,
throws back his head
and
simply--
yells! The din
is terrific.
The way he swipes his
bill
across a plank
to clean it,
is
decisive.
So with
everything
he does. His coppery
eyebrows
give him
the air
of being always
a
winner--and yet
I saw
once,
the female of his species
clinging
determinedly
to the edge of
a water pipe,
catch
him
by his crown-feathers
to hold him
silent,
subdued,
hanging above the city streets
until
she was through with him.
What was the use
of
that?
She hung there
herself,
puzzled
at her success.
I laughed
heartily.
Practical to the end
it
is the poem
of his existence
that triumphed
finally;
a wisp of feathers
flattened to the pavement,
wings
spread symmetrically
as if in flight,
the head gone,
the
black escutcheon of the breast
undecipherable,
an effigy of a sparrow
a
dried wafer only,
left to say
and it says it
without
offense,
beautifully;
This was I,
a
sparrow.
I did my best;
farewell.
--William Carlos Williams
-328-
A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass—
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass—
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around—
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought—
He stirred his Velvet Head
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home—
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as
they swim.
c. 1862
To a Waterfowl
Whither, 'midst
falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy
solitary way?
Vainly the fowler's
eye
Might mark thy distant flight, to do thee wrong,
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats
along.
Seek'st
thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On
the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power,
whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,--
The desert and illimitable air,
Lone wandering, but
not lost,
All day thy wings have
fanned,
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though
the dark night is near.
And soon that toil
shall end,
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon,
o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou'rt
gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form, yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou has given,
And
shall not soon depart.
He, who, from zone to
zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must trace alone,
Will
lead my steps aright.
--William
Cullen Bryant
-311-
It sifts from Leaden Sieves—
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road—
It makes an Even Face
Of Mountain, and of Plain—
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again—
It reaches to the Fence—
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces—
It deals Celestial Vail
To Stump, and Stack—and Stem—
A Summer’s empty Room—
Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them—
It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen—
Then stills its Artisans—like Ghosts—
Denying they have been—
c. 1862 —Emily
Dickinson
Desert
Places
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeks and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it—it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less—
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race
is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
—Robert
Frost
Design
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth—
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth—
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?
If design govern in a thing so small.
—Robert
Frost
Inscription
for the Entrance to a Wood
Stranger, if thou has learned a truth which
needs
No school of long experience, that the world
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen
Enough of all its sorrow, crimes, and cares
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood
And view the haunts of Nature.
The calm shade
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze,
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart. Thou
wilt find nothing here
Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men
And made thee loathe thy life. The
primal curse
Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth,
But not in vengeance. God
hath yoked to guilt
Her pale tormentor, misery. Hence
these shades
Are still the abodes of gladness: the thick roof
Of green and stirring branches is alive
And musical with birds, that sing and sport
In wantonness of spirit; while, below,
The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect,
Chirps merrily.
Throngs of insects in the shade
Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam
That waked them into life. Even
the green trees
Partake the deep contentment; as they bend
To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky
Looks in the sheds a blessing on the scene.
Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy
Existence than the winged plunderer
That sucks its sweets. The mossy
rocks themselves,
And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees
That lead from knoll to knoll a causey rude
Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots,
With all their earth upon them, twisting high,
Breathe fixed tranquility . The rivulet
Sends forth glad sounds, and, tripping o’er its bed
Of pebbly sands or leaping down the rocks,
Seems with continuous laughter to rejoice
In its own being.
Softly tread the marge,
Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren
That dips her bill in water. The
cool wind,
That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee,
Like one that loves thee nor will let thee
pass
Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace.
—William
Cullen Bryant