shows how far one steadfast mind,Serene in suffering as in glory,
May go to deify our kind.
TO SWALLOWS ON THE EVE OF DEPARTURE
“The day before V–’s departure for the last time from the country—it was the 4th of August, one of the hottest days of the season—as evening fell, he strolled with an old school-fellow through the cool green avenues and leafy arcades of the neighbouring park, where his friend amused him by pointing out to his attention vast multitudes of Swallows that came swarming from all directions to settle on the roofs and gables of the manor-house. This they do for several days preparatory to their departing, in one collected body, to more genial climates.”—MS. Memoir.
Joyous Birds! preparing
In the clear evening light
To leave our dwindled summer day
For latitudes more bright!
How gay must be your greeting,
By southern fountains meeting,
To miss no faithful wing of all that started in your flight!
Every clime and season
Fresh gladness brings to you,
Howe’er remote your social throngs
Their varied path pursue;
No winds nor waves dissever—
No dusky veil’d for ever,
Frowneth across your fearless way in the empyrean blue.21
Mates and merry brothers
Were ye in Arctic hours,
Mottling the evening beam that sloped
Adown old Gothic towers!
As blythe that sunlight dancing
Will see your pinions’ glancing
Scattering afar through Tropic groves the spicy bloom in showers!
Haunters of palaced wastes!22
From king-forlorn Versailles
To where, round gateless Thebes, the winds
Like monarch voices wail,
Your tribe capricious ranges,
Reckless of glory’s changes;
Love makes for ye a merry home amid the ruins pale.
Another day, and ye
From knosp and turret’s brow
Shall, with your fleet of crowding wings,
Air’s viewless billows plough,
With no keen-fang’d regretting
Our darken’d hill-sides quitting,
—Away in fond companionship as cheerily as now!
Woe for the Soul-endued—
The clay-enthrallèd Mind—
Leaving, unlike you, favour’d birds!
Its all—its all behind.
Woe for the exile mourning,
To banishment returning—
A mateless bird wide torn apart from country and from kind!
This moment blest as ye,
Beneath his own home-trees,
With friends and fellows girt around,
Up springs the western breeze,
Bringing the parting weather—
Shall all depart together?
Ah, no!—he goes a wretch alone upon the lonely seas.
To him the mouldering tower—
The pillar’d waste, to him
A broken-hearted music make
Until his eyelids swim.
None heeds when he complaineth,
Nor where that brow he leaneth
A mother’s lips shall bless no more sinking to slumber dim.
Winter shall wake to spring,
And ’mid the fragrant grass
The daffodil shall watch the rill
Like Beauty by her glass
But woe for him who pineth
Where the clear water shineth,
With no voice near to say—How sweet those April evenings pass!
Then while through Nature’s heart
Love freshly burns again,
Hither shall ye, plumed travellers,
Come trooping o’er the main;
The selfsame nook disclosing
Its nest for your reposing
That saw you revel years ago as you shall revel then.23
—Your human brother’s lot!
A few short years are gone—
Back, back like you to early scenes—
Lo! at the threshold-stone,
Where ever in the gloaming
Home’s angels watch’d his coming,
A stranger stands, and stares at him who sighing passes on.
Joy to the Travail-worn!
Omnific purpose lies
Even in his bale as in your bliss,
Careerers of the skies!
When sun and earth, that cherish’d
Your tribes, with you have perish’d,
A home is his where partings more shall never dim the eyes.
THE DILIGENCE
A diligence is as familiar to our countrymen as a stage-coach; and, as railroads flourish more amongst us than with our less commercial and enterprising neighbours, it is probable that, to many English travellers, it is even more familiar. There is no need, therefore, to describe the portentous vehicle. Suffice it to say, that, of the three compartments into which it is divided, I found myself lodged—not in the coupée which looks out in front, and which has the appearance of a narrow post-chaise that has been flattened and compressed in the effort to incorporate it with the rest of the machine—nor in the rotunde behind, where one rides omnibus-fashion—but in the central compartment, the interieur, which answers to the veritable old English stage-coach, and carries six. I was one of the central occupants of this central division; for I had not been so fortunate as to secure a corner seat. Now, for the convenience of the luckless person who occupies this position, there depends from the roof of the coach, and hangs just before his face, a broad leathern strap, with a loop through which he can, if so disposed, place his arms; and, when his arms are thus slung up, he can further rest his head upon them or upon the strap, and so seek repose. Whether he finds the repose he seeks, is another matter. One half of the traveller swings like a parrot on his perch,
“They all quit together; and fly for a time east or west, possibly in wait for stragglers not yet arrived from the interior—they then take directly to the south, and are soon lost sight of altogether for the allotted period of their absence. Their rapidity of flight is well known, and the ‘murder-aiming eye’ of the most experienced sportsman will seldom avail against the swallow; hence they themselves seldom fall a prey to the raptorial birds.”—Cuvier,
In the fanciful language of Chateaubriand, “This daughter of a king (the swallow) still seems attached to grandeur; she passes the summer amid the ruins of Versailles, and the winter among those of Thebes.”
“However difficult to be credited, it seems to be ascertained beyond doubt, that the same pair which quitted their nest and the limited circle of their residence here, return to the very same nest again, and this for several successive years; in all probability for their whole lives”—
