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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5177-8.txt b/5177-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..30fdc35 --- /dev/null +++ b/5177-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6770 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds and Poets, by John Burroughs + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Birds and Poets + +Author: John Burroughs + +Posting Date: March 19, 2009 [EBook #5177] +Release Date: February, 2004 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS AND POETS *** + + + + +Produced by Jack Eden + + + + + + + + + +BIRDS AND POETS + +WITH OTHER PAPERS + +THE WRITINGS OF JOHN BURROUGHS, VOLUME III WITH PORTRAITS AND MANY +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +By John Burroughs + + + + +PREFACE + +I have deliberated a long time about coupling some of my sketches of +outdoor nature with a few chapters of a more purely literary character, +and thus confiding to my reader what absorbs and delights me inside my +four walls, as well as what pleases and engages me outside those walls; +especially since I have aimed to bring my outdoor spirit and method +within, and still to look upon my subject with the best naturalist's eye +I could command. + +I hope, therefore, he will not be scared away when I boldly confront +him in the latter portions of my book with this name of strange portent, +Walt Whitman, for I assure him that in this misjudged man he may press +the strongest poetic pulse that has yet beaten in America, or perhaps +in modern times. Then, these chapters are a proper supplement or +continuation of my themes and their analogy in literature, because +in them we shall "follow out these lessons of the earth and air," and +behold their application to higher matters. + +It is not an artificially graded path strewn with roses that invites us +in this part, but, let me hope, something better, a rugged trail through +the woods or along the beach where we shall now and then get a whiff of +natural air, or a glimpse of something to + + "Make the wild blood start + In its mystic springs." + +ESOPUS-ON-HUDSON, March, 1877. + + + +CONTENTS + + I. BIRDS AND POETS + II. TOUCHES OF NATURE + III. A BIRD MEDLEY + IV. APRIL + V. SPRING POEMS + VI. OUR RURAL DIVINITY + VII. BEFORE GENIUS +VIII. BEFORE BEAUTY IX. EMERSON + X. THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE + INDEX + + + + + +BIRDS AND POETS + + + + +I BIRDS AND POETS + + "In summer, when the shawes be shene, + And leaves be large and long, + It is full merry in fair forest + To hear the fowlés' song. + The wood-wele sang, and wolde not cease, + Sitting upon the spray; + So loud, it wakened Robin Hood + In the greenwood where he lay." + +It might almost be said that the birds are all birds of the poets and +of no one else, because it is only the poetical temperament that +fully responds to them. So true is this, that all the great +ornithologists--original namers and biographers of the birds--have been +poets in deed if not in word. Audubon is a notable case in point, who, +if he had not the tongue or the pen of the poet, certainly had the +eye and ear and heart--"the fluid and attaching character"--and the +singleness of purpose, the enthusiasm, the unworldliness, the love, that +characterize the true and divine race of bards. + +So had Wilson, though perhaps not in as large a measure; yet he took +fire as only a poet can. While making a journey on foot to Philadelphia, +shortly after landing in this country, he caught sight of the red-headed +woodpecker flitting among the trees,--a bird that shows like a +tricolored scarf among the foliage,--and it so kindled his enthusiasm +that his life was devoted to the pursuit of the birds from that day. It +was a lucky hit. Wilson had already set up as a poet in Scotland, and +was still fermenting when the bird met his eye and suggested to his soul +a new outlet for its enthusiasm. + +The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A +bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is +his life,--large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged +with buoyancy and his heart with song. The beautiful vagabonds, endowed +with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds,--how +many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday lives, and +how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song! + +Indeed, is not the bird the original type and teacher of the poet, and +do we not demand of the human lark or thrush that he "shake out his +carols" in the same free and spontaneous manner as his winged +prototype? Kingsley has shown how surely the old minnesingers and early +ballad-writers have learned of the birds, taking their key-note from the +blackbird, or the wood-lark, or the throstle, and giving utterance to a +melody as simple and unstudied. Such things as the following were surely +caught from the fields or the woods:-- + + "She sat down below a thorn, + Fine flowers in the valley, + And there has she her sweet babe borne, + And the green leaves they grow rarely." + +Or the best lyric pieces, how like they are to certain +bird-songs!--clear, ringing, ecstatic, and suggesting that challenge +and triumph which the outpouring of the male bird contains. (Is not +the genuine singing, lyrical quality essentially masculine?) Keats and +Shelley, perhaps more notably than any other English poets, have the +bird organization and the piercing wild-bird cry. This, of course, +is not saying that they are the greatest poets, but that they have +preëminently the sharp semi-tones of the sparrows and the larks. + +But when the general reader thinks of the birds of the poets, he +very naturally calls to mind the renowned birds, the lark and the +nightingale, Old World melodists, embalmed in Old World poetry, but +occasionally appearing on these shores, transported in the verse of some +callow singer. + +The very oldest poets, the towering antique bards, seem to make little +mention of the song-birds. They loved better the soaring, swooping birds +of prey, the eagle, the ominous birds, the vultures, the storks and +cranes, or the clamorous sea-birds and the screaming hawks. These +suited better the rugged, warlike character of the times and the simple, +powerful souls of the singers themselves. Homer must have heard the +twittering of the swallows, the cry of the plover, the voice of the +turtle, and the warble of the nightingale; but they were not adequate +symbols to express what he felt or to adorn his theme. Aeschylus saw in +the eagle "the dog of Jove," and his verse cuts like a sword with such a +conception. + +It is not because the old bards were less as poets, but that they were +more as men. To strong, susceptible characters, the music of nature is +not confined to sweet sounds. The defiant scream of the hawk circling +aloft, the wild whinny of the loon, the whooping of the crane, the +booming of the bittern, the vulpine bark of the eagle, the loud +trumpeting of the migratory geese sounding down out of the midnight sky; +or by the seashore, the coast of New Jersey or Long Island, the wild +crooning of the flocks of gulls, repeated, continued by the hour, +swirling sharp and shrill, rising and falling like the wind in a storm, +as they circle above the beach or dip to the dash of the waves,--are +much more welcome in certain moods than any and all mere bird-melodies, +in keeping as they are with the shaggy and untamed features of ocean +and woods, and suggesting something like the Richard Wagner music in the +ornithological orchestra. + + "Nor these alone whose notes + Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain, + But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime + In still repeated circles, screaming loud, + The jay, the pie, and even the boding owl, + That hails the rising moon, have charms for me," + +says Cowper. "I never hear," says Burns in one of his letters, "the +loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild +mixing cadence of a troop of gray plovers in an autumnal morning, +without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or +poetry." + +Even the Greek minor poets, the swarm of them that are represented in +the Greek Anthology, rarely make affectionate mention of the birds, +except perhaps Sappho, whom Ben Jonson makes speak of the nightingale +as-- + + "The dear glad angel of the spring." + +The cicada, the locust, and the grasshopper are often referred to, but +rarely by name any of the common birds. That Greek grasshopper must +have been a wonderful creature. He was a sacred object in Greece, and +is spoken of by the poets as a charming songster. What we would say of +birds the Greek said of this favorite insect. When Socrates and Phaedrus +came to the fountain shaded by the plane-tree, where they had their +famous discourse, Socrates said: "Observe the freshness of the spot, how +charming and very delightful it is, and how summer-like and shrill +it sounds from the choir of grasshoppers." One of the poets in the +Anthology finds a grasshopper struggling in a spider's web, which he +releases with the words:-- + + "Go safe and free with your sweet voice of song." + +Another one makes the insect say to a rustic who had captured him:-- + + "Me, the Nymphs' wayside minstrel whose sweet note + O'er sultry hill is heard, and shady grove to float." + +Still another sings how a grasshopper took the place of a broken string +on his lyre, and "filled the cadence due." + + "For while six chords beneath my fingers cried, + He with his tuneful voice the seventh supplied; + The midday songster of the mountain set + His pastoral ditty to my canzonet; + And when he sang, his modulated throat + Accorded with the lifeless string I smote." + +While we are trying to introduce the lark in this country, why not try +this Pindaric grasshopper also? + +It is to the literary poets and to the minstrels of a softer age that +we must look for special mention of the song-birds and for poetical +rhapsodies upon them. The nightingale is the most general favorite, and +nearly all the more noted English poets have sung her praises. To the +melancholy poet she is melancholy, and to the cheerful she is cheerful. +Shakespeare in one of his sonnets speaks of her song as mournful, while +Martial calls her the "most garrulous" of birds. Milton sang:-- + + "Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, + Most musical, most melancholy, + Thee, chantress, oft the woods among + I woo, to hear thy evening song." + +To Wordsworth she told another story:-- + + "O nightingale! thou surely art + A creature of ebullient heart; + These notes of thine,--they pierce and pierce,-- + Tumultuous harmony and fierce! + Thou sing'st as if the god of wine + Had helped thee to a valentine; + A song in mockery and despite + Of shades, and dews, and silent night, + And steady bliss, and all the loves + Now sleeping in these peaceful groves." + +In a like vein Coleridge sang:-- + + "'T is the merry nightingale + That crowds and hurries and precipitates + With fast, thick warble his delicious notes." + +Keats's poem on the nightingale is doubtless more in the spirit of the +bird's strain than any other. It is less a description of the song and +more the song itself. Hood called the nightingale + + "The sweet and plaintive Sappho of the dell." + +I mention the nightingale only to point my remarks upon its American +rival, the famous mockingbird of the Southern States, which is also a +nightingale,--a night-singer,--and which no doubt excels the Old World +bird in the variety and compass of its powers. The two birds belong to +totally distinct families, there being no American species which answers +to the European nightingale, as there are that answer to the robin, +the cuckoo, the blackbird, and numerous others. Philomel has the color, +manners, and habits of a thrush,--our hermit thrush,--but it is not a +thrush at all, but a warbler. I gather from the books that its song is +protracted and full rather than melodious,--a capricious, long-continued +warble, doubling and redoubling, rising and falling, issuing from the +groves and the great gardens, and associated in the minds of the poets +with love and moonlight and the privacy of sequestered walks. All our +sympathies and attractions are with the bird, and we do not forget that +Arabia and Persia are there back of its song. + +_Our_ nightingale has mainly the reputation of the caged bird, and +is famed mostly for its powers of mimicry, which are truly wonderful, +enabling the bird to exactly reproduce and even improve upon the notes +of almost any other songster. But in a state of freedom it has a song of +its own which is infinitely rich and various. It is a garrulous polyglot +when it chooses to be, and there is a dash of the clown and the buffoon +in its nature which too often flavors its whole performance, especially +in captivity; but in its native haunts, and when its love-passion is +upon it, the serious and even grand side of its character comes out. In +Alabama and Florida its song may be heard all through the sultry summer +night, at times low and plaintive, then full and strong. A friend of +Thoreau and a careful observer, who has resided in Florida, tells me +that this bird is a much more marvelous singer than it has the credit of +being. He describes a habit it has of singing on the wing on moonlight +nights, that would be worth going South to hear. Starting from a low +bush, it mounts in the air and continues its flight apparently to an +altitude of several hundred feet, remaining on the wing a number +of minutes, and pouring out its song with the utmost clearness and +abandon,--a slowly rising musical rocket that fills the night air with +harmonious sounds. Here are both the lark and nightingale in one; and if +poets were as plentiful down South as they are in New England, we should +have heard of this song long ago, and had it celebrated in appropriate +verse. But so far only one Southern poet, Wilde, has accredited the bird +this song. This he has done in the following admirable sonnet:-- + + TO THE MOCKINGBIRD + + Winged mimic of the woods! thou motley fool! + Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe? + Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule + Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe. + Wit--sophist--songster--Yorick of thy tribe, + Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school, + To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, + Arch scoffer, and mad Abbot of Misrule! + For such thou art by day--but all night long + Thou pour'st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, + As if thou didst in this, thy moonlight song, + Like to the melancholy Jaques, complain, + Musing on falsehood, violence, and wrong, + And sighing for thy motley coat again. + +Aside from this sonnet, the mockingbird has got into poetical +literature, so far as I know, in only one notable instance, and that in +the page of a poet where we would least expect to find him,--a bard who +habitually bends his ear only to the musical surge and rhythmus of total +nature, and is as little wont to turn aside for any special beauties +or points as the most austere of the ancient masters. I refer to +Walt Whitman's "Out of the cradle endlessly rocking," in which the +mockingbird plays a part. The poet's treatment of the bird is entirely +ideal and eminently characteristic. That is to say, it is altogether +poetical and not at all ornithological; yet it contains a rendering +or free translation of a bird-song--the nocturne of the mockingbird, +singing and calling through the night for its lost mate--that I consider +quite unmatched in our literature:-- + + Once, Paumanok, + When the snows had melted, and the Fifth-month grass was growing, + Up this seashore, in some briers, + Two guests from Alabama--two together, + And their nest, and four light green eggs, spotted with brown, + And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand, + And every day the she-bird, crouched on her nest, silent, with bright + eyes, + And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, + Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. + + _Shine! Shine! Shine! + Pour down your warmth, great Sun! + While we bask--we two together._ + + _Two together! + Winds blow South, or winds blow North, + Day come white, or night come black, + Home, or rivers and mountains from home, + Singing all time, minding no time, + If we two but keep together._ + + Till of a sudden, + Maybe killed unknown to her mate, + One forenoon the she-bird crouched not on the nest, + Nor returned that afternoon, nor the next, + Nor ever appeared again. + + And thenceforward all summer, in the sound of the sea, + And at night, under the full of the moon, in calmer weather, + Over the hoarse surging of the sea, + Or flitting from brier to brier by day, + I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one, the he-bird, + The solitary guest from Alabama. + + _Blow! blow! blow! + Blow up, sea-winds, along Paumanok's shore! + I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me._ + + Yes, when the stars glistened, + All night long, on the prong of a moss-scalloped stake, + Down, almost amid the slapping waves, + Sat the lone singer, wonderful, causing tears. + + He called on his mate: + He poured forth the meanings which I, of all men, know. + +. . . . . . . . . . . + + _Soothe! soothe! soothe! + Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, + And again another behind, embracing and lapping, every one close, + But my love soothes not me, not me._ + + _Low hangs the moon--it rose late. + Oh it is lagging--oh I think it is heavy with love, with love._ + + _Oh madly the sea pushes, pushes upon the land, + With love--with love._ + + _O night! do I not see my love fluttering out there among the breakers! + What is that little black thing I see there in the white?_ + + _Loud! loud! loud! + Loud I call to you, my love! + High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves: + Surely you must know who is here, is here; + You must know who I am, my love._ + + _Low-hanging moon! + What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow? + Oh it is the shape, the shape of my mate! + O moon, do not keep her from me any longer._ + + _Land! land! O land! + Whichever way I turn, oh I think you could give my mate back again, + if you only would; + For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look._ + + _O rising stars! + Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you._ + + _O throat! O trembling throat! + Sound clearer through the atmosphere! + Pierce the woods, the earth; + Somewhere listening to catch you, must be the one I want._ + + _Shake out, carols! + Solitary here--the night's carols! + Carols of lonesome love! Death's carols! + Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon! + Oh, under that moon, where she droops almost down into the sea! + O reckless, despairing carols._ + + _But soft! sink low! Soft! let me just murmur; + And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea; + For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me, + So faint--I must be still, be still to listen! + But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately + to me._ + + _Hither, my love! + Here I am! Here! + With this just-sustained note I announce myself to you; + This gentle call is for you, my love, for you._ + + _Do not be decoyed elsewhere! + That is the whistle of the wind--it is not my voice; + That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray; + Those are the shadows of leaves._ + + _O darkness! Oh in vain! + Oh I am very sick and sorrowful._ + +. . . . . . . . . . . + +The bird that occupies the second place to the nightingale in British +poetical literature is the skylark, a pastoral bird as the Philomel is +an arboreal,--a creature of light and air and motion, the companion of +the plowman, the shepherd, the harvester,--whose nest is in the stubble +and whose tryst is in the clouds. Its life affords that kind of contrast +which the imagination loves,--one moment a plain pedestrian bird, hardly +distinguishable from the ground, the next a soaring, untiring songster, +reveling in the upper air, challenging the eye to follow him and the ear +to separate his notes. + +The lark's song is not especially melodious, but is blithesome, +sibilant, and unceasing. Its type is the grass, where the bird makes its +home, abounding, multitudinous, the notes nearly all alike and all in +the same key, but rapid, swarming, prodigal, showering down as thick and +fast as drops of rain in a summer shower. + +Many noted poets have sung the praises of the lark, or been kindled +by his example. Shelley's ode and Wordsworth's "To a Skylark" are well +known to all readers of poetry, while every schoolboy will recall Hogg's +poem, beginning:-- + + "Bird of the wilderness, + Blithesome and cumberless, + Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! + Emblem of happiness, + Blest is thy dwelling-place-- + Oh to abide in the desert with thee!" + +I heard of an enthusiastic American who went about English fields +hunting a lark with Shelley's poem in his hand, thinking no doubt to use +it as a kind of guide-book to the intricacies and harmonies of the song. +He reported not having heard any larks, though I have little doubt they +were soaring and singing about him all the time, though of course they +did not sing to his ear the song that Shelley heard. The poets are +the best natural historians, only you must know how to read them. They +translate the facts largely and freely. A celebrated lady once said to +Turner, "I confess I cannot see in nature what you do." "Ah, madam," +said the complacent artist, "don't you wish you could!" + +Shelley's poem is perhaps better known, and has a higher reputation +among literary folk, than Wordsworth's; it is more lyrical and +lark-like; but it is needlessly long, though no longer than the lark's +song itself, but the lark can't help it, and Shelley can. I quote only a +few stanzas:-- + + "In the golden lightning + Of the sunken sun, + O'er which clouds are bright'ning + Thou dost float and run, + Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. + + "The pale purple even + Melts around thy flight; + Like a star of heaven, + In the broad daylight + Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, + + "Keen as are the arrows + Of that silver sphere, + Whose intense lamp narrows + In the white dawn clear, + Until we hardly see--we feel that it is there; + + "All the earth and air + With thy voice is loud, + As, when Night is bare, + From one lonely cloud + The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed." + +Wordsworth has written two poems upon the lark, in one of which he calls +the bird "pilgrim of the sky." This is the one quoted by Emerson in +"Parnassus." Here is the concluding stanza:-- + + "Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; + A privacy of glorious light is thine, + Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood + Of harmony, with instinct more divine; + Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam, + True to the kindred points of heaven and home." + +The other poem I give entire:-- + + "Up with me! up with me into the clouds! + For thy song, Lark, is strong; + Up with me, up with me into the clouds! + Singing, singing, + With clouds and sky about thee ringing, + Lift me, guide me till I find + That spot which seems so to thy mind! + + "I have walked through wilderness dreary, + And to-day my heart is weary; + Had I now the wings of a Faery + Up to thee would I fly. + There is madness about thee, and joy divine + In that song of thine; + Lift me, guide me high and high + To thy banqueting-place in the sky. + + "Joyous as morning + Thou art laughing and scorning; + Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest, + And, though little troubled with sloth, + Drunken Lark! thou wouldst be loth + To be such a traveler as I. + Happy, happy Liver! + With a soul as strong as a mountain river, + Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, + Joy and jollity be with us both! + + "Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven, + Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind; + But hearing thee, or others of thy kind, + As full of gladness and as free of heaven, + I, with my fate contented, will plod on, + And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done." + + +But better than either--better and more than a hundred pages--is +Shakespeare's simple line,-- + + "Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings," + +or John Lyly's, his contemporary,-- + + "Who is't now we hear? + None but the lark so shrill and clear; + Now at heaven's gate she claps her wings, + The morn not waking till she sings." + +We have no well-known pastoral bird in the Eastern States that answers +to the skylark. The American pipit or titlark and the shore lark, both +birds of the far north, and seen in the States only in fall and winter, +are said to sing on the wing in a similar strain. Common enough in our +woods are two birds that have many of the habits and manners of the +lark--the water-thrush and the golden-crowned thrush, or oven-bird. They +are both walkers, and the latter frequently sings on the wing up aloft +after the manner of the lark. Starting from its low perch, it rises in +a spiral flight far above the tallest trees, and breaks out in a clear, +ringing, ecstatic song, sweeter and more richly modulated than the +skylark's, but brief, ceasing almost before you have noticed it; whereas +the skylark goes singing away after you have forgotten him and returned +to him half a dozen times. + +But on the Great Plains, of the West there; is a bird whose song +resembles the skylark's quite closely and is said to be not at all +inferior. This is Sprague's pipit, sometimes called the Missouri +skylark, an excelsior songster, which from far up in the transparent +blue rains down its notes for many minutes together. It is, no doubt, +destined to figure in the future poetical literature of the West. + +Throughout the northern and eastern parts of the Union the lark would +find a dangerous rival in the bobolink, a bird that has no European +prototype, and no near relatives anywhere, standing quite alone, unique, +and, in the qualities of hilarity and musical tintinnabulation, with +a song unequaled. He has already a secure place in general literature, +having been laureated by no less a poet than Bryant, and invested with a +lasting human charm in the sunny page of Irving, and is the only one of +our songsters, I believe, that the mockingbird cannot parody or imitate. +He affords the most marked example of exuberant pride, and a glad, +rollicking, holiday spirit, that can be seen among our birds. Every note +expresses complacency and glee. He is a beau of the first pattern, and, +unlike any other bird of my acquaintance, pushes his gallantry to the +point of wheeling gayly into the train of every female that comes along, +even after the season of courtship is over and the matches are all +settled; and when she leads him on too wild a chase, he turns, lightly +about and breaks out with a song is precisely analogous to a burst of +gay and self-satisfied laughter, as much as to say, _"Ha! ha! ha! I +must have my fun, Miss Silverthimble, thimble, thimble, if I break every +heart in the meadow, see, see, see!"_ + +At the approach of the breeding season the bobolink undergoes a complete +change; his form changes, his color changes, his flight changes. From +mottled brown or brindle he becomes black and white, earning, in some +localities, the shocking name of "skunk bird;" his small, compact form +becomes broad and conspicuous, and his ordinary flight is laid aside for +a mincing, affected gait, in which he seems to use only the very tips of +his wings. It is very noticeable what a contrast he presents to his mate +at this season, not only in color but in manners, she being as shy and +retiring as he is forward and hilarious. Indeed, she seems disagreeably +serious and indisposed to any fun or jollity, scurrying away at his +approach, and apparently annoyed at every endearing word and look. It +is surprising that all this parade of plumage and tinkling of cymbals +should be gone through with and persisted in to please a creature so +coldly indifferent as she really seems to be. If Robert O'Lincoln has +been stimulated into acquiring this holiday uniform and this musical +gift by the approbation of Mrs. Robert, as Darwin, with his sexual +selection principle, would have us believe, then there must have been +a time when the females of this tribe were not quite so chary of their +favors as they are now. Indeed, I never knew a female bird of any kind +that did not appear utterly indifferent to the charms of voice and +plumage that the male birds are so fond of displaying. But I am inclined +to believe that the males think only of themselves and of outshining +each other, and not at all of the approbation of their mates, as, in an +analogous case in a higher species, it is well known whom the females +dress for, and whom they want to kill with envy! + +I know of no other song-bird that expresses so much self-consciousness +and vanity, and comes so near being an ornithological coxcomb. The +red-bird, the yellowbird, the indigo-bird, the oriole, the cardinal +grosbeak, and others, all birds of brilliant plumage and musical +ability, seem quite unconscious of self, and neither by tone nor act +challenge the admiration of the beholder. + +By the time the bobolink reaches the Potomac, in September, he has +degenerated into a game-bird that is slaughtered by tens of thousands in +the marshes. I think the prospects now are of his gradual extermination, +as gunners and sportsmen are clearly on the increase, while the limit of +the bird's productivity in the North has no doubt been reached long ago. +There are no more meadows to be added to his domain there, while he is +being waylaid and cut off more and more on his return to the South. +It is gourmand eat gourmand, until in half a century more I expect the +blithest and merriest of our meadow songsters will have disappeared +before the rapacity of human throats. + +But the poets have had a shot at him in good time, and have preserved +some of his traits. Bryant's poem on this subject does not compare with +his lines "To a Water-Fowl,"--a subject so well suited to the peculiar, +simple, and deliberate motion of his mind; at the same time it is fit +that the poet who sings of "The Planting of the Apple-Tree" should +render into words the song of "Robert of Lincoln." I subjoin a few +stanzas:-- + + ROBERT OF LINCOLN + + Merrily swinging on brier and weed, + Near to the nest of his little dame, + Over the mountain-side or mead, + Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: + Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, + Spink, spank, spink: + Snug and safe is that nest of ours, + Hidden among the summer flowers. + Chee, chee, chee. + + Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, + Wearing a bright black wedding-coat, + White are his shoulders and white his crest, + Hear him call in his merry note: + Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, + Spink, spank, spink: + Look what a nice new coat is mine, + Sure there was never a bird so fine. + Chee, chee, chee. + + Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, + Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, + Passing at home a patient life, + Broods in the grass while her husband sings. + Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, + Spink, spank, spink: + Brood, kind creature; you need not fear + Thieves and robbers while I am here. + Chee, chee, chee. + + +But it has been reserved for a practical ornithologist, Mr. Wilson +Flagg, to write by far the best poem on the bobolink that I have yet +seen. It is much more in the mood and spirit of the actual song than +Bryant's poem:-- + + THE O'LINCOLN FAMILY + + A flock of merry singing-birds were sporting in the grove; + Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love: + There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,-- + A livelier set was never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle,-- + Crying, "Phew, shew, Wadolincon, see, see, Bobolincon, + Down among the tickletops, hiding in the buttercups! + I know the saucy chap, I see his shining cap + Bobbing in the clover there--see, see, see!" + + Up flies Bobolincon, perching on an apple-tree, + Startled by his rival's song, quickened by his raillery. + Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curveting in the air, + And merrily he turns about, and warns him to beware! + "'T is you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O! + But wait a week, till flowers are cheery,--wait a week,and, + ere you marry, + Be sure of a house wherein to tarry! + Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!" + + Every one's a funny fellow; every one's a little mellow; + Follow, follow, follow, follow, o'er the hill and in the hollow! + Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly; + They cross and turn, and in and out, and down in the middle, + and wheel about,-- + With a "Phew, shew, Wadolincon! listen to me, Bobolincon!-- + Happy's the wooing that's speedily doing, that's speedily doing, + That's merry and over with the bloom of the clover! + Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me!" + + +Many persons, I presume, have admired Wordsworth's poem on the cuckoo, +without recognizing its truthfulness, or how thoroughly, in the main, +the description applies to our own species. If the poem had been written +in New England or New York, it could not have suited our case better:-- + + "O blithe New-comer! I have heard, + I hear thee and rejoice, + O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, + Or but a wandering Voice? + + "While I am lying on the grass, + Thy twofold shout I hear, + From hill to hill it seems to pass, + At once far off, and near. + + "Though babbling only to the Vale, + Of sunshine and of flowers, + Thou bringest unto me a tale + Of visionary hours. + + "Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! + Even yet thou art to me + No bird, but an invisible thing, + A voice, a mystery; + + "The same whom in my schoolboy days + I listened to; that Cry + Which made me look a thousand ways + In bush, and tree, and sky. + + "To seek thee did I often rove + Through woods and on the green; + And thou wert still a hope, a love; + Still longed for, never seen. + + "And I can listen to thee yet; + Can lie upon the plain + And listen, till I do beget + That golden time again. + + "O blesséd Bird! the earth we pace + Again appears to be + An unsubstantial, faery place; + That is fit home for thee!" + +Logan's stanzas, "To the Cuckoo," have less merit both as poetry and +natural history, but they are older, and doubtless the latter poet +benefited by them. Burke admired them so much that, while on a visit to +Edinburgh, he sought the author out to compliment him:-- + + "Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove! + Thou messenger of spring! + Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, + And woods thy welcome sing. + + "What time the daisy decks the green, + Thy certain voice we hear; + Hast thou a star to guide thy path, + Or mark the rolling year? + + . . . . . . . . + + "The schoolboy, wandering through the wood + To pull the primrose gay, + Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, + And imitates thy lay. + + . . . . . . . . + + "Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, + Thy sky is ever clear; + Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, + No winter in thy year." + +The European cuckoo is evidently a much gayer bird than ours, and much +more noticeable. + + "Hark, how the jolly cuckoos sing + 'Cuckoo!' to welcome in the spring," + +says John Lyly three hundred years agone. Its note is easily imitated, +and boys will render it so perfectly as to deceive any but the shrewdest +ear. An English lady tells me its voice reminds one of children at play, +and is full of gayety and happiness. It is a persistent songster, +and keeps up its call from morning to night. Indeed, certain parts +of Wordsworth's poem--those that refer to the bird as a mystery, a +wandering, solitary voice--seem to fit our bird better than the European +species. Our cuckoo is in fact a solitary wanderer, repeating its loud, +guttural call in the depths of the forest, and well calculated to arrest +the attention of a poet like Wordsworth, who was himself a kind of +cuckoo, a solitary voice, syllabling the loneliness that broods over +streams and woods,-- + + "And once far off, and near." + +Our cuckoo is not a spring bird, being seldom seen or heard in the North +before late in May. He is a great devourer of canker-worms, and, when +these pests appear, he comes out of his forest seclusion and makes +excursions through the orchards stealthily and quietly, regaling himself +upon those pulpy, fuzzy titbits. His coat of deep cinnamon brown has a +silky gloss and is very beautiful. His note or call is not musical +but loud, and has in a remarkable degree the quality of remoteness and +introvertedness. It is like a vocal legend, and to the farmer bodes +rain. + +It is worthy of note, and illustrates some things said farther back, +that birds not strictly denominated songsters, but criers like the +cuckoo, have been quite as great favorites with the poets, and +have received as affectionate treatment at their hands, as have the +song-birds. One readily recalls Emerson's "Titmouse," Trowbridge's +"Pewee," Celia Thaxter's "Sandpiper," and others of a like character. + +It is also worthy of note that the owl appears to be a greater favorite +with the poets than the proud, soaring hawk. The owl is doubtless the +more human and picturesque bird; then he belongs to the night and its +weird effects. Bird of the silent wing and expansive eye, grimalkin in +feathers, feline, mousing, haunting ruins" and towers, and mocking the +midnight stillness with thy uncanny cry! The owl is the great bugaboo of +the feathered tribes. His appearance by day is hailed by shouts of +alarm and derision from nearly every bird that flies, from crows down +to sparrows. They swarm about him like flies, and literally mob him back +into his dusky retreat. Silence is as the breath of his nostrils to him, +and the uproar that greets him when he emerges into the open day seems +to alarm and confuse him as it does the pickpocket when everybody cries +Thief. + +But the poets, I say, have not despised him:-- + + "The lark is but a bumpkin fowl; + He sleeps in his nest till morn; + But my blessing upon the jolly owl + That all night blows his horn." + +Both Shakespeare and Tennyson have made songs about him. This is +Shakespeare's, from "Love's Labor's Lost," and perhaps has reference to +the white or snowy owl:-- + + "When icicles hang by the wall, + And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, + And Tom bears logs into the hall, + And milk comes frozen home in pail; + When blood is nipped and ways be foul, + Then nightly sings the staring owl, + Tu-whoo! + Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note, + While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. + + "When all aloud the wind doth blow, + And coughing drowns the parson's saw, + And birds sit brooding in the snow, + And Marian's nose looks red and raw; + When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, + Then nightly sings the staring owl, + Tu-whoo! + Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! a merry note, + While greasy Joan doth keel the pot." + +There is, perhaps, a slight reminiscence of this song in Tennyson's +"Owl:"-- + + "When cats run home and light is come, + And dew is cold upon the ground, + And the far-off stream is dumb, + And the whirring sail goes round, + And the whirring sail goes round; + Alone and warming his five wits, + The white owl in the belfry sits. + + "When merry milkmaids click the latch, + And rarely smells the new-mown hay, + And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch + Twice or thrice his roundelay, + Twice or thrice his roundelay; + Alone and warming his five wits, + The white owl in the belfry sits." + +Tennyson has not directly celebrated any of the more famous birds, but +his poems contain frequent allusions to them. The + + "Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, + Rings Eden through the budded quicks, + Oh, tell me where the senses mix, + Oh, tell me where the passions meet," + +of "In Memoriam," is doubtless the nightingale. And here we have the +lark:-- + + "Now sings the woodland loud and long, + And distance takes a lovelier hue, + And drowned in yonder living blue + The lark becomes a sightless song." + +And again in this from "A Dream of Fair Women:"-- + + "Then I heard + A noise of some one coming through the lawn, + And singing clearer than the crested bird + That claps his wings at dawn." + +The swallow is a favorite bird with Tennyson, and is frequently +mentioned, beside being the principal figure in one of those charming +love-songs in "The Princess." His allusions to the birds, as to any +other natural feature, show him to be a careful observer, as when he +speaks of + + "The swamp, where hums the dropping snipe." + +His single bird-poem, aside from the song I have quoted, is "The +Blackbird," the Old World prototype of our robin, as if our bird had +doffed the aristocratic black for a more democratic suit on reaching +these shores. In curious contrast to the color of its plumage is its +beak, which is as yellow as a kernel of Indian corn. The following are +the two middle stanzas of the poem:-- + + "Yet, though I spared thee all the spring, + Thy sole delight is, sitting still, + With that gold dagger of thy bill + To fret the summer jenneting. + + "A golden bill! the silver tongue + Cold February loved is dry; + Plenty corrupts the melody + That made thee famous once, when young." + +Shakespeare, in one of his songs, alludes to the blackbird as the +ouzel-cock; indeed, he puts quite a flock of birds in this song:-- + + "The ouzel-cock so black of hue, + With orange tawny bill; + The throstle with his note so true, + The wren with little quill; + The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, + The plain song cuckoo gray, + Whose note full many a man doth mark, + And dares not answer nay." + +So far as external appearances are concerned,--form, plumage, grace of +manner,--no one ever had a less promising subject than had Trowbridge +in the "Pewee." This bird, if not the plainest dressed, is the most +unshapely in the woods. It is stiff and abrupt in its manners and +sedentary in its habits, sitting around all day, in the dark recesses +of the woods, on the dry twigs and branches, uttering now and then +its plaintive cry, and "with many a flirt and flutter" snapping up its +insect game. + +The pewee belongs to quite a large family of birds, all of whom have +strong family traits, and who are not the most peaceable and harmonious +of the sylvan folk. They are pugnacious, harsh-voiced, angular in form +and movement, with flexible tails and broad, flat, bristling beaks that +stand to the face at the angle of a turn-up nose, and most of them wear +a black cap pulled well down over their eyes. Their heads are large, +neck and legs short, and elbows sharp. The wild Irishman of them all +is the great crested flycatcher, a large, leather-colored or +sandy-complexioned bird that prowls through the woods, uttering its +harsh, uncanny note and waging fierce warfare upon its fellows. The +exquisite of the family, and the braggart of the orchard, is the +kingbird, a bully that loves to strip the feathers off its more timid +neighbors such as the bluebird, that feeds on the stingless bees of the +hive, the drones, and earns the reputation of great boldness by teasing +large hawks, while it gives a wide berth to little ones. + +The best beloved of them all is the phoebe-bird, one of the firstlings +of the spring, of whom so many of our poets have made affectionate +mention. + +The wood pewee is the sweetest voiced, and, notwithstanding the +ungracious things I have said of it and of its relations, merits to +the full all Trowbridge's pleasant fancies. His poem is indeed a very +careful study of the bird and its haunts, and is good poetry as well as +good ornithology:-- + + "The listening Dryads hushed the woods; + The boughs were thick, and thin and few + The golden ribbons fluttering through; + Their sun-embroidered, leafy hoods + The lindens lifted to the blue; + Only a little forest-brook + The farthest hem of silence shook; + When in the hollow shades I heard-- + Was it a spirit or a bird? + Or, strayed from Eden, desolate, + Some Peri calling to her mate, + Whom nevermore her mate would cheer? + 'Pe-ri! pe-ri! peer!' + + . . . . . . . . + + "To trace it in its green retreat + I sought among the boughs in vain; + And followed still the wandering strain, + So melancholy and so sweet, + The dim-eyed violets yearned with pain. + 'T was now a sorrow in the air, + Some nymph's immortalized despair + Haunting the woods and waterfalls; + And now, at long, sad intervals, + Sitting unseen in dusky shade, + His plaintive pipe some fairy played, + With long-drawn cadence thin and clear,-- + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!' + + "Long-drawn and clear its closes were-- + As if the hand of Music through + The sombre robe of Silence drew + A thread of golden gossamer; + So pure a flute the fairy blew. + Like beggared princes of the wood, + In silver rags the birches stood; + The hemlocks, lordly counselors, + Were dumb; the sturdy servitors, + In beechen jackets patched and gray, + Seemed waiting spellbound all the day + That low, entrancing note to hear,-- + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!' + + "I quit the search, and sat me down + Beside the brook, irresolute, + And watched a little bird in suit + Of sober olive, soft and brown, + Perched in the maple branches, mute; + With greenish gold its vest was fringed, + Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged, + With ivory pale its wings were barred, + And its dark eyes were tender-starred. + "Dear bird," I said, "what is thy name?" + And thrice the mournful answer came, + So faint and far, and yet so near,-- + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!' + + "For so I found my forest bird,-- + The pewee of the loneliest woods, + Sole singer in these solitudes, + Which never robin's whistle stirred, + Where never bluebird's plume intrudes. + Quick darting through the dewy morn, + The redstart trilled his twittering horn + And vanished in thick boughs; at even, + Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven, + The high notes of the lone wood thrush + Fell on the forest's holy hush; + But thou all day complainest here,-- + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!'" + +Emerson's best natural history poem is the "Humble-Bee,"--a poem as +good in its way as Burns's poem on the mouse; but his later poem, +"The Titmouse," has many of the same qualities, and cannot fail to be +acceptable to both poet and naturalist. + +The chickadee is indeed a truly Emersonian bird, and the poet shows him +to be both a hero and a philosopher. Hardy, active, social, a winter +bird no less than a summer, a defier of both frost and heat, lover of +the pine-tree, and diligent searcher after truth in the shape of eggs +and larvae of insects, preëminently a New England bird, clad in black +and ashen gray, with a note the most cheering and reassuring to be +heard in our January woods,--I know of none other of our birds so well +calculated to captivate the Emersonian muse. + +Emerson himself is a northern hyperborean genius,--a winter bird with +a clear, saucy, cheery call, and not a passionate summer songster. +His lines have little melody to the ear, but they have the vigor and +distinctness of all pure and compact things. They are like the needles +of the pine--"the snow loving pine"--more than the emotional foliage of +the deciduous trees, and the titmouse becomes them well:-- + + "Up and away for life! be fleet!-- + The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, + Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, + Curdles the blood to the marble bones, + Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, + And hems in life with narrowing fence. + Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,-- + The punctual stars will vigil keep,-- + Embalmed by purifying cold; + The wind shall sing their dead march old, + The snow is no ignoble shroud, + The moon thy mourner, and the cloud. + + "Softly,--but this way fate was pointing, + 'T was coming fast to such anointing, + When piped a tiny voice hard by, + Gay and polite, a cheerful cry, + _Chick-chickadeedee!_ saucy note, + Out of sound heart and merry throat, + As if it said 'Good day, good sir! + Fine afternoon, old passenger! + Happy to meet you in these places, + Where January brings few faces.' + + "This poet, though he lived apart, + Moved by his hospitable heart, + Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort, + To do the honors of his court, + As fits a feathered lord of land; + Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hands + Hopped on the bough, then darting low, + Prints his small impress on the snow, + Shows feats of his gymnastic play, + Head downward, clinging to the spray. + + "Here was this atom in full breath, + Hurling defiance at vast death; + This scrap of valor just for play + Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray, + As if to shame my weak behavior; + I greeted loud my little savior, + 'You pet! what dost here? and what for? + In these woods, thy small Labrador, + At this pinch, wee San Salvador! + What fire burns in that little chest, + So frolic, stout, and self-possest? + Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine; + Ashes and jet all hues outshine. + Why are not diamonds black and gray, + To ape thy dare-devil array? + And I affirm, the spacious North + Exists to draw thy virtue forth. + I think no virtue goes with size; + The reason of all cowardice + Is, that men are overgrown, + And, to be valiant, must come down + To the titmouse dimension.' + + . . . . . . . . + + "I think old Caesar must have heard + In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, + And, echoed in some frosty wold, + Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold. + And I will write our annals new + And thank thee for a better clew. + I, who dreamed not when I came here + To find the antidote of fear, + Now hear thee say in Roman key, + _Poean! Veni, vidi, vici."_ + +A late bird-poem, and a good one of its kind, is Celia Thaxter's +"Sandpiper," which recalls Bryant's "Water-Fowl" in its successful +rendering of the spirit and atmosphere of the scene, and the +distinctness with which the lone bird, flitting along the beach, is +brought before the mind. It is a woman's or a feminine poem, as Bryant's +is characteristically a man's. + +The sentiment or feeling awakened by any of the aquatic fowls is +preëminently one of loneliness. The wood duck which your approach starts +from the pond or the marsh, the loon neighing down out of the April +sky, the wild goose, the curlew, the stork, the bittern, the sandpiper, +awaken quite a different train of emotions from those awakened by +the land-birds. They all have clinging to them some reminiscence and +suggestion of the sea. Their cries echo its wildness and desolation; +their wings are the shape of its billows. + +Of the sandpipers there are many varieties, found upon the coast and +penetrating inland along the rivers and water-courses, one of the most +interesting of the family, commonly called the "tip-up," going up all +the mountain brooks and breeding in the sand along their banks; but +the characteristics are the same in all, and the eye detects little +difference except in size. + +The walker on the beach sees it running or flitting before him, +following up the breakers and picking up the aquatic insects left on the +sands; and the trout-fisher along the farthest inland stream likewise +intrudes upon its privacy. Flitting along from stone to stone seeking +its food, the hind part of its body "teetering" up and down, its soft +gray color blending it with the pebbles and the rocks, or else skimming +up or down the stream on its long, convex wings, uttering its shrill +cry, the sandpiper is not a bird of the sea merely; and Mrs. Thaxter's +poem is as much for the dweller inland as for the dweller upon the +coast:-- + + THE SANDPIPER + + Across the narrow beach we flit, + One little sandpiper and I; + And fast I gather, bit by bit, + The scattered driftwood bleached and dry. + The wild waves reach their hands for it, + The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, + As up and down the beach we flit,-- + One little sandpiper and I. + + Above our heads the sullen clouds + Scud black and swift across the sky; + Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds + Stand out the white lighthouses high. + Almost as far as eye can reach + I see the close-reefed vessels fly, + As fast we flit along the beach,-- + One little sandpiper and I. + + I watch him as he skims along, + Uttering his sweet and mournful cry; + He starts not at my fitful song, + Or flash of fluttering drapery; + He has no thought of any wrong; + He scans me with a fearless eye. + Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong, + The little sandpiper and I. + + Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night + When the loosed storm breaks furiously? + My driftwood fire will burn so bright! + To what warm shelter canst thou fly? + I do not fear for thee, though wroth + The tempest rushes through the sky; + For are we not God's children both, + Thou, little sandpiper, and I? + +Others of our birds have been game for the poetic muse, but in most +cases the poets have had some moral or pretty conceit to convey, and +have not loved the bird first. Mr. Lathrop preaches a little in his +pleasant poem, "The Sparrow," but he must some time have looked upon the +bird with genuine emotion to have written the first two stanzas:-- + + "Glimmers gay the leafless thicket + Close beside my garden gate, + Where, so light, from post to wicket, + Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate: + Who, with meekly folded wing, + Comes to sun himself and sing. + + "It was there, perhaps, last year, + That his little house he built; + For he seems to perk and peer, + And to twitter, too, and tilt + The bare branches in between, + With a fond, familiar mien." + +The bluebird has not been overlooked, and Halleek, Longfellow, and Mrs. +Sigourney have written poems upon him, but from none of them does there +fall that first note of his in early spring,--a note that may be called +the violet of sound, and as welcome to the ear, heard above the cold, +damp earth; as is its floral type to the eye a few weeks later Lowell's +two lines come nearer the mark:-- + + "The bluebird, shifting his light load of song + From post to post along the cheerless fence." + +Or the first swallow that comes twittering up the southern valley, +laughing a gleeful, childish laugh, and awakening such memories in +the heart, who has put him in a poem? So the hummingbird, too, escapes +through the finest meshes of rhyme. + +The most melodious of our songsters, the wood thrush and the hermit +thrush,--birds whose strains, more than any others, express harmony +and serenity,--have not yet, that I am aware, had reared to them their +merited poetic monument, unless, indeed, Whitman has done this service +for the hermit thrush in his "President Lincoln's Burial Hymn." Here +the threnody is blent of three chords, the blossoming lilac, the evening +star, and the hermit thrush, the latter playing the most prominent part +throughout the composition. It is the exalting and spiritual utterance +of the "solitary singer" that calms and consoles the poet when the +powerful shock of the President's assassination comes upon him, and he +flees from the stifling atmosphere and offensive lights and conversation +of the house,-- + + "Forth to hiding, receiving night that talks not, +Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, +To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still." + +Numerous others of our birds would seem to challenge attention by their +calls and notes. There is the Maryland yellowthroat, for instance, +standing in the door of his bushy tent, and calling out as you approach, +_"which way, sir! which way, sir!"_ If he says this to the ear of common +folk, what would he not say to the poet? One of the peewees says _"stay +there!"_ with great emphasis. The cardinal grosbeak calls out _"what +cheer" "what cheer;"_ " the bluebird says _"purity," "purity," "purity;"_ +the brown thrasher, or ferruginous thrush, according to Thoreau, calls +out to the farmer planting his corn, _"drop it," "drop it," "cover it +up," "cover it up"_ The yellow-breasted chat says _"who," "who"_ and +_"tea-boy"_ What the robin says, caroling that simple strain from +the top of the tall maple, or the crow with his hardy haw-haw, or the +pedestrain meadowlark sounding his piercing and long-drawn note in the +spring meadows, the poets ought to be able to tell us. I only know the +birds all have a language which is very expressive, and which is easily +translatable into the human tongue. + + + + +II TOUCHES OF NATURE + + +I + +WHEREVER Nature has commissioned one creature to prey upon another, she +has preserved the balance by forewarning that other creature of what she +has done. Nature says to the cat, "Catch the mouse," and she equips her +for that purpose; but on the selfsame day she says to the mouse, "Be +wary,--the cat is watching for you." Nature takes care that none of her +creatures have smooth sailing, the whole voyage at least. Why has she +not made the mosquito noiseless and its bite itchless? Simply because +in that case the odds would be too greatly in its favor. She has taken +especial pains to enable the owl to fly softly and silently, because the +creatures it preys upon are small and wary, and never venture far from +their holes. She has not shown the same caution in the case of the crow, +because the crow feeds on dead flesh, or on grubs and beetles, or fruit +and grain, that do not need to be approached stealthily. The big fish +love to cat up the little fish, and the little fish know it, and, on the +very day they are hatched, seek shallow water, and put little sandbars +between themselves and their too loving parents. + +How easily a bird's tail, or that of any fowl, or in fact any part of +the plumage, comes out when the hold of its would-be capturer is upon +this alone; and how hard it yields in the dead bird! No doubt there is +relaxation in the former case. Nature says to the pursuer, "Hold on," +and to the pursued, "Let your tail go." What is the tortuous, zigzag +course of those slow-flying moths for but to make it difficult for the +birds to snap them up? The skunk is a slow, witless creature, and the +fox and lynx love its meat; yet it carries a bloodless weapon that +neither likes to face. + +I recently heard of an ingenious method a certain other simple and +slow-going creature has of baffling its enemy. A friend of mine was +walking in the fields when he saw a commotion in the grass a few +yards off. Approaching the spot, he found a snake--the common garter +snake--trying to swallow a lizard. And how do you suppose the lizard was +defeating the benevolent designs of the snake? By simply taking hold +of its own tail and making itself into a hoop. The snake went round and +round, and could find neither beginning nor end. Who was the old giant +that found himself wrestling with Time? This little snake had a tougher +customer the other day in the bit of eternity it was trying to swallow. + +The snake itself has not the same wit, because I lately saw a black +snake in the woods trying to swallow the garter snake, and he had made +some headway, though the little snake was fighting every inch of the +ground, hooking his tail about sticks and bushes, and pulling back with +all his might, apparently not liking the look of things down there +at all. I thought it well to let him have a good taste of his own +doctrines, when I put my foot down against further proceedings. + +This arming of one creature against another is often cited as an +evidence of the wisdom of Nature, but it is rather an evidence of her +impartiality. She does not care a fig more for one creature than for +another, and is equally on the side of both, or perhaps it would be +better to say she does not care a fig for either. Every creature must +take its chances, and man is no exception. We can ride if we know +how and are going her way, or we can be run over if we fall or make a +mistake. Nature does not care whether the hunter slay the beast or the +beast the hunter; she will make good compost of them both, and her ends +are prospered whichever succeeds. + + "If the red slayer think he slays, + Or if the slain think he is slain, + They know not well the subtle ways + I keep, and pass, and turn again." + +What is the end of Nature? Where is the end of a sphere? The sphere +balances at any and every point. So everything in Nature is at the top, +and yet no _one_ thing is at the top. + +She works with reference to no measure of time, no limit of space, and +with an abundance of material, not expressed by exhaustless. Did you +think Niagara a great exhibition of power? What is that, then, that +withdraws noiseless and invisible in the ground about, and of which +Niagara is but the lifting of the finger? + +Nature is thoroughly selfish, and looks only to her own ends. One +thing she is bent upon, and that is keeping up the supply, multiplying +endlessly and scattering as she multiplies. Did Nature have in view our +delectation when she made the apple, the peach, the plum, the cherry? +Undoubtedly; but only as a means to her own private ends. What a bribe +or a wage is the pulp of these delicacies to all creatures to come and +sow their seed! And Nature has taken care to make the seed indigestible, +so that, though the fruit be eaten, the germ is not, but only planted. + +God made the crab, but man made the pippin; but the pippin cannot +propagate itself, and exists only by violence and usurpation. Bacon +says, "It is easier to deceive Nature than to force her," but it seems +to me the nurserymen really force her. They cut off the head of a savage +and clap on the head of a fine gentleman, and the crab becomes a Swaar +or a Baldwin. Or is it a kind of deception practiced upon Nature, which +succeeds only by being carefully concealed? If we could play the same +tricks upon her in the human species, how the great geniuses could be +preserved and propagated, and the world stocked with them! But what a +frightful condition of things that would be! No new men, but a tiresome +and endless repetition of the old ones,--a world perpetually stocked +with Newtons and Shakespeares! + +We say Nature knows best, and has adapted this or that to our wants or +to our constitution,--sound to the ear, light and color to the eye; but +she has not done any such thing, but has adapted man to these things. +The physical cosmos is the mould, and man is the molten metal that is +poured into it. The light fashioned the eye, the laws of sound made +the ear; in fact, man is the outcome of Nature and not the reverse. +Creatures that live forever in the dark have no eyes; and would not any +one of our senses perish and be shed, as it were, in a world where it +could not be used? + + + +II + +It is well to let down our metropolitan pride a little. Man thinks +himself at the top, and that the immense display and prodigality of +Nature are for him. But they are no more for him than they are for +the birds and beasts, and he is no more at the top than they are. He +appeared upon the stage when the play had advanced to a certain point, +and he will disappear from the stage when the play has reached another +point, and the great drama will go on without him. The geological ages, +the convulsions and parturition throes of the globe, were to bring him +forth no more than the beetles. Is not all this wealth of the seasons, +these solar and sidereal influences, this depth and vitality and +internal fire, these seas, and rivers, and oceans, and atmospheric +currents, as necessary to the life of the ants and worms we tread under +foot as to our own? And does the sun shine for me any more than for yon +butterfly? What I mean to say is, we cannot put our finger upon this +or that and say, Here is the end of Nature. The Infinite cannot be +measured. The plan of Nature is so immense,--but she has no plan, +no scheme, but to go on and on forever. What is size, what is time, +distance, to the Infinite? Nothing. The Infinite knows no time, no +space, no great, no small, no beginning, no end. + +I sometimes think that the earth and the worlds are a kind of nervous +ganglia in an organization of which we can form no conception, or less +even than that. If one of the globules of blood that circulate in our +veins were magnified enough million times, we might see a globe teeming +with life and power. Such is this earth of ours, coursing in the veins +of the Infinite. Size is only relative, and the imagination finds no end +to the series either way. + + + +III + +Looking out of the car window one day, I saw the pretty and unusual +sight of an eagle sitting upon the ice in the river, surrounded by half +a dozen or more crows. The crows appeared as if looking up to the +noble bird and attending his movements. "Are those its young?" asked a +gentleman by my side. How much did that man know--not about eagles, +but about Nature? If he had been familiar with geese or hens, or with +donkeys, he would not have asked that question. The ancients had an +axiom that he who knew one truth knew all truths; so much else becomes +knowable when one vital fact is thoroughly known. You have a key, a +standard, and cannot be deceived. Chemistry, geology, astronomy, natural +history, all admit one to the same measureless interiors. + +I heard a great man say that he could see how much of the theology +of the day would fall before the standard of him who had got even the +insects. And let any one set about studying these creatures carefully, +and he will see the force of the remark. We learn the tremendous +doctrine of metamorphosis from the insect world; and have not the bee +and the ant taught man wisdom from the first? I was highly edified +the past summer by observing the ways and doings of a colony of black +hornets that established themselves under one of the projecting gables +of my house. This hornet has the reputation of being a very ugly +customer, but I found it no trouble to live on the most friendly terms +with her. She was as little disposed to quarrel as I was. She is indeed +the eagle among hornets, and very noble and dignified in her bearing. +She used to come freely into the house and prey upon the flies. You +would hear that deep, mellow hum, and see the black falcon poising on +wing, or striking here and there at the flies, that scattered on her +approach like chickens before a hawk. When she had caught one, she would +alight upon some object and proceed to dress and draw her game. The +wings were sheared off, the legs cut away, the bristles trimmed, then +the body thoroughly bruised and broken. When the work was completed, +the fly was rolled up into a small pellet, and with it under her arm +the hornet flew to her nest, where no doubt in due time it was properly +served up on the royal board. Every dinner inside these paper walls is a +state dinner, for the queen is always present. + +I used to mount the ladder to within two or three feet of the nest +and observe the proceedings. I at first thought the workshop must be +inside,--a place where the pulp was mixed, and perhaps treated with +chemicals; for each hornet, when she came with her burden of materials, +passed into the nest, and then, after a few moments, emerged again and +crawled to the place of building. But I one day stopped up the entrance +with some cotton, when no one happened to be on guard, and then observed +that, when the loaded hornet could not get inside, she, after some +deliberation, proceeded to the unfinished part and went forward with her +work. Hence I inferred that maybe the hornet went inside to report and +to receive orders, or possibly to surrender her material into fresh +hands. Her career when away from the nest is beset with dangers; the +colony is never large, and the safe return of every hornet is no doubt a +matter of solicitude to the royal mother. + +The hornet was the first paper-maker, and holds the original patent. The +paper it makes is about like that of the newspaper; nearly as firm, and +made of essentially the same material,--woody fibres scraped from old +rails and boards. And there is news on it, too, if one could make out +the characters. + +When I stopped the entrance with cotton, there was no commotion or +excitement, as there would have been in the case of yellow-jackets. +Those outside went to pulling, and those inside went to pushing and +chewing. Only once did one of the outsiders come down and look me +suspiciously in the face, and inquire very plainly what my business +might be up there. I bowed my head, being at the top of a twenty-foot +ladder, and had nothing to say. + +The cotton was chewed and moistened about the edges till every fibre +was loosened, when the mass dropped. But instantly the entrance was +made smaller, and changed so as to make the feat of stopping it more +difficult. + + + +IV + +There are those who look at Nature from the standpoint of +conventional and artificial life,--from parlor windows and through +gilt-edged poems,--the sentimentalists. At the other extreme are those +who do not look at Nature at all, but are a grown part of her, and look +away from her toward the other class,--the backwoodsmen and pioneers, +and all rude and simple persons. Then there are those in whom the +two are united or merged,--the great poets and artists. In them the +sentimentalist is corrected and cured, and the hairy and taciturn +frontiersman has had experience to some purpose. The true poet knows +more about Nature than the naturalist because he carries her open +secrets in his heart. Eckermann could instruct Goethe in ornithology, +but could not Goethe instruct Eckermann in the meaning and mystery of +the bird? It is my privilege to number among my friends a man who has +passed his life in cities amid the throngs of men, who never goes to +the woods or to the country, or hunts or fishes, and yet he is the true +naturalist. I think he studies the orbs. I think day and night and the +stars, and the faces of men and women, have taught him all there is +worth knowing. + +We run to Nature because we are afraid of man. Our artists paint the +landscape because they cannot paint the human face. If we could look +into the eyes of a man as coolly as we can into the eyes of an animal, +the products of our pens and brushes would be quite different from what +they are. + + + +V + +But I suspect, after all, it makes but little difference to which school +you go, whether to the woods or to the city. A sincere man learns pretty +much the same things in both places. The differences are superficial, +the resemblances deep and many. The hermit is a hermit, and the poet +a poet, whether he grow up in the town or the country. I was forcibly +reminded of this fact recently on opening the works of Charles Lamb +after I had been reading those of our Henry Thoreau. Lamb cared nothing +for nature, Thoreau for little else. One was as attached to the city and +the life of the street and tavern as the other to the country and the +life of animals and plants. Yet they are close akin. They give out the +same tone and are pitched in about the same key. Their methods are the +same; so are their quaintness and scorn of rhetoric. Thoreau has the +drier humor, as might be expected, and is less stomachic. There is more +juice and unction in Lamb, but this he owes to his nationality. Both are +essayists who in a less reflective age would have been poets pure and +simple. Both were spare, high-nosed men, and I fancy a resemblance even +in their portraits. Thoreau is the Lamb of New England fields and +woods, and Lamb is the Thoreau of London streets and clubs. There was a +willfulness and perversity about Thoreau, behind which he concealed his +shyness and his thin skin, and there was a similar foil in Lamb, though +less marked, on account of his good-nature; that was a part of his +armor, too. + + + +VI + +Speaking of Thoreau's dry humor reminds me how surely the old English +unctuous and sympathetic humor is dying out or has died out of our +literature. Our first notable crop of authors had it,--Paulding, Cooper, +Irving, and in a measure Hawthorne,--but our later humorists have it not +at all, but in its stead an intellectual quickness and perception of the +ludicrous that is not unmixed with scorn. + +One of the marks of the great humorist, like Cervantes, or Sterne, or +Scott, is that he approaches his subject, not through his head merely, +but through his heart, his love, his humanity. His humor is full of +compassion, full of the milk of human kindness, and does not separate +him from his subject, but unites him to it by vital ties. How Sterne +loved Uncle Toby and sympathized with him, and Cervantes his luckless +knight! I fear our humorists would have made fun of them, would have +shown them up and stood aloof superior, and "laughed a laugh of merry +scorn." Whatever else the great humorist or poet, or any artist, may be +or do, there is no contempt in his laughter. And this point cannot +be too strongly insisted on in view of the fact that nearly all our +humorous writers seem impressed with the conviction that their own +dignity and self-respect require them to _look down_ upon what they +portray. But it is only little men who look down upon anything or speak +down to anybody. One sees every day how clear it is that specially fine, +delicate, intellectual persons cannot portray satisfactorily coarse, +common, uncultured characters. Their attitude is at once scornful and +supercilious. The great man, like Socrates, or Dr. Johnson, or Abraham +Lincoln, is just as surely coarse as he is fine, but the complaint I +make with our humorists is that they are fine and not coarse in any +healthful and manly sense. A great part of the best literature and the +best art is of the vital fluids, the bowels, the chest, the appetites, +and is to be read and judged only through love and compassion. Let us +pray for unction, which is the marrowfat of humor, and for humility, +which is the badge of manhood. + +As the voice of the American has retreated from his chest to his +throat and nasal passages, so there is danger that his contribution to +literature will soon cease to imply any blood or viscera, or healthful +carnality, or depth of human and manly affection, and will be the fruit +entirely of our toploftical brilliancy and cleverness. + +What I complain of is just as true of the essayists and the critics as +of the novelists. The prevailing tone here also is born of a feeling of +immense superiority. How our lofty young men, for instance, look down +upon Carlyle, and administer their masterly rebukes to him! But see how +Carlyle treats Burns, or Scott, or Johnson, or Novalis, or any of his +heroes. Ay, there's the rub; he makes heroes of them, which is not a +trick of small natures. He can say of Johnson that he was "moonstruck," +but it is from no lofty height of fancied superiority, but he uses the +word as a naturalist uses a term to describe an object he loves. + +What we want, and perhaps have got more of than I am ready to admit, is +a race of writers who affiliate with their subjects, and enter into them +through their blood, their sexuality and manliness, instead of +standing apart and criticising them and writing about them through mere +intellectual cleverness and "smartness." + + + +VII + +There is a feeling in heroic poetry, or in a burst of eloquence, that I +sometimes catch in quite different fields. I caught it this morning, +for instance, when I saw the belated trains go by, and knew how they +had been battling with storm, darkness, and distance, and had triumphed. +They were due at my place in the night, but did not pass till after +eight o'clock in the morning. Two trains coupled together,--the fast +mail and the express,--making an immense line of coaches hauled by two +engines. They had come from the West, and were all covered with snow and +ice, like soldiers with the dust of battle upon them. They had massed +their forces, and were now moving with augmented speed, and with a +resolution that was epic and grand. Talk about the railroad dispelling +the romance from the landscape; if it does, it brings the heroic element +in. The moving train is a proud spectacle, especially on stormy and +tempestuous nights. When I look out and see its light, steady and +unflickering as the planets, and hear the roar of its advancing tread, +or its sound diminishing in the distance, I am comforted and made stout +of heart. O night, where is thy stay! O space, where is thy victory! Or +to see the fast mail pass in the morning is as good as a page of Homer. +It quickens one's pulse for all day. It is the Ajax of trains. I hear +its defiant, warning whistle, hear it thunder over the bridges, and its +sharp, rushing ring among the rocks, and in the winter mornings see its +glancing, meteoric lights, or in summer its white form bursting through +the silence and the shadows, its plume of smoke lying flat upon its +roofs and stretching far behind,--a sight better than a battle. It +is something of the same feeling one has in witnessing any wild, free +careering in storms, and in floods in nature; or in beholding the +charge of an army; or in listening to an eloquent man, or to a hundred +instruments of music in full blast,--it is triumph, victory. What is +eloquence but mass in motion,--a flood, a cataract, an express train, a +cavalry charge? We are literally carried away, swept from our feet, and +recover our senses again as best we can. + +I experienced the same emotion when I saw them go by with the sunken +steamer. The procession moved slowly and solemnly. It was like a funeral +cortege,--a long line of grim floats and barges and boxes, with their +bowed and solemn derricks, the pall-bearers; and underneath in her +watery grave, where she had been for six months, the sunken steamer, +partially lifted and borne along. Next day the procession went back +again, and the spectacle was still more eloquent. The steamer had been +taken to the flats above and raised till her walking-beam was out of +water; her bell also was exposed and cleaned and rung, and the wreckers' +Herculean labor seemed nearly over. But that night the winds and the +storms held high carnival. It looked like preconcerted action on the +part of tide, tempest, and rain to defeat these wreckers, for the +elements all pulled together and pulled till cables and hawser snapped +like threads. Back the procession started, anchors were dragged or lost, +immense new cables were quickly taken ashore and fastened to trees; but +no use: trees were upturned, the cables stretched till they grew +small and sang like harp-strings, then parted; back, back against the +desperate efforts of the men, till within a few feet of her old +grave, when there was a great commotion among the craft, floats were +overturned, enormous chains parted, colossal timbers were snapped +like pipestems, and, with a sound that filled all the air, the steamer +plunged to the bottom again in seventy feet of water. + + + +VIII + +I am glad to observe that all the poetry of the midsummer harvesting has +not gone out with the scythe and the whetstone. The line of mowers was a +pretty sight, if one did not sympathize too deeply with the human backs +turned up there to the sun, and the sound of the whetstone, coming up +from the meadows in the dewy morning, was pleasant music. But I find the +sound of the mowing-machine and the patent reaper is even more in tune +with the voices of Nature at this season. The characteristic sounds of +midsummer are the sharp, whirring crescendo of the cicada or harvest +fly, and the rasping, stridulous notes of the nocturnal insects. The +mowing-machine repeats and imitates these sounds. 'T is like the hum of +a locust or the shuffling of a mighty grasshopper. More than that, the +grass and the grain at this season have become hard. The timothy stalk +is like a file; the rye straw is glazed with flint; the grasshoppers +snap sharply as they fly up in front of you; the bird-songs have ceased; +the ground crackles under foot; the eye of day is brassy and merciless; +and in harmony with all these things is the rattle of the mower and the +hay-tedder. + + + +IX + +'T is an evidence of how directly we are related to Nature, that we more +or less sympathize with the weather, and take on the color of the day. +Goethe said he worked easiest on a high barometer. One is like a chimney +that draws well some days and won't draw at all on others, and the +secret is mainly in the condition of the atmosphere. Anything positive +and decided with the weather is a good omen. A pouring rain may be more +auspicious than a sleeping sunshine. When the stove draws well, the fogs +and fumes will leave your mind. I find there is great virtue in the bare +ground, and have been much put out at times by those white angelic +days we have in winter, such as Whittier has so well described in these +lines:-- + + "Around the glistening wonder bent + The blue walls of the firmament; + No cloud above, no earth below, + A universe of sky and snow." + +On such days my spirit gets snow-blind; all things take on the same +color, or no color; my thought loses its perspective; the inner world is +a blank like the outer, and all my great ideals are wrapped in the same +monotonous and expressionless commonplace. The blackest of black days +are better. + +Why does snow so kill the landscape and blot out our interest in it? Not +merely because it is cold, and the symbol of death,--for I imagine as +many inches of apple blossoms would have about the same effect,--but +because it expresses nothing. White is a negative; a perfect blank. The +eye was made for color, and for the earthy tints, and, when these are +denied it, the mind is very apt to sympathize and to suffer also. + +Then when the sap begins to mount in the trees, and the spring languor +comes, does not one grow restless indoors? The sun puts out the fire, +the people say, and the spring sun certainly makes one's intellectual +light grow dim. Why should not a man sympathize with the seasons and the +moods and phases of Nature? He is an apple upon this tree, or rather he +is a babe at this breast, and what his great mother feels affects him +also. + + + +X + +I have frequently been surprised, in late fall and early winter, to +see how unequal or irregular was the encroachment of the frost upon the +earth. If there is suddenly a great fall in the mercury, the frost lays +siege to the soil and effects a lodgment here and there, and extends its +conquests gradually. At one place in the field you can easily run your +staff through into the soft ground, when a few rods farther on it will +be as hard as a rock. A little covering of dry grass or leaves is a +great protection. The moist places hold out long, and the spring runs +never freeze. You find the frost has gone several inches into the plowed +ground, but on going to the woods, and poking away the leaves and debris +under the hemlocks and cedars, you find there is no frost at all. The +Earth freezes her ears and toes and naked places first, and her body +last. + +If heat were visible, or if we should represent it say by smoke, then +the December landscape would present a curious spectacle. We should see +the smoke lying low over the meadows, thickest in the hollows and moist +places, and where the turf is oldest and densest. It would cling to the +fences and ravines. Under every evergreen tree we should see the vapor +rising and filling the branches, while the woods of pine and hemlock +would be blue with it long after it had disappeared from the open +country. It would rise from the tops of the trees, and be carried this +way and that with the wind. The valleys of the great rivers, like the +Hudson, would overflow with it. Large bodies of water become regular +magazines in which heat is stored during the summer, and they give it +out again during the fall and early winter. The early frosts keep well +back from the Hudson, skulking behind the ridges, and hardly come over +in sight at any point. But they grow bold as the season advances, till +the river's fires, too, I are put out and Winter covers it with his +snows. + + + +XI + +One of the strong and original strokes of Nature was when she made the +loon. It is always refreshing to contemplate a creature so positive and +characteristic. He is the great diver and flyer under water. The loon +is the genius loci of the wild northern lakes, as solitary as they are. +Some birds represent the majesty of nature, like the eagles; others its +ferocity, like the hawks; others its cunning, like the crow; others +its sweetness and melody, like the song-birds. The loon represents +its wildness and solitariness. It is cousin to the beaver. It has the +feathers of a bird and the fur of an animal, and the heart of both. It +is as quick and cunning as it is bold and resolute. It dives with such +marvelous quickness that the shot of the gunner get there just in time +"to cut across a circle of descending tail feathers and a couple of +little jets of water flung upward by the web feet of the loon." When +disabled so that it can neither dive nor fly, it is said to face its +foe, look him in the face with its clear, piercing eye, and fight +resolutely till death. The gunners say there is something in its +wailing, piteous cry, when dying, almost human in its agony. The loon +is, in the strictest sense, an aquatic fowl. It can barely walk upon the +land, and one species at least cannot take flight from the shore. But in +the water its feet are more than feet, and its wings more than wings. It +plunges into this denser air and flies with incredible speed. Its head +and beak form a sharp point to its tapering neck. Its wings are far in +front and its legs equally far in the rear, and its course through the +crystal depths is like the speed of an arrow. In the northern lakes it +has been taken forty feet under water upon hooks baited for the great +lake trout. I had never seen one till last fall, when one appeared on +the river in front of my house. I knew instantly it was the loon. Who +could not tell a loon a half mile or more away, though he had never seen +one before? The river was like glass, and every movement of the bird as +it sported about broke the surface into ripples, that revealed it far +and wide. Presently a boat shot out from shore, and went ripping up +the surface toward the loon. The creature at once seemed to divine the +intentions of the boatman, and sidled off obliquely, keeping a sharp +lookout as if to make sure it was pursued. A steamer came down and +passed between them, and when the way was again clear, the loon was +still swimming on the surface. Presently it disappeared under the +water, and the boatman pulled sharp and hard. In a few moments the bird +reappeared some rods farther on, as if to make an observation. Seeing it +was being pursued, and no mistake, it dived quickly, and, when it came +up again, had gone many times as far as the boat had in the same space +of time. Then it dived again, and distanced its pursuer so easily that +he gave over the chase and rested upon his oars. But the bird made a +final plunge, and, when it emerged upon the surface again, it was over +a mile away. Its course must have been, and doubtless was, an actual +flight under water, and half as fast as the crow flies in the air. + +The loon would have delighted the old poets. Its wild, demoniac laughter +awakens the echoes on the solitary lakes, and its ferity and hardiness +are kindred to those robust spirits. + + + +XII + +One notable difference between man and the four-footed animals which +has often occurred to me is in the eye, and the greater perfection, or +rather supremacy, of the sense of sight in the human species. All +the animals--the dog, the fox, the wolf, the deer, the cow, the +horse--depend mainly upon the senses of hearing and smell. Almost their +entire powers of discrimination are confined to these two senses. The +dog picks his master out of the crowd by smell, and the cow her calf out +of the herd. Sight is only partial recognition. The question can only +be settled beyond all doubt by the aid of the nose. The fox, alert and +cunning as he is, will pass within a few yards of the hunter and not +know him from a stump. A squirrel will run across your lap, and a marmot +between your feet, if you are motionless. When a herd of cattle see a +strange object, they are not satisfied till each one has sniffed it; and +the horse is cured of his fright at the robe, or the meal-bag, or other +object, as soon as he can be induced to smell it. There is a great deal +of speculation in the eye of an animal, but very little science. Then +you cannot catch an animal's eye; he looks at you, but not into your +eye. The dog directs his gaze toward your face, but, for aught you can +tell, it centres upon your mouth or nose. The same with your horse or +cow. Their eye is vague and indefinite. + +Not so with the birds. The bird has the human eye in its clearness, its +power, and its supremacy over the other senses. How acute their sense +of smell may be is uncertain; their hearing is sharp enough, but their +vision is the most remarkable. A crow or a hawk, or any of the larger +birds, will not mistake you for a stump or a rock, stand you never so +still amid the bushes. But they cannot separate you from your horse or +team. A hawk reads a man on horseback as one animal, and reads it as a +horse. None of the sharp-scented animals could be thus deceived. + +The bird has man's brain also in its size. The brain of a song-bird is +even much larger in proportion than that of the greatest human monarch, +and its life is correspondingly intense and high-strung. But the bird's +eye is superficial. It is on the outside of his head. It is round, that +it may take in a full circle at a glance. + +All the quadrupeds emphasize their direct forward gaze by a +corresponding movement of the ears, as if to supplement and aid one +sense with another. But man's eye seldom needs the confirmation of +his ear, while it is so set, and his head so poised, that his look is +forcible and pointed without being thus seconded. + + + +XIII + +I once saw a cow that had lost her cud. How forlorn and desolate and +sick at heart that cow looked! No more rumination, no more of that +second and finer mastication, no more of that sweet and juicy reverie +under the spreading trees, or in the stall. Then the farmer took an +elder and scraped the bark and put something with it, and made the cow a +cud, and, after due waiting, the experiment took, a response came back, +and the mysterious machinery was once more in motion, and the cow was +herself again. + +Have you, O poet, or essayist, or story-writer, never lost your cud, +and wandered about days and weeks without being able to start a single +thought or an image that tasted good,--your literary appetite dull or +all gone, and the conviction daily growing that it was all over with you +in that direction? A little elder-bark, something fresh and bitter from +the woods, is about the best thing you can take. + + + +XIV + +Notwithstanding what I have elsewhere said about the desolation of snow, +when one looks closely it is little more than a thin veil after all, and +takes and repeats the form of whatever it covers. Every path through +the fields is just as plain as before. On every hand the ground sends +tokens, and the curves and slopes are not of the snow, but of the earth +beneath. In like manner the rankest vegetation hides the ground less +than we think. Looking across a wide valley in the month of July, I have +noted that the fields, except the meadows, had a ruddy tinge, and that +corn, which near at hand seemed to completely envelop the soil, at that +distance gave only a slight shade of green. The color of the ground +everywhere predominated, and I doubt not that, if we could see the earth +from a point sufficiently removed, as from the moon, its ruddy hue, like +that of Mars, would alone be visible. + +What is a man but a miniature earth, with many disguises in the way of +manners, possessions, dissemblances? Yet through all--through all the +work of his hands and all the thoughts of his mind--how surely the +ground quality of him, the fundamental hue, whether it be this or that, +makes itself felt and is alone important! + + + +XV + +Men follow their noses, it is said. I have wondered why the Greek did +not follow his nose in architecture,--did not copy those arches that +spring from it as from a pier, and support his brow,--but always and +everywhere used the post and the lintel. There was something in that +face that has never reappeared in the human countenance. I am thinking +especially of that straight, strong profile. Is it really godlike, or +is this impression the result of association? But any suggestion or +reminiscence of it in the modern face at once gives one the idea of +strength. It is a face strong in the loins, or it suggests a high, +elastic instep. It is the face of order and proportion. Those arches are +the symbols of law and self-control. The point of greatest interest is +the union of the nose with the brow,--that strong, high embankment; +it makes the bridge from the ideal to the real sure and easy. All the +Greek's ideas passed readily into form. In the modern face the arches +are more or less crushed, and the nose is severed from the brow,--hence +the abstract and the analytic; hence the preponderance of the +speculative intellect over creative power. + + + +XVI + +I have thought that the boy is the only true lover of Nature, and that +we, who make such a dead set at studying and admiring her, come very +wide of the mark. "The nonchalance of a boy who is sure of his dinner," +says our Emerson, "is the healthy attitude of humanity." The boy is a +part of Nature; he is as indifferent, as careless, as vagrant as she. He +browses, he digs, he hunts, he climbs, he halloes, he feeds on roots +and greens and mast. He uses things roughly and without sentiment. The +coolness with which boys will drown dogs or cats, or hang them to trees, +or murder young birds, or torture frogs or squirrels, is like Nature's +own mercilessness. + +Certain it is that we often get some of the best touches of nature from +children. Childhood is a world by itself, and we listen to children when +they frankly speak out of it with a strange interest. There is such a +freedom from responsibility and from worldly wisdom,--it is heavenly +wisdom. There is no sentiment in children, because there is no ruin; +nothing has gone to decay about them yet,--not a leaf or a twig. Until +he is well into his teens, and sometimes later, a boy is like a +bean-pod before the fruit has developed,--indefinite, succulent, rich in +possibilities which are only vaguely outlined. He is a pericarp merely. +How rudimental are all his ideas! I knew a boy who began his +school composition on swallows by saying there were two kinds of +swallows,--chimney swallows and swallows. + +Girls come to themselves sooner; are indeed, from the first, more +definite and "translatable." + + + +XVII + +Who will write the natural history of the boy? One of the first points +to be taken account of is his clannishness. The boys of one neighborhood +are always pitted against those of an adjoining neighborhood, or of one +end of the town against those of the other end. A bridge, a river, a +railroad track, are always boundaries of hostile or semi-hostile tribes. +The boys that go up the road from the country school hoot derisively +at those that go down the road, and not infrequently add the insult of +stones; and the down-roaders return the hooting and the missiles with +interest. + +Often there is open war, and the boys meet and have regular battles. A +few years since, the boys of two rival towns on opposite sides of the +Ohio River became so belligerent that the authorities had to interfere. +Whenever an Ohio boy was caught on the West Virginia side of the river, +he was unmercifully beaten; and when a West Virginia boy was discovered +on the Ohio side, he was pounced upon in the same manner. One day a +vast number of boys, about one hundred and fifty on a side, met +by appointment upon the ice and engaged in a pitched battle. Every +conceivable missile was used, including pistols. The battle, says the +local paper, raged with fury for about two hours. One boy received +a wound behind the ear, from the effects of which he died the next +morning. More recently the boys of a large manufacturing town of New +Jersey were divided into two hostile clans that came into frequent +collision. One Saturday both sides mustered their forces, and a regular +fight ensued, one boy here also losing his life from the encounter. + +Every village and settlement is at times the scene of these youthful +collisions When a new boy appears in the village, or at the country +school, how the other boys crowd around him and take his measure, or +pick at him and insult him to try his mettle! + +I knew a boy, twelve or thirteen years old, who was sent to help a +drover with some cattle as far as a certain village ten miles from his +home. After the place was reached, and while the boy was eating his +cracker and candies, he strolled about the village, and fell in with +some other boys playing upon a bridge. In a short time a large number of +children of all sizes had collected upon the bridge. The new-comer was +presently challenged by the boys of his own age to jump with them. This +he readily did, and cleared their farthest mark. Then he gave them a +sample of his stone-throwing, and at this pastime he also far surpassed +his competitors. Before long, the feeling of the crowd began to set +against him, showing itself first in the smaller fry, who began half +playfully to throw pebbles and lumps of dry earth at him. Then they +would run up slyly and strike him with sticks. Presently the large +ones began to tease him in like manner, till the contagion of hostility +spread, and the whole pack was arrayed against the strange boy. He kept +them at bay for a few moments with his stick, till, the feeling mounting +higher and higher, he broke through their ranks, and fled precipitately +toward home, with the throng of little and big at his heels. Gradually +the girls and smaller boys dropped behind, till at the end of the +first fifty rods only two boys of about his own size, with wrath and +determination in their faces, kept up the pursuit. But to these he added +the final insult of beating them at running also, and reached, much +blown, a point beyond which they refused to follow. + +The world the boy lives in is separate and distinct from the world +the man lives in. It is a world inhabited only by boys. No events are +important or of any moment save those affecting boys. How they +ignore the presence of their elders on the street, shouting out their +invitations, their appointments, their pass-words from our midst, as +from the veriest solitude! They have peculiar calls, whistles, signals, +by which they communicate with each other at long distances, like birds +or wild creatures. And there is as genuine a wildness about these notes +and calls as about those of a fox or a coon. + +The boy is a savage, a barbarian, in his taste,--devouring roots, +leaves, bark, unripe fruit; and in the kind of music or discord he +delights in,--of harmony he has no perception. He has his fashions that +spread from city to city. In one of our large cities the rage at one +time was an old tin can with a string attached, out of which they +tortured the most savage and ear-splitting discords. The police were +obliged to interfere and suppress the nuisance. On another occasion, at +Christmas, they all came forth with tin horns, and nearly drove the town +distracted with the hideous uproar. + +Another savage trait of the boy is his untruthfulness. Corner him, and +the chances are ten to one he will lie his way out. Conscience is +a plant of slow growth in the boy. If caught in one lie, he invents +another. I know a boy who was in the habit of eating apples in school. +His teacher finally caught him in the act, and, without removing his eye +from him, called him to the middle of the floor. + +"I saw you this time," said the teacher. + +"Saw me what?" said the boy innocently. + +"Bite that apple," replied the teacher. + +"No, sir," said the rascal. + +"Open your mouth;" and from its depths the teacher, with his thumb and +finger, took out the piece of apple. + +"Did n't know it was there," said the boy, unabashed. + +Nearly all the moral sentiment and graces are late in maturing in the +boy. He has no proper self-respect till past his majority. Of course +there are exceptions, but they are mostly windfalls. The good boys +die young. We lament the wickedness and thoughtlessness of the young +vagabonds at the same time that we know it is mainly the acridity and +bitterness of the unripe fruit that we are lamenting. + + + + +III A BIRD MEDLEY + +People who have not made friends with the birds do not know how much +they miss. Especially to one living in the country, of strong local +attachments and an observing turn of mind, does an acquaintance with +the birds form a close and invaluable tie. The only time I saw Thomas +Carlyle, I remember his relating, apropos of this subject, that in his +earlier days he was sent on a journey to a distant town on some business +that gave him much bother and vexation, and that on his way back home, +forlorn and dejected, he suddenly heard the larks singing all about +him,--soaring and singing, just as they did about his father's fields, +and it comforted him and cheered him up amazingly. + +Most lovers of the birds can doubtless recall similar experiences from +their own lives. Nothing wonts me to a new place more than the birds. I +go, for instance, to take up my abode in the country,--to plant myself +upon unfamiliar ground. I know nobody, and nobody knows me. The roads, +the fields, the hills, the streams, the woods, are all strange. I look +wistfully upon them, but they know me not. They give back nothing to +my yearning gaze. But there, on every hand, are the long-familiar +birds,--the same ones I left behind me, the same ones I knew in my +youth,--robins, sparrows, swallows, bobolinks, crows, hawks, high-holes, +meadowlarks, all there before me, and ready to renew and perpetuate the +old associations. Before my house is begun, theirs is completed; before +I have taken root at all, they are thoroughly established. I do not yet +know what kind of apples my apple-trees bear, but there, in the cavity +of a decayed limb, the bluebirds are building a nest, and yonder, on +that branch, the social sparrow is busy with hairs and straws. The +robins have tasted the quality of my cherries, and the cedar-birds have +known every red cedar on the place these many years. While my house +is yet surrounded by its scaffoldings, the phoebe-bird has built her +exquisite mossy nest on a projecting stone beneath the eaves, a robin +has filled a niche in the wall with mud and dry grass, the chimney +swallows are going out and in the chimney, and a pair of house wrens are +at home in a snug cavity over the door, and, during an April snowstorm, +a number of hermit thrushes have taken shelter in my unfinished +chambers. Indeed, I am in the midst of friends before I fairly know it. +The place is not so new as I had thought. It is already old; the birds +have supplied the memories of many decades of years. + +There is something almost pathetic in the fact that the birds remain +forever the same. You grow old, your friends die or move to distant +lands, events sweep on, and all things are changed. Yet there in your +garden or orchard are the birds of your boyhood, the same notes, the +same calls, and, to all intents and purposes, the identical birds +endowed with perennial youth. The swallows, that built so far out of +your reach beneath the eaves of your father's barn, the same ones now +squeak and chatter beneath the eaves of your barn. The warblers and +shy wood-birds you pursued with such glee ever so many summers ago, and +whose names you taught to some beloved youth who now, perchance, sleeps +amid his native hills, no marks of time or change cling to them; and +when you walk out to the strange woods, there they are, mocking you with +their ever-renewed and joyous youth. The call of the high-holes, the +whistle of the quail, the strong piercing note of the meadowlark, the +drumming of the grouse,--how these sounds ignore the years, and strike +on the ear with the melody of that springtime when the world was young, +and life was all holiday and romance! + +During any unusual tension of the feelings or emotions, how the note or +song of a single bird will sink into the memory, and become inseparably +associated with your grief or joy! Shall I ever again be able to hear +the song of the oriole without being pierced through and through? Can it +ever be other than a dirge for the dead to me? Day after day, and week +after week, this bird whistled and warbled in a mulberry by the door, +while sorrow, like a pall, darkened my day. So loud and persistent was +the singer that his note teased and worried my excited ear. + + "Hearken to yon pine warbler, + Singing aloft in the tree! + Hearest thou, O traveler! + What he singeth to me? + + "Not unless God made sharp thine ear + With sorrow such as mine, + Out of that delicate lay couldst thou + Its heavy tale divine." + +It is the opinion of some naturalists that birds never die what is +called a natural death, but come to their end by some murderous or +accidental means; yet I have found sparrows and vireos in the fields and +woods dead or dying, that bore no marks of violence; and I remember that +once in my childhood a redbird fell down in the yard exhausted, and was +brought in by the girl; its bright scarlet image is indelibly stamped +upon my recollection. It is not known that birds have any distempers +like the domestic fowls, but I saw a social sparrow one day quite +disabled by some curious malady that suggested a disease that sometimes +attacks poultry; one eye was nearly put out by a scrofulous-looking +sore, and on the last joint of one wing there was a large tumorous or +fungous growth that crippled the bird completely. On another occasion +I picked up one that appeared well, but could not keep its centre of +gravity when in flight, and so fell to the ground. + +One reason why dead birds and animals are so rarely found is, that on +the approach of death their instinct prompts them to creep away in some +hole or under some cover, where they will be least liable to fall a prey +to their natural enemies. It is doubtful if any of the game-birds, like +the pigeon and grouse, ever die of old age, or the semi-game-birds, like +the bobolink, or the "century living" crow; but in what other form can +death overtake the hummingbird, or even the swift and the barn swallow? +Such are true birds of the air; they may be occasionally lost at sea +during their migrations, but, so far as I know, they are not preyed upon +by any other species. + +The valley of the Hudson, I find, forms a great natural highway for the +birds, as do doubtless the Connecticut, the Susquehanna, the Delaware, +and all other large water-courses running north and south. The birds +love an easy way, and in the valleys of the rivers they find a road +already graded for them; and they abound more in such places throughout +the season than they do farther inland. The swarms of robins that come +to us in early spring are a delight to behold. In one of his poems +Emerson speaks of + + "April's bird, + Blue-coated, flying before from tree to tree;" + +but April's bird with me is the robin, brisk, vociferous, musical, +dotting every field, and larking it in every grove; he is as easily atop +at this season as the bobolink is a month or two later. The tints of +April are ruddy and brown,--the new furrow and the leafless trees,--and +these are the tints of its dominant bird. + +From my dining-room window I look, or did look, out upon a long stretch +of smooth meadow, and as pretty a spring sight as I ever wish to behold +was this field, sprinkled all over with robins, their red breasts turned +toward the morning sun, or their pert forms sharply outlined against +lingering patches of snow. Every morning for weeks I had those robins +for breakfast; but what they had I never could find out. + +After the leaves are out, and gayer colors come into fashion, the robin +takes a back seat. He goes to housekeeping in the old apple-tree, or, +what he likes better, the cherry-tree. A pair reared their domestic +altar (of mud and dry grass) in one of the latter trees, where I saw +much of them. The cock took it upon himself to keep the tree free of all +other robins during cherry time, and its branches were the scene of +some lively tussles every hour in the day. The innocent visitor would +scarcely alight before the jealous cock was upon him; but while he was +thrusting the intruder out at one side, a second would be coming in on +the other. He managed, however, to protect his cherries very well, but +had so little time to eat the fruit himself that we got fully our share. + +I have frequently seen the robin courting, and have always been +astonished and amused at the utter coldness and indifference of the +female. The females of every species of bird, however, I believe, have +this in common,--they are absolutely free from coquetry, or any airs and +wiles whatever. In most cases, Nature has given the song and the plumage +to the other sex, and all the embellishing and acting is done by the +male bird. + +I am always at home when I see the passenger pigeon. Few spectacles +please me more than to see clouds of these birds sweeping across the +sky, and few sounds are more agreeable to my ear than their lively +piping and calling in the spring woods. They come in such multitudes, +they people the whole air; they cover townships, and make the solitary +places gay as with a festival. The naked woods are suddenly blue as with +fluttering ribbons and scarfs, and vocal as with the voices of children. +Their arrival is always unexpected. We know April will bring the robins +and May the bobolinks, but we do not know that either they or any +other month will bring the passenger pigeon. Sometimes years elapse and +scarcely a flock is seen. Then, of a sudden, some March or April they +come pouring over the horizon from the south or southwest, and for a few +days the land is alive with them. + +The whole race seems to be collected in a few vast swarms or +assemblages. Indeed, I have sometimes thought there was only one such +in the United States, and that it moved in squads, and regiments, and +brigades, and divisions, like a giant army. The scouting and foraging +squads are not unusual, and every few years we see larger bodies of +them, but rarely indeed do we witness the spectacle of the whole vast +tribe in motion. Sometimes we hear of them in Virginia, or Kentucky +and Tennessee; then in Ohio or Pennsylvania; then in New York; then in +Canada or Michigan or Missouri. They are followed from point to point, +and from State to State, by human sharks, who catch and shoot them for +market. + +A year ago last April, the pigeons flew for two or three days up and +down the Hudson. In long bowing lines, or else in dense masses, they +moved across the sky. It was not the whole army, but I should think at +least one corps of it; I had not seen such a flight of pigeons since +my boyhood. I went up to the top of the house, the better to behold the +winged procession. The day seemed memorable and poetic in which such +sights occurred. + + [Footnote: This proved to be the last flight of the pigeons + in the valley of the Hudson. The whole tribe has now (1895) + been nearly exterminated by pot-hunters. The few that still + remain appear to be scattered through the Northern States + in small, loose flocks.] + +While I was looking at the pigeons, a flock of wild geese went by, +harrowing the sky northward. The geese strike a deeper chord than the +pigeons. Level and straight they go as fate to its mark. I cannot tell +what emotions these migrating birds awaken in me,--the geese especially. +One seldom sees more than a flock or two in a season, and what a spring +token it is! The great bodies are in motion. It is like the passage of +a victorious army. No longer inch by inch does spring come, but these +geese advance the standard across zones at one pull. How my desire goes +with them; how something in me, wild and migratory, plumes itself and +follows fast! + + "Steering north, with raucous cry, + Through tracts and provinces of sky, + Every night alighting down + In new landscapes of romance, + Where darkling feed the clamorous clans + By lonely lakes to men unknown." + +Dwelling upon these sights, I am reminded that the seeing of spring +come, not only upon the great wings of the geese and the lesser wings +of the pigeons and birds, but in the many more subtle and indirect +signs and mediums, is also a part of the compensation of living in +the country. I enjoy not less what may be called the negative side of +spring,--those dark, dank, dissolving days, + yellow sposh and mud and water everywhere,--yet who can stay long +indoors? The humidity is soft and satisfying to the smell, and to the +face and hands, and, for the first time for months, there is the fresh +odor of the earth. The air is full of the notes and calls of the first +birds. The domestic fowls refuse their accustomed food and wander far +from the barn. Is it something winter has left, or spring has dropped, +that they pick up? And what is it that holds me so long standing in the +yard or in the fields? Something besides the ice and snow melts and runs +away with the spring floods. + +The little sparrows and purple finches are so punctual in announcing +spring, that some seasons one wonders how they know without looking in +the almanac, for surely there are no signs of spring out of doors. Yet +they will strike up as cheerily amid the driving snow as if they had +just been told that to-morrow is the first day of March. About the same +time I notice the potatoes in the cellar show signs of sprouting. +They, too, find out so quickly when spring is near. Spring comes by two +routes,--in the air and underground, and often gets here by the latter +course first. She undermines Winter when outwardly his front is nearly +as bold as ever. I have known the trees to bud long before, by outward +appearances, one would expect them to. The frost was gone from the +ground before the snow was gone from the surface. + +But Winter hath his birds also; some of them such tiny bodies that one +wonders how they withstand the giant cold,--but they do. Birds live on +highly concentrated food,--the fine seeds of weeds and grasses, and +the eggs and larvae of insects. Such food must be very stimulating and +heating. A gizzard full of ants, for instance, what spiced and seasoned +extract is equal to that? Think what virtue there must be in an ounce +of gnats or mosquitoes, or in the fine mysterious food the chickadee and +the brown creeper gather in the winter woods! It is doubtful if these +birds ever freeze when fuel enough can be had to keep their little +furnaces going. And, as they get their food entirely from the limbs and +trunks of trees, like the woodpeckers, their supply is seldom interfered +with by the snow. The worst annoyance must be the enameling of ice our +winter woods sometimes get. + +Indeed, the food question seems to be the only serious one with the +birds. Give them plenty to eat, and no doubt the majority of them would +face our winters. I believe all the woodpeckers are winter birds, except +the high-hole or yellow-hammer, and he obtains the greater part of +his subsistence from the ground, and is not a woodpecker at all in his +habits of feeding. Were it not that it has recourse to budding, the +ruffed grouse would be obliged to migrate. The quail--a bird, no doubt, +equally hardy, but whose food is at the mercy of the snow--is frequently +cut off by our severe winters when it ventures to brave them, which is +not often. Where plenty of the berries of the red cedar can be had, the +cedar-bird will pass the winter in New York. The old ornithologists say +the bluebird migrates to Bermuda; but in the winter of 1874-75, severe +as it was, a pair of them wintered with me eighty miles north of +New York city. They seem to have been decided in their choice by the +attractions of my rustic porch and the fruit of a sugar-berry tree +(celtis--a kind of tree-lotus) that stood in front of it. They lodged in +the porch and took their meals in the tree. Indeed, they became regular +lotus-eaters. Punctually at dusk they were in their places on a +large laurel root in the top of the porch, whence, however, they were +frequently routed by an indignant broom that was jealous of the neatness +of the porch floor. But the pair would not take any hints of this kind, +and did not give up their quarters in the porch or their lotus berries +till spring. + +Many times during the winter the sugar-berry tree was visited by a flock +of cedar-birds that also wintered in the vicinity. At such times it +was amusing to witness the pretty wrath of the bluebirds, scolding and +threatening the intruders, and begrudging them every berry they ate. The +bluebird cannot utter a harsh or unpleasing note. Indeed, he seems +to have but one language, one speech, for both love and war, and the +expression of his indignation is nearly as musical as his song. The male +frequently made hostile demonstrations toward the cedar-birds, but did +not openly attack them, and, with his mate, appeared to experience great +relief when the poachers had gone. + +I had other company in my solitude also, among the rest a distinguished +arrival from the far north, the pine grosbeak, a bird rarely seen in +these parts, except now and then a single specimen. But in the winter of +1875, heralding the extreme cold weather, and no doubt in consequence of +it, there was a large incursion of them into this State and New England. +They attracted the notice of the country people everywhere. I first saw +them early in December about the head of the Delaware. I was walking +along a cleared ridge with my gun, just at sundown, when I beheld two +strange birds sitting in a small maple. On bringing one of them down, I +found it was a bird I had never before seen; in color and shape like the +purple finch, but quite as large again in size. From its heavy beak, +I at once recognized it as belonging to the family of grosbeaks. A few +days later I saw large numbers of them in the woods, on the ground, +and in the trees. And still later, and on till February, they were very +numerous on the Hudson, coming all about my house,--more familiar even +than the little snowbird, hopping beneath the windows, and looking up +at me apparently with as much curiosity as I looked down upon them. +They fed on the buds of the sugar maples and upon frozen apples in the +orchard. They were mostly young birds and females, colored very +much like the common sparrow, with now and then visible the dull +carmine-colored head and neck of an old male. + +Other northern visitors that tarried with me the same winter were the +tree or Canada sparrow and the redpoll, the former a bird larger than +the social sparrow or hair-bird, but otherwise much resembling it, and +distinguishable by a dark spot in the middle of its breast; the latter a +bird the size and shape of the common goldfinch, with the same manner +of flight and nearly the same note or cry, but darker than the winter +plumage of the goldfinch, and with a red crown and a tinge of red on the +breast. Little bands of these two species lurked about the barnyard all +winter, picking up the hayseed, the sparrow sometimes venturing in on +the haymow when the supply outside was short. I felt grateful to them +for their company. They gave a sort of ornithological air to every +errand I had to the barn. + +Though a number of birds face our winters, and by various shifts worry +through till spring, some of them permanent residents, and some of them +visitors from the far north, yet there is but one genuine snow bird, +nursling of the snow, and that is the snow bunting, a bird that seems +proper to this season, heralding the coming storm, sweeping by on bold +and rapid wing, and calling and chirping as cheerily as the songsters +of May. In its plumage it reflects the winter landscape,--an expanse of +white surmounted or streaked with gray and brown; a field of snow with +a line of woods or a tinge of stubble. It fits into the scene, and does +not appear to lead a beggarly and disconsolate life, like most of our +winter residents. During the ice-harvesting on the river, I see them +flitting about among the gangs of men, or floating on the cakes of ice, +picking and scratching amid the droppings of the horses. They love the +stack and hay-barn in the distant field, where the farmer fodders his +cattle upon the snow, and every red-root, ragweed, or pigweed left +standing in the fall adds to their winter stores. + +Though this bird, and one or two others, like the chickadee and +nuthatch, are more or less complacent and cheerful during the winter, +yet no bird can look our winters in the face and sing, as do so many of +the English birds. Several species in Great Britain, their biographers +tell us, sing the winter through, except during the severest frosts; but +with us, as far south as Virginia, and, for aught I know, much farther, +the birds are tuneless at this season. The owls, even, do not hoot, nor +the hawks scream. + +Among the birds that tarry briefly with us in the spring on their way to +Canada and beyond, there is none I behold with so much pleasure as the +white-crowned sparrow. I have an eye out for him all through April +and the first week in May. He is the rarest and most beautiful of the +sparrow kind. He is crowned, as some hero or victor in the games. He is +usually in company with his congener, the white-throated sparrow, but +seldom more than in the proportion of one to twenty of the latter. +Contrasted with this bird, he looks like its more fortunate brother, +upon whom some special distinction has been conferred, and who is, from +the egg, of finer make and quality. His sparrow color of ashen gray +and brown is very clear and bright, and his form graceful. His whole +expression, however, culminates in a singular manner in his crown. The +various tints of the bird are brought to a focus here and intensified, +the lighter ones becoming white, and the deeper ones nearly black. +There is the suggestion of a crest, also, from a habit the bird has +of slightly elevating this part of its plumage, as if to make more +conspicuous its pretty markings. They are great scratchers, and will +often remain several minutes scratching in one place, like a hen. Yet, +unlike the hen and like all hoppers, they scratch with both feet at +once, which is by no means the best way to scratch. + +The white-throats often sing during their sojourning both in fall and +spring; but only on one occasion have I ever heard any part of the song +of the white-crowned, and that proceeded from what I took to be a young +male, one October morning, just as the sun was rising. It was pitched +very low, like a half-forgotten air, but it was very sweet. It was the +song of the vesper sparrow and the white-throat in one. In his breeding +haunts he must be a superior songster, but he is very chary of his music +while on his travels. + +The sparrows are all meek and lowly birds. They are of the grass, the +fences, the low bushes, the weedy wayside places. Nature has denied them +all brilliant tints, but she has given them sweet and musical voices. +Theirs are the quaint and simple lullaby songs of childhood. The +white-throat has a timid, tremulous strain, that issues from the low +bushes or from behind the fence, where its cradle is hid. The song +sparrow modulates its simple ditty as softly as the lining of its own +nest. The vesper sparrow has only peace and gentleness in its strain. + +What pretty nests, too, the sparrows build! Can anything be more +exquisite than a sparrow's nest under a grassy or mossy bank? What care +the bird has taken not to disturb one straw or spear of grass, or +thread of moss! You cannot approach it and put your hand into it without +violating the place more or less, and yet the little architect has +wrought day after day and left no marks. There has been an excavation, +and yet no grain of earth appears to have been moved. If the nest had +slowly and silently grown like the grass and the moss, it could not +have been more nicely adjusted to its place and surroundings. There is +absolutely nothing to tell the eye it is there. Generally a few spears +of dry grass fall down from the turf above and form a slight screen +before it. How commonly and coarsely it begins, blending with the debris +that lies about, and how it refines and comes into form as it approaches +the centre, which is modeled so perfectly and lined so softly! Then, +when the full complement of eggs is laid, and incubation has fairly +begun, what a sweet, pleasing little mystery the silent old bank holds! + +The song sparrow, whose nest I have been describing, displays a +more marked individuality in its song than any bird with which I am +acquainted. Birds of the same species generally all sing alike, but I +have observed numerous song sparrows with songs peculiarly their own. +Last season, the whole summer through, one sang about my grounds like +this: _swee-e-t, swee-e-t, swee-e-t, bitter._ Day after day, from May +to September, I heard this strain, which I thought a simple but very +profound summing-up of life, and wondered how the little bird had +learned it so quickly. The present season, I heard another with a song +equally original, but not so easily worded. Among a large troop of +them in April, my attention was attracted to one that was a master +songster,--some Shelley or Tennyson among his kind. The strain was +remarkably prolonged, intricate, and animated, and far surpassed +anything I ever before heard from that source. + +But the most noticeable instance of departure from the standard song +of a species I ever knew of was in the case of a wood thrush. The bird +sang, as did the sparrow, the whole season through, at the foot of my +lot near the river. The song began correctly and ended correctly; but +interjected into it about midway was a loud, piercing, artificial note, +at utter variance with the rest of the strain. When my ear first caught +this singular note, I started out, not a little puzzled, to make, as +I supposed, a new acquaintance, but had not gone far when I discovered +whence it proceeded. Brass amid gold, or pebbles amid pearls, are +not more out of place than was this discordant scream or cry in the +melodious strain of the wood thrush. It pained and startled the ear. It +seemed as if the instrument of the bird was not under control, or else +that one note was sadly out of tune, and, when its turn came, instead of +giving forth one of those sounds that are indeed like pearls, it shocked +the ear with a piercing discord. Yet the singer appeared entirely +unconscious of the defect; or had he grown used to it, or had his +friends persuaded him that it was a variation to be coveted? Sometimes, +after the brood had hatched and the bird's pride was at its full, he +would make a little triumphal tour of the locality, coming from under +the hill quite up to the house, and flaunting his cracked instrument +in the face of whoever would listen. He did not return again the next +season; or, if he did, the malformation of his song was gone. + +I have noticed that the bobolink does not sing the same in different +localities. In New Jersey it has one song; on the Hudson, a slight +variation of the same; and on the high grass-lands of the interior +of the State, quite a different strain,--clearer, more distinctly +articulated, and running off with more sparkle and liltingness. It +reminds one of the clearer mountain air and the translucent spring-water +of those localities. I never could make out what the bobolink says in +New Jersey, but in certain districts in this State his enunciation is +quite distinct. Sometimes he begins with the word _gegue, gegue._ +Then again, more fully, _be true to me, Clarsy, be true to me, Clarsy, +Clarsy,_ thence full tilt into his inimitable song, interspersed in +which the words _kick your slipper, kick your slipper,_ and temperance, +temperance (the last with a peculiar nasal resonance), are plainly +heard. At its best, it is a remarkable performance, a unique +performance, as it contains not the slightest hint or suggestion, either +in tone or manner or effect, of any other bird-song to be heard. The +bobolink has no mate or parallel in any part of the world. He stands +alone. There is no closely allied species. He is not a lark, nor a +finch, nor a warbler, nor a thrush, nor a starling (though classed +with the starlings by late naturalists). He is an exception to many +well-known rules. He is the only ground-bird known to me of marked and +conspicuous plumage. He is the only black and white field-bird we +have east of the Mississippi, and, what is still more odd, he is black +beneath and white above,--the reverse of the fact in all other cases. +Preëminently a bird of the meadow during the breeding season, and +associated with clover and daisies and buttercups as no other bird is, +he yet has the look of an interloper or a newcomer, and not of one to +the manner born. + +The bobolink has an unusually full throat, which may help account for +his great power of song. No bird has yet been found that could imitate +him, or even repeat or suggest a single note, as if his song were the +product of a new set of organs. There is a vibration about it, and a +rapid running over the keys, that is the despair of other songsters. It +is said that the mockingbird is dumb in the presence of the bobolink. +My neighbor has an English skylark that was hatched and reared in +captivity. The bird is a most persistent and vociferous songster, and +fully as successful a mimic as the mockingbird. It pours out a strain +that is a regular mosaic of nearly all the bird-notes to be heard, its +own proper lark song forming a kind of bordering for the whole. The +notes of the phoebe-bird, the purple finch, the swallow, the yellowbird, +the kingbird, the robin, and others, are rendered with perfect +distinctness and accuracy, but not a word of the bobolink's, though the +lark must have heard its song every day for four successive summers. It +was the one conspicuous note in the fields around that the lark made no +attempt to plagiarize. He could not steal the bobolink's thunder. + +The lark is a more marvelous songster than the bobolink only on account +of his soaring flight and the sustained copiousness of his song. His +note is rasping and harsh, in point of melody, when compared with the +bobolink's. When caged and near at hand, the lark's song is positively +disagreeable, it is so loud and full of sharp, aspirated sounds. But +high in air above the broad downs, poured out without interruption for +many minutes together, it is very agreeable. + +The bird among us that is usually called a lark, namely, the meadowlark, +but which our later classifiers say is no lark at all, has nearly the +same quality of voice as the English skylark,--loud, piercing, z-z-ing; +and during the mating season it frequently indulges while on the wing in +a brief song that is quite lark-like. It is also a bird of the stubble, +and one of the last to retreat on the approach of winter. + +The habits of many of our birds are slowly undergoing a change. Their +migrations are less marked. With the settlement and cultivation of the +country, the means of subsistence of nearly every species are vastly +increased. Insects are more numerous, and seeds of weeds and grasses +more abundant. They become more and more domestic, like the English +birds. The swallows have nearly all left their original abodes--hollow +trees, and cliffs, and rocks--for human habitations and their +environments. Where did the barn swallow nest before the country was +settled? The chimney swallow nested in hollow trees, and, perhaps, +occasionally resorts thither yet. But the chimney, notwithstanding the +smoke, seems to suit his taste best. In the spring, before they have +paired, I think these swallows sometimes pass the night in the woods, +but not if an old, disused chimney is handy. + +One evening in early May, my attention was arrested by a band of them +containing several hundreds, perhaps a thousand, circling about near a +large, tall, disused chimney in a secluded place in the country. They +were very lively, and chippering, and diving in a most extraordinary +manner. They formed a broad continuous circle many rods in diameter. +Gradually the circle contracted and neared the chimney. Presently +some of the birds as they came round began to dive toward it, and the +chippering was more animated than ever. Then a few ventured in; in a +moment more, the air at the mouth of the chimney was black with the +stream of descending swallows. When the passage began to get crowded, +the circle lifted and the rest of the birds continued their flight, +giving those inside time to dispose of themselves. Then the influx began +again, and was kept up till the crowd became too great, when it cleared +as before. Thus by installments, or in layers, the swallows were packed +into the chimney until the last one was stowed away. Passing by the +place a few days afterward, I saw a board reaching from the roof of the +building to the top of the chimney, and imagined some curious person or +some predaceous boy had been up to take a peep inside, and see how so +many swallows could dispose of themselves in such a space. It would have +been an interesting spectacle to see them emerge from the chimney in the +morning. + + + + +IV APRIL + +If we represent the winter of our northern climate by a rugged snow-clad +mountain, and summer by a broad fertile plain, then the intermediate +belt, the hilly and breezy uplands, will stand for spring, with March +reaching well up into the region of the snows, and April lapping well +down upon the greening fields and unloosened currents, not beyond +the limits of winter's sallying storms, but well within the vernal +zone,--within the reach of the warm breath and subtle, quickening +influences of the plain below. At its best, April is the tenderest of +tender salads made crisp by ice or snow water. Its type is the first +spear of grass. The senses--sight, hearing, smell--are as hungry for +its delicate and almost spiritual tokens as the cattle are for the first +bite of its fields. How it touches one and makes him both glad and sad! +The voices of the arriving birds, the migrating fowls, the clouds of +pigeons sweeping across the sky or filling the woods, the elfin horn of +the first honey-bee venturing abroad in the middle of the day, the clear +piping of the little frogs in the marshes at sundown, the campfire in +the sugar-bush, the smoke seen afar rising over the trees, the tinge of +green that comes so suddenly on the sunny knolls and slopes, the full +translucent streams, the waxing and warming sun,--how these things and +others like them are noted by the eager eye and ear! April is my natal +month, and I am born again into new delight and new surprises at +each return of it. Its name has an indescribable charm to me. Its two +syllables are like the calls of the first birds,--like that of the +phoebe-bird, or of the meadowlark. Its very snows are fertilizing, and +are called the poor man's manure. + +Then its odors! I am thrilled by its fresh and indescribable odors,--the +perfume of the bursting sod, of the quickened roots and rootlets, of the +mould under the leaves, of the fresh furrows. No other month has odors +like it. The west wind the other day came fraught with a perfume that +was to the sense of smell what a wild and delicate strain of music is to +the ear. It was almost transcendental. I walked across the hill with my +nose in the air taking it in. It lasted for two days. I imagined it came +from the willows of a distant swamp, whose catkins were affording the +bees their first pollen: or did it come from much farther,--from beyond +the horizon, the accumulated breath of innumerable farms and budding +forests? The main characteristic of these April odors is their uncloying +freshness. They are not sweet, they are oftener bitter, they are +penetrating and lyrical. I know well the odors of May and June, of the +world of meadows and orchards bursting into bloom, but they are not so +ineffable and immaterial and so stimulating to the sense as the incense +of April. + +The season of which I speak does not correspond with the April of the +almanac in all sections of our vast geography. It answers to March in +Virginia and Maryland, while in parts of New York and New England it +laps well over into May. It begins when the partridge drums, when the +hyla pipes, when the shad start up the rivers, when the grass greens in +the spring runs, and it ends when the leaves are unfolding and the last +snowflake dissolves in midair. It may be the first of May before the +first swallow appears, before the whip-poor-will is heard, before the +wood thrush sings; but it is April as long as there is snow upon the +mountains, no matter what the almanac may say. Our April is, in fact, +a kind of Alpine summer, full of such contrasts and touches of wild, +delicate beauty as no other season affords. The deluded citizen fancies +there is nothing enjoyable in the country till June, and so misses the +freshest, tenderest part. It is as if one should miss strawberries +and begin his fruit-eating with melons and peaches. These last are +good,--supremely so, they are melting and luscious,--but nothing so +thrills and penetrates the taste, and wakes up and teases the papillae +of the tongue, as the uncloying strawberry. What midsummer sweetness +half so distracting as its brisk sub-acid flavor, and what splendor of +full-leaved June can stir the blood like the best of leafless April? + +One characteristic April feature, and one that delights me very much, +is the perfect emerald of the spring runs while the fields are yet brown +and sere,--strips and patches of the most vivid velvet green on the +slopes and in the valleys. How the eye grazes there, and is filled +and refreshed! I had forgotten what a marked feature this was until I +recently rode in an open wagon for three days through a mountainous, +pastoral country, remarkable for its fine springs. Those delicious +green patches are yet in my eye. The fountains flowed with May. Where no +springs occurred, there were hints and suggestions of springs about +the fields and by the roadside in the freshened grass,--sometimes +overflowing a space in the form of an actual fountain. The water did not +quite get to the surface in such places, but sent its influence. + +The fields of wheat and rye, too, how they stand out of the April +landscape,--great green squares on a field of brown or gray! + +Among April sounds there is none more welcome or suggestive to me than +the voice of the little frogs piping in the marshes. No bird-note +can surpass it as a spring token; and as it is not mentioned, to my +knowledge, by the poets and writers of other lands, I am ready to +believe it is characteristic of our season alone. You may be sure April +has really come when this little amphibian creeps out of the mud and +inflates its throat. We talk of the bird inflating its throat, but you +should see this tiny minstrel inflate _its_ throat, which becomes like a +large bubble, and suggests a drummer-boy with his drum slung very high. +In this drum, or by the aid of it, the sound is produced. Generally the +note is very feeble at first, as if the frost was not yet all out of the +creature's throat, and only one voice will be heard, some prophet bolder +than all the rest, or upon whom the quickening ray of spring has first +fallen. And it often happens that he is stoned for his pains by the yet +unpacified element, and is compelled literally to "shut up" beneath +a fall of snow or a heavy frost. Soon, however, he lifts up his voice +again with more confidence, and is joined by others and still others, +till in due time, say toward the last of the month, there is a shrill +musical uproar, as the sun is setting, in every marsh and bog in the +land. It is a plaintive sound, and I have heard people from the city +speak of it as lonesome and depressing, but to the lover of the country +it is a pure spring melody. The little piper will sometimes climb a +bulrush, to which he clings like a sailor to a mast, and send forth his +shrill call. There is a Southern species, heard when you have reached +the Potomac, whose note is far more harsh and crackling. To stand on the +verge of a swamp vocal with these, pains and stuns the ear. The call +of the Northern species is far more tender and musical. [Footnote: The +Southern species is called the green hyla. I have since heard them in my +neighborhood on the Hudson.] + +Then is there anything like a perfect April morning? One hardly knows +what the sentiment of it is, but it is something very delicious. It is +youth and hope. It is a new earth and a new sky. How the air transmits +sounds, and what an awakening, prophetic character all sounds have! The +distant barking of a dog, or the lowing of a cow, or the crowing of +a cock, seems from out the heart of Nature, and to be a call to come +forth. The great sun appears to have been reburnished, and there is +something in his first glance above the eastern hills, and the way his +eye-beams dart right and left and smite the rugged mountains into gold, +that quickens the pulse and inspires the heart. + +Across the fields in the early morning I hear some of the rare April +birds,--the chewink and the brown thrasher. The robin, the bluebird, the +song sparrow, the phoebe-bird, come in March; but these two ground-birds +are seldom heard till toward the last of April. The ground-birds are all +tree-singers or air-singers; they must have an elevated stage to speak +from. Our long-tailed thrush, or thrasher, like its congeners the +catbird and the mockingbird, delights in a high branch of some solitary +tree, whence it will pour out its rich and intricate warble for an hour +together. This bird is the great American chipper. There is no other +bird that I know of that can chip with such emphasis and military +decision as this yellow-eyed songster. It is like the click of a giant +gunlock. Why is the thrasher so stealthy? It always seems to be going +about on tiptoe. I never knew it to steal anything, and yet it skulks +and hides like a fugitive from justice. One never sees it flying aloft +in the air and traversing the world openly, like most birds, but +it darts along fences and through bushes as if pursued by a guilty +conscience. Only when the musical fit is upon it does it come up into +full view, and invite the world to hear and behold. + +The chewink is a shy bird also, but not stealthy. It is very +inquisitive, and sets up a great scratching among the leaves, apparently +to attract your attention. The male is perhaps the most conspicuously +marked of all the ground-birds except the bobolink, being black above, +bay on the sides, and white beneath. The bay is in compliment to the +leaves he is forever scratching among,--they have rustled against his +breast and sides so long that these parts have taken their color; but +whence come the white and the black? The bird seems to be aware that his +color betrays him, for there are few birds in the woods so careful about +keeping themselves screened from view. When in song, its favorite perch +is the top of some high bush near to cover. On being disturbed at such +times, it pitches down into the brush and is instantly lost to view. + +This is the bird that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Wilson about, greatly +exciting the latter's curiosity. Wilson was just then upon the threshold +of his career as an ornithologist, and had made a drawing of the Canada +jay which he sent to the President. It was a new bird, and in reply +Jefferson called his attention to a "curious bird" which was everywhere +to be heard, but scarcely ever to be seen. He had for twenty years +interested the young sportsmen of his neighborhood to shoot one for him, +but without success. "It is in all the forests, from spring to fall," +he says in his letter, "and never but on the tops of the tallest trees, +from which it perpetually serenades us with some of the sweetest notes, +and as clear as those of the nightingale. I have followed it for miles, +without ever but once getting a good view of it. It is of the size +and make of the mockingbird, lightly thrush-colored on the back, and a +grayish white on the breast and belly. Mr. Randolph, my son-in-law, was +in possession of one which had been shot by a neighbor," etc. Randolph +pronounced it a flycatcher, which was a good way wide of the mark. +Jefferson must have seen only the female, after all his tramp, from his +description of the color; but he was doubtless following his own great +thoughts more than the bird, else he would have had an earlier view. The +bird was not a new one, but was well known then as the ground-robin. The +President put Wilson on the wrong scent by his erroneous description, +and it was a long time before the latter got at the truth of the case. +But Jefferson's letter is a good sample of those which specialists often +receive from intelligent persons who have seen or heard something in +their line very curious or entirely new, and who set the man of science +agog by a description of the supposed novelty,--a description that +generally fits the facts of the case about as well as your coat fits the +chair-back. Strange and curious things in the air, and in the water, and +in the earth beneath, are seen every day except by those who are looking +for them, namely, the naturalists. When Wilson or Audubon gets his eye +on the unknown bird, the illusion vanishes, and your phenomenon turns +out to be one of the commonplaces of the fields or woods. + +A prominent April bird, that one does not have to go to the woods or +away from his own door to see and hear, is the hardy and ever-welcome +meadowlark. What a twang there is about this bird, and what vigor! It +smacks of the soil. It is the winged embodiment of the spirit of our +spring meadows. What emphasis in its _"z-d-t, z-d-t"_ and what character +in its long, piercing note! Its straight, tapering, sharp beak is +typical of its voice. Its note goes like a shaft from a crossbow; it +is a little too sharp and piercing when near at hand, but, heard in the +proper perspective, it is eminently melodious and pleasing. It is one +of the major notes of the fields at this season. In fact, it easily +dominates all others. _"Spring o' the year! spring o' the year!"_ it +says, with a long-drawn breath, a little plaintive, but not complaining +or melancholy. At times it indulges in something much more intricate and +lark-like while hovering on the wing in midair, but a song is beyond the +compass of its instrument, and the attempt usually ends in a breakdown. +A clear, sweet, strong, high-keyed note, uttered from some knoll or +rock, or stake in the fence, is its proper vocal performance. It has the +build and walk and flight of the quail and the grouse. It gets up before +you in much the same manner, and falls an easy prey to the crack shot. +Its yellow breast, surmounted by a black crescent, it need not be +ashamed to turn to the morning sun, while its coat of mottled gray is +in perfect keeping with the stubble amid which it walks. The two lateral +white quills in its tail seem strictly in character. These quills spring +from a dash of scorn and defiance in the bird's make-up. By the aid +of these, it can almost emit a flash as it struts about the fields and +jerks out its sharp notes. They give a rayed, a definite and piquant +expression to its movements. This bird is not properly a lark, but a +starling, say the ornithologists, though it is lark-like in its habits, +being a walker and entirely a ground-bird. Its color also allies it to +the true lark. I believe there is no bird in the English or European +fields that answers to this hardy pedestrian of our meadows. He is a +true American, and his note one of our characteristic April sounds. + +Another marked April note, proceeding sometimes from the meadows, but +more frequently from the rough pastures and borders of the woods, is +the call of the high-hole, or golden-shafted woodpecker. It is quite as +strong as that of the meadowlark, but not so long-drawn and piercing. +It is a succession of short notes rapidly uttered, as if the bird said +_"if-if-if-if-if-if-if."_ The notes of the ordinary downy and hairy +woodpeckers suggest, in some way, the sound of a steel punch; but +that of the high-hole is much softer, and strikes on the ear with real +springtime melody. The high-hole is not so much a wood-pecker as he is +a ground-pecker. He subsists largely on ants and crickets, and does not +appear till they are to be found. + +In Solomon's description of spring, the voice of the turtle is +prominent, but our turtle, or mourning dove, though it arrives in April, +can hardly be said to contribute noticeably to the open-air sounds. +Its call is so vague, and soft, and mournful,--in fact, so remote and +diffused,--that few persons ever hear it at all. + +Such songsters as the cow blackbird are noticeable at this season, +though they take a back seat a little later. It utters a peculiarly +liquid April sound. Indeed, one would think its crop was full of water, +its notes so bubble up and regurgitate, and are delivered with such +an apparent stomachic contraction. This bird is the only feathered +polygamist we have. The females are greatly in excess of the males, and +the latter are usually attended by three or four of the former. As soon +as the other birds begin to build, they are on the _qui vive,_ prowling +about like gypsies, not to steal the young of others, but to steal their +eggs into other birds' nests, and so shirk the labor and responsibility +of hatching and rearing their own young. As these birds do not mate, and +as therefore there can be little or no rivalry or competition between +the males, one wonders--in view of Darwin's teaching--why one sex should +have brighter and richer plumage than the other, which is the fact. The +males are easily distinguished from the dull and faded females by their +deep glossy-black coats. + +The April of English literature corresponds nearly to our May. In Great +Britain, the swallow and the cuckoo usually arrive by the middle of +April; with us, their appearance is a week or two later. Our April, +at its best, is a bright, laughing face under a hood of snow, like the +English March, but presenting sharper contrasts, a greater mixture of +smiles and tears and icy looks than are known to our ancestral climate. +Indeed, Winter sometimes retraces his steps in this month, and unburdens +himself of the snows that the previous cold has kept back; but we are +always sure of a number of radiant, equable days,--days that go before +the bud, when the sun embraces the earth with fervor and determination. +How his beams pour into the woods till the mould under the leaves is +warm and emits an odor! The waters glint and sparkle, the birds gather +in groups, and even those unused to singing find a voice. On the streets +of the cities, what a flutter, what bright looks and gay colors! I +recall one preëminent day of this kind last April. I made a note of it +in my note-book. The earth seemed suddenly to emerge from a wilderness +of clouds and chilliness into one of these blue sunlit spaces. How +the voyagers rejoiced! Invalids came forth, old men sauntered down the +street, stocks went up, and the political outlook brightened. + +Such days bring out the last of the hibernating animals. The woodchuck +unrolls and creeps out of his den to see if his clover has started yet. +The torpidity leaves the snakes and the turtles, and they come forth and +bask in the sun. There is nothing so small, nothing so great, that it +does not respond to these celestial spring days, and give the pendulum +of life a fresh start. + +April is also the month of the new furrow. As soon as the frost is gone +and the ground settled, the plow is started upon the hill, and at each +bout I see its brightened mould-board flash in the sun. Where the last +remnants of the snowdrift lingered yesterday the plow breaks the sod +to-day. Where the drift was deepest the grass is pressed flat, and there +is a deposit of sand and earth blown from the fields to windward. Line +upon line the turf is reversed, until there stands out of the neutral +landscape a ruddy square visible for miles, or until the breasts of the +broad hills glow like the breasts of the robins. + +Then who would not have a garden in April? to rake together the rubbish +and burn it up, to turn over the renewed soil, to scatter the rich +compost, to plant the first seed, or bury the first tuber! It is not the +seed that is planted, any more than it is I that is planted; it is not +the dry stalks and weeds that are burned up, any more than it is my +gloom and regrets that are consumed. An April smoke makes a clean +harvest. + +I think April is the best month to be born in. One is just in time, so +to speak, to catch the first train, which is made up in this month. My +April chickens always turn out best. They get an early start; they have +rugged constitutions. Late chickens cannot stand the heavy dews, or +withstand the predaceous hawks. In April all nature starts with you. You +have not come out of your hibernaculum too early or too late; the time +is ripe, and, if you do not keep pace with the rest, why, the fault is +not in the season. + + + + +V SPRING POEMS + +There is no month oftener on the tongues of the poets than April. It is +the initiative month; it opens the door of the seasons; the interest and +expectations of the untried, the untasted, lurk in it, + + "From you have I been absent in the spring," + +says Shakespeare in one of his sonnets,-- + + "When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, + Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, + That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him." + +The following poem, from Tennyson's "In Memoriam," might be headed +"April," and serve as descriptive of parts of our season:-- + + "Now fades the last long streak of snow, + Now bourgeons every maze of quick + About the flowering squares, and thick + By ashen roots the violets blow. + + "Now rings the woodland loud and long, + The distance takes a lovelier hue, + And drowned in yonder living blue + The lark becomes a sightless song. + + "Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, + The flocks are whiter down the vale, + And milkier every milky sail + On winding stream or distant sea; + + "Where now the sea-mew pipes, or dives + In yonder greening gleam, and fly + The happy birds, that change their sky + To build and brood; that live their lives + + "From land to land; and in my breast + Spring wakens too; and my regret + Becomes an April violet, + And buds and blossoms like the rest." + +In the same poem the poet asks:-- + + "Can trouble live with April days?" + +Yet they are not all jubilant chords that this season awakens. +Occasionally there is an undertone of vague longing and sadness, akin +to that which one experiences in autumn. Hope for a moment assumes the +attitude of memory and stands with reverted look. The haze, that in +spring as well as in fall sometimes descends and envelops all things, +has in it in some way the sentiment of music, of melody, and awakens +pensive thoughts. Elizabeth Akers, in her "April," has recognized and +fully expressed this feeling. I give the first and last stanzas:-- + + "The strange, sweet days are here again, + The happy-mournful days; + The songs which trembled on our lips + Are half complaint, half praise. + + "Swing, robin, on the budded sprays, + And sing your blithest tune;-- + Help us across these homesick days + Into the joy of June!" + +This poet has also given a touch of spring in her "March," which, +however, should be written "April" in the New England climate:-- + + "The brown buds thicken on the trees, + Unbound, the free streams sing, + As March leads forth across the leas + The wild and windy spring. + + "Where in the fields the melted snow + Leaves hollows warm and wet, + Ere many days will sweetly blow + The first blue violet." + +But on the whole the poets have not been eminently successful in +depicting spring. The humid season, with its tender, melting blue sky, +its fresh, earthy smells, its new furrow, its few simple signs and +awakenings here and there, and its strange feeling of unrest,--how +difficult to put its charms into words! None of the so-called pastoral +poets have succeeded in doing it. That is the best part of spring which +escapes a direct and matter-of-fact description of her. There is more +of spring in a line or two of Chaucer and Spenser than in the elaborate +portraits of her by Thomson or Pope, because the former had spring +in their hearts, and the latter only in their inkhorns. Nearly all +Shakespeare's songs are spring songs,--full of the banter, the frolic, +and the love-making of the early season. What an unloosed current, too, +of joy and fresh new life and appetite in Burns! + +In spring everything has such a margin! there are such spaces of +silence! The influences are at work underground. Our delight is in a few +things. The drying road is enough; a single wild flower, the note of +the first bird, the partridge drumming in the April woods, the restless +herds, the sheep steering for the uplands, the cow lowing in the highway +or hiding her calf in the bushes, the first fires, the smoke going up +through the shining atmosphere, from the burning of rubbish in gardens +and old fields,--each of these simple things fills the breast with +yearning and delight, for they are tokens of the spring. The best spring +poems have this singleness and sparseness. Listen to Solomon: "For lo, +the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the +earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the +turtle is heard in the land." In Wordsworth are some things that breathe +the air of spring. These lines, written in early spring, afford a good +specimen:-- + + "I heard a thousand blended notes, + While in a grove I sate reclined, + In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts + Bring sad thoughts to the mind." + + "To her fair works did Nature link + The human soul that through me ran; + And much it grieved my heart to think + What man has made of man. + + "Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, + The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; + And 't is my faith that every flower + Enjoys the air it breathes. + + "The birds around me hopped and played, + Their thoughts I cannot measure: + But the least motion which they made + It seemed a thrill of pleasure." + +Or these from another poem, written in his usual study, "Out-of-Doors," +and addressed to his sister:-- + + "It is the first mild day of March, + Each minute sweeter than before; + The redbreast sings from the tall larch + That stands beside the door. + + "There is a blessing in the air, + Which seems a sense of joy to yield + To the bare trees, and mountains bare, + And grass in the green field. + + . . . . . . . . . + + "Love, now a universal birth, + From heart to heart is stealing, + From earth to man, from man to earth; + It is the hour of feeling. + + "One moment now may give us more + Than years of toiling reason: + Our minds shall drink at every pore + The spirit of the season." + +It is the simplicity of such lines, like the naked branches of the +trees or the unclothed fields, and the spring-like depth of feeling and +suggestion they hold, that make them so appropriate to this season. + +At this season I often find myself repeating these lines of his also:-- + + "My heart leaps up, when I behold + A rainbow in the sky; + So was it, when my life began; + So is it, now I am a man; + So be it, when I shall grow old, + Or let me die!" + +Though there are so few good poems especially commemorative of the +spring, there have no doubt been spring poets,--poets with such newness +and fullness of life, and such quickening power, that the world is +re-created, as it were, beneath their touch. Of course this is in a +measure so with all real poets. But the difference I would indicate may +exist between poets of the same or nearly the same magnitude. Thus, in +this light Tennyson is an autumnal poet, mellow and dead-ripe, and was +so from the first; while Wordsworth has much more of the spring in him, +is nearer the bone of things and to primitive conditions. + +Among the old poems, one which seems to me to have much of the charm +of springtime upon it is the story of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius. The +songs, gambols, and wooings of the early birds are not more welcome +and suggestive. How graceful and airy, and yet what a tender, profound, +human significance it contains! But the great vernal poem, doubly so in +that it is the expression of the springtime of the race, the boyhood of +man as well, is the Iliad of Homer. What faith, what simple wonder, +what unconscious strength, what beautiful savagery, what magnanimous +enmity,--a very paradise of war! + +Though so young a people, there is not much of the feeling of spring +in any of our books. The muse of our poets is wise rather than joyous. +There is no excess or extravagance or unruliness in her. There are +spring sounds and tokens in Emerson's "May-Day:"-- + + "April cold with dropping rain + Willows and lilacs brings again, + The whistle of returning birds, + And trumpet-lowing of the herds. + The scarlet maple-keys betray + What potent blood hath modest May, + What fiery force the earth renews, + The wealth of forms, the flush of hues; + What joy in rosy waves outpoured + Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord." + +But this is not spring in the blood. Among the works of our young +and rising poets, I am not certain but that Mr. Gilder's "New Day" is +entitled to rank as a spring poem in the sense in which I am speaking. +It is full of gayety and daring, and full of the reckless abandon of +the male bird when he is winning his mate. It is full also of the +tantalizing suggestiveness, the half-lights and shades, of April and +May. + +Of prose poets who have the charm of the springtime upon them, the best +recent example I know of is Björnson, the Norwegian romancist. What +especially makes his books spring-like is their freshness and sweet good +faith. There is also a reticence and an unwrought suggestiveness about +them that is like the promise of buds and early flowers. Of Turgenieff, +the Russian, much the same thing might be said. His stories are simple +and elementary, and have none of the elaborate hair-splitting and forced +hot-house character of the current English or American novel. They +spring from stronger, more healthful and manly conditions, and have a +force in them that is like a rising, incoming tide. + + + + +VI OUR RURAL DIVINITY + +I wonder that Wilson Flagg did not include the cow among his +"Picturesque Animals," for that is where she belongs. She has not the +classic beauty of the horse, but in picture-making qualities she is far +ahead of him. Her shaggy, loose-jointed body; her irregular, sketchy +outlines, like those of the landscape,--the hollows and ridges, the +slopes and prominences; her tossing horns, her bushy tail, tier swinging +gait, her tranquil, ruminating habits,--all tend to make her an object +upon which the artist eye loves to dwell. The artists are forever +putting her into pictures, too. In rural landscape scenes she is +an important feature. Behold her grazing in the pastures and on the +hillsides, or along banks of streams, or ruminating under wide-spreading +trees, or standing belly-deep in the creek or pond, or lying upon the +smooth places in the quiet summer afternoon, the day's grazing done, +and waiting to be summoned home to be milked; and again in the twilight +lying upon the level summit of the hill, or where the sward is thickest +and softest; or in winter a herd of them filing along toward the spring +to drink, or being "foddered" from the stack in the field upon the new +snow,--surely the cow is a picturesque animal, and all her goings and +comings are pleasant to behold. + +I looked into Hamerton's clever book on the domestic animals also, +expecting to find my divinity duly celebrated, but he passes her by and +contemplates the bovine qualities only as they appear in the ox and the +bull. + +Neither have the poets made much of the cow, but have rather dwelt +upon the steer, or the ox yoked to the plow. I recall this touch from +Emerson:-- + + "The heifer that lows in the upland farm, + Far heard, lows not thine ear to charm." + +But the ear is charmed, nevertheless, especially if it be not too near, +and the air be still and dense, or hollow, as the farmer says. And +again, if it be springtime and she task that powerful bellows of hers +to its utmost capacity, how round the sound is, and how far it goes over +the hills! + +The cow has at least four tones or lows. First, there is her alarmed +or distressed low when deprived of her calf, or when separated from +her mates,--her low of affection. Then there is her call of hunger, a +petition for food, sometimes full of impatience, or her answer to the +farmer's call, full of eagerness. Then there is that peculiar frenzied +bawl she utters on smelling blood, which causes every member of the herd +to lift its head and hasten to the spot,--the native cry of the clan. +When she is gored or in great danger she bawls also, but that is +different. And lastly, there is the long, sonorous volley she lets off +on the hills or in the yard, or along the highway, and which seems to +be expressive of a kind of unrest and vague longing,--the longing of the +imprisoned Io for her lost identity. She sends her voice forth so that +every god on Mount Olympus can hear her plaint. She makes this sound in +the morning, especially in the spring, as she goes forth to graze. + +One of our rural poets, Myron Benton, whose verse often has the flavor +of sweet cream, has written some lines called "Rumination," in which the +cow is the principal figure, and with which I am permitted to adorn my +theme. The poet first gives his attention to a little brook that "breaks +its shallow gossip" at his feet and "drowns the oriole's voice:"-- + + "But moveth not that wise and ancient cow, + Who chews her juicy cud so languid now + Beneath her favorite elm, whose drooping bough + Lulls all but inward vision fast asleep: + But still, her tireless tail a pendulum sweep + Mysterious clock-work guides, and some hid pulley + Her drowsy cud, each moment, raises duly. + + "Of this great, wondrous world she has seen more + Than you, my little brook, and cropped its store + Of succulent grass on many a mead and lawn; + And strayed to distant uplands in the dawn. + And she has had some dark experience + Of graceless man's ingratitude; and hence + Her ways have not been ways of pleasantness, + Nor all her paths of peace. But her distress + And grief she has lived past; your giddy round + Disturbs her not, for she is learned profound + In deep brahminical philosophy. + She chews the cud of sweetest revery + Above your worldly prattle, brooklet merry, + Oblivious of all things sublunary." + +The cow figures in Grecian mythology, and in the Oriental literature is +treated as a sacred animal. "The clouds are cows and the rain milk." I +remember what Herodotus says of the Egyptians' worship of heifers and +steers; and in the traditions of the Celtic nations the cow is regarded +as a divinity. In Norse mythology the milk of the cow Andhumbla afforded +nourishment to the Frost giants, and it was she that licked into being +and into shape a god, the father of Odin. If anything could lick a god +into shape, certainly the cow could do it. You may see her perform this +office for young Taurus any spring. She licks him out of the fogs and +bewilderments and uncertainties in which he finds himself on first +landing upon these shores, and up onto his feet in an incredibly short +time. Indeed, that potent tongue of hers can almost make the dead alive +any day, and the creative lick of the old Scandinavian mother cow is +only a large-lettered rendering of the commonest facts. + +The horse belongs to the fiery god Mars. He favors war, and is one of +its oldest, most available, and most formidable engines. The steed is +clothed with thunder, and smells the battle from afar; but the cattle +upon a thousand hills denote that peace and plenty bear sway in the +land. The neighing of the horse is a call to battle; but the lowing of +old Brockleface in the valley brings the golden age again. The savage +tribes are never without the horse; the Scythians are all mounted; but +the cow would tame and humanize them. When the Indians will cultivate +the cow, I shall think their civilization fairly begun. Recently, when +the horses were sick with the epizoötic, and the oxen came to the city +and helped to do their work, what an Arcadian air again filled the +streets! But the dear old oxen,--how awkward and distressed they looked! +Juno wept in the face of every one of them. The horse is a true citizen, +and is entirely at home in the paved streets; but the ox,--what a +complete embodiment of all rustic and rural things! Slow, deliberate, +thick-skinned, powerful, hulky, ruminating, fragrant-breathed, when he +came to town the spirit and suggestion of all Georgics and Bucolics came +with him. O citizen, was it only a plodding, unsightly brute that went +by? Was there no chord in your bosom, long silent, that sweetly vibrated +at the sight of that patient, Herculean couple? Did you smell no hay or +cropped herbage, see no summer pastures with circles of cool shade, hear +no voice of herds among the hills? They were very likely the only horses +your grandfather ever had. Not much trouble to harness and unharness +them. Not much vanity on the road in those days. They did all the work +on the early pioneer farm. They were the gods whose rude strength first +broke the soil. They could live where the moose and the deer could. If +there was no clover or timothy to be had, then the twigs of the basswood +and birch would do. Before there were yet fields given up to grass, they +found ample pasturage in the woods. Their wide-spreading horns gleamed +in the duskiness, and their paths and the paths of the cows became the +future roads and highways, or even the streets of great cities. + +All the descendants of Odin show a bovine trace, and cherish and +cultivate the cow. In Norway she is a great feature. Professor Boyesen +describes what he calls the _saeter_, the spring migration of the dairy +and dairymaids, with all the appurtenances of butter and cheese making, +from the valleys to the distant plains upon the mountains, where the +grass keeps fresh and tender till fall. It is the great event of the +year in all the rural districts. Nearly the whole family go with the +cattle and remain with them. At evening the cows are summoned home with +a long horn, called the _loor,_ in the hands of the milkmaid. The +whole herd comes winding down the mountain-side toward the _saeter_ in +obedience to the mellow blast. + +What were those old Vikings but thick-hided bulls that delighted +in nothing so much as goring each other? And has not the charge of +beefiness been brought much nearer home to us than that? But about all +the northern races there is something that is kindred to cattle in the +best sense,--something in their art and literature that is essentially +pastoral, sweet-breathed, continent, dispassionate, ruminating, +wide-eyed, soft-voiced,--a charm of kine, the virtue of brutes. + +The cow belongs more especially to the northern peoples, to the region +of the good, green grass. She is the true _grazing_ animal. That broad, +smooth, always dewy nose of hers is just the suggestion of greensward. +She caresses the grass; she sweeps off the ends of the leaves; she reaps +it with the soft sickle of her tongue. She crops close, but she does +not bruise or devour the turf like the horse. She is the sward's best +friend, and will make it thick and smooth as a carpet. + + "The turfy mountains where live the nibbling sheep" + +are not for her. Her muzzle is too blunt; then she does not _bite_ as do +the sheep; she has no upper teeth; she _crops._ But on the lower slopes, +and margins, and rich bottoms, she is at home. Where the daisy and the +buttercup and clover bloom, and where corn will grow, is her proper +domain. The agriculture of no country can long thrive without her. Not +only a large part of the real, but much of the potential, wealth of the +land is wrapped up in her. + +Then the cow has given us some good words and hints. How could we get +along without the parable of the cow that gave a good pail of milk and +then kicked it over? One could hardly keep house without it. Or the +parable of the cream and the skimmed milk, or of the buttered bread? We +know, too, through her aid, what the horns of the dilemma mean, and what +comfort there is in the juicy cud of reverie. + +I have said the cow has not been of much service to the poets, and yet +I remember that Jean Ingelow could hardly have managed her "High Tide" +without "Whitefoot" and "Lightfoot" and "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha! calling;" +or Trowbridge his "Evening at the Farm," in which the real call of the +American farm-boy of "Co', boss! Co', boss! Co', Co'," makes a very +musical refrain. + +Tennyson's charming "Milking Song" is another flower of poesy that has +sprung up in my divinity's footsteps. + +What a variety of individualities a herd of cows presents when you have +come to know them all, not only in form and color, but in manners and +disposition! Some are timid and awkward, and the butt of the whole +herd. Some remind you of deer. Some have an expression in the face +like certain persons you have known. A petted and well-fed cow has a +benevolent and gracious look; an ill-used and poorly fed one, a pitiful +and forlorn look. Some cows have a masculine or ox expression; others +are extremely feminine. The latter are the ones for milk. Some cows +will kick like a horse; some jump fences like deer. Every herd has its +ringleader, its unruly spirit,--one that plans all the mischief, and +leads the rest through the fences into the grain or into the orchard. +This one is usually quite different from the master spirit, the "boss of +the yard." The latter is generally the most peaceful and law-abiding cow +in the lot, and the least bullying and quarrelsome. But she is not to be +trifled with; her will is law; the whole herd give way before her, those +that have crossed horns with her and those that have not, but yielded +their allegiance without crossing. I remember such a one among my +father's milkers when I was a boy,--a slender-horned, deep-shouldered, +large-uddered, dewlapped old cow that we always put first in the long +stable, so she could not have a cow on each side of her to forage upon; +for the master is yielded to no less in the stanchions than in the +yard. She always had the first place anywhere. She had her choice of +standing-room in the milking-yard, and when she wanted to lie down there +or in the fields the best and softest spot was hers. When the herd were +foddered from the stack or barn, or fed with pumpkins in the fall, she +was always first served. Her demeanor was quiet but impressive. She +never bullied or gored her mates, but literally ruled them with the +breath of her nostrils. If any new-comer or ambitious younger cow, +however, chafed under her supremacy, she was ever ready to make good her +claims. And with what spirit she would fight when openly challenged! +She was a whirlwind of pluck and valor; and not after one defeat or two +defeats would she yield the championship. The boss cow, when overcome, +seems to brood over her disgrace, and day after day will meet her rival +in fierce combat. + +A friend of mine, a pastoral philosopher, whom I have consulted in +regard to the master cow, thinks it is seldom the case that one rules +all the herd, if it number many, but that there is often one that will +rule nearly all. "Curiously enough," he says, "a case like this will +often occur: No. 1 will whip No. 2; No. 2 whips No. 3; and No. 3 whips +No. 1; so around in a circle. This is not a mistake; it is often the +case. I remember," he continued, "we once had feeding out of a large +bin in the centre of the yard six cows who mastered right through in +succession from No. 1 to No. 6; _but_ No. 6 _paid off the score by +whipping No. 1._ I often watched them when they were all trying to feed +out of the box, and of course trying, dog-in-the-manger fashion, each to +prevent any other she could. They would often get in the order to do it +very systematically, since they could keep rotating about the box +till the chain happened to get broken somewhere, when there would be +confusion. Their mastership, you know, like that between nations, is +constantly changing. There are always Napoleons who hold their own +through many vicissitudes; but the ordinary cow is continually liable to +lose her foothold. Some cow she has always despised, and has often sent +tossing across the yard at her horns' ends, some pleasant morning will +return the compliment and pay off old scores." + +But my own observation has been that, in herds in which there have +been no important changes for several years, the question of might gets +pretty well settled, and some one cow becomes the acknowledged ruler. + +The bully of the yard is never the master, but usually a second or third +rate pusher that never loses an opportunity to hook those beneath her, +or to gore the masters if she can get them in a tight place. If such a +one can get loose in the stable, she is quite certain to do mischief. +She delights to pause in the open bars and turn and keep those behind +her at bay till she sees a pair of threatening horns pressing toward +her, when she quickly passes on. As one cow masters all, so there is one +cow that is mastered by all. These are the two extremes of the herd, the +head and the tail. Between them are all grades of authority, with none +so poor but hath some poorer to do her reverence. + +The cow has evidently come down to us from a wild or semi-wild state; +perhaps is a descendant of those wild, shaggy cattle of which a small +band is still preserved in some nobleman's park in Scotland. Cuvier +seems to have been of this opinion. One of the ways in which her wild +instincts still crop out is the disposition she shows in spring to hide +her calf,--a common practice among the wild herds. Her wild nature would +be likely to come to the surface at this crisis if ever; and I have +known cows that practiced great secrecy in dropping their calves. As +their time approached, they grew restless, a wild and excited look was +upon them; and if left free, they generally set out for the woods, or +for some other secluded spot. After the calf is several hours old, +and has got upon its feet and had its first meal, the dam by some sign +commands it to lie down and remain quiet while she goes forth to feed. +If the calf is approached at such time, it plays "possum," pretends +to be dead or asleep, till, on finding this ruse does not succeed, it +mounts to its feet, bleats loudly and fiercely, and charges desperately +upon the intruder. But it recovers from this wild scare in a little +while, and never shows signs of it again. + +The habit of the cow, also, in eating the placenta, looks to me like a +vestige of her former wild instincts,--the instinct to remove everything +that would give the wild beasts a clew or a scent, and so attract them +to her helpless young. + +How wise and sagacious the cows become that run upon the street, or pick +their living along the highway! The mystery of gates and bars is at last +solved to them. They ponder over them by night, they lurk about them by +day, till they acquire a new sense,--till they become _en rapport_ with +them and know when they are open and unguarded. The garden gate, if it +open into the highway at any point, is never out of the mind of these +roadsters, or out of their calculations. They calculate upon the chances +of its being left open a certain number of times in the season; and if +it be but once, and only for five minutes, your cabbage and sweet corn +suffer. What villager, or countryman either, has not been awakened at +night by the squeaking and crunching of those piratical jaws under the +window, or in the direction of the vegetable patch? I have had the cows, +after they had eaten up my garden, break into the stable where my own +milcher was tied, and gore her and devour her meal. Yes, life presents +but one absorbing problem to the street cow, and that is how to get into +your garden. She catches glimpses of it over the fence or through the +pickets, and her imagination or her epigastrium is inflamed. When +the spot is surrounded by a high board fence, I think I have seen her +peeping at the cabbages through a knothole. At last she learns to open +the gate. It is a great triumph of bovine wit. She does it with her horn +or her nose, or may be with her ever-ready tongue. I doubt if she has +ever yet penetrated the mystery of the newer patent fastenings; but the +old-fashioned thumb-latch she can see through, give her time enough. + +A large, lank, muley or polled cow used to annoy me in this way when I +was a dweller in a certain pastoral city. I more than half suspected she +was turned in by some one; so one day I watched. Presently I heard the +gate-latch rattle; the gate swung open, and in walked the old buffalo. +On seeing me she turned and ran like a horse. I then fastened the gate +on the inside and watched again. After long waiting the old cow came +quickly round the corner and approached the gate. She lifted the latch +with her nose. Then, as the gate did not move, she lifted it again and +again. Then she gently nudged it. Then, the obtuse gate not taking +the hint, she butted it gently, then harder and still harder, till it +rattled again. At this juncture I emerged from my hiding-place, when +the old villain scampered off with great precipitation. She knew she +was trespassing, and she had learned that there were usually some swift +penalties attached to this pastime. + +I have owned but three cows and loved but one. That was the first one, +Chloe, a bright red, curly-pated, golden-skinned Devonshire cow, that an +ocean steamer landed for me upon the banks of the Potomac one bright May +Day many clover summers ago. She came from the north, from the pastoral +regions of the Catskills, to graze upon the broad commons of the +national capital. I was then the fortunate and happy lessee of an old +place with an acre of ground attached, almost within the shadow of the +dome of the Capitol. Behind a high but aged and decrepit board fence I +indulged my rural and unclerical tastes. I could look up from my homely +tasks and cast a potato almost in the midst of that cataract of marble +steps that flows out of the north wing of the patriotic pile. Ah! when +that creaking and sagging back gate closed behind me in the evening, I +was happy; and when it opened for my egress thence in the morning, I was +not happy. Inside that gate was a miniature farm, redolent of homely, +primitive life, a tumble-down house and stables and implements of +agriculture and horticulture, broods of chickens, and growing pumpkins, +and a thousand antidotes to the weariness of an artificial life. +Outside of it were the marble and iron palaces, the paved and blistering +streets, and the high, vacant mahogany desk of a government clerk. +In that ancient inclosure I took an earth bath twice a day. I planted +myself as deep in the soil as I could, to restore the normal tone and +freshness of my system, impaired by the above-mentioned government +mahogany. I have found there is nothing like the earth to draw the +various social distempers out of one. The blue devils take flight at +once if they see you mean to bury them and make compost of them. Emerson +intimates that the scholar had better not try to have two gardens; but +I could never spend an hour hoeing up dock and red-root and twitch-grass +without in some way getting rid of many weeds and fungi, unwholesome +growths, that a petty indoor life is forever fostering in my moral and +intellectual nature. + +But the finishing touch was not given till Chloe came. She was the jewel +for which this homely setting waited. My agriculture had some object +then. The old gate never opened with such alacrity as when she paused +before it. How we waited for her coming! Should I send Drewer, the +colored patriarch, for her? No; the master of the house himself should +receive Juno at the capital. + +"One cask for you," said the clerk, referring to the steamer bill of +lading. + +"Then I hope it's a cask of milk," I said. "I expected a cow." + +"One cask, it says here." + +"Well, let's see it; I'll warrant it has horns and is tied by a rope;" +which proved to be the case, for there stood the only object that bore +my name, chewing its cud, on the forward deck. How she liked the voyage +I could not find out; but she seemed to relish so much the feeling of +solid ground beneath her feet once more, that she led me a lively step +all the way home. She cut capers in front of the White House, and tried +twice to wind me up in the rope as we passed the Treasury. She kicked up +her heels on the broad avenue, and became very coltish as she came under +the walls of the Capitol. But that night the long-vacant stall in the +old stable was filled, and the next morning the coffee had met with a +change of heart. I had to go out twice with the lantern and survey my +treasure before I went to bed. Did she not come from the delectable +mountains, and did I not have a sort of filial regard for her as toward +my foster-mother? + +This was during the Arcadian age at the capital, before the easy-going +Southern ways had gone out and the prim new Northern ways had come +in, and when the domestic animals were treated with distinguished +consideration and granted the freedom of the city. There was a charm of +cattle in the street and upon the commons; goats cropped your rosebushes +through the pickets, and nooned upon your front porch; and pigs dreamed +Arcadian dreams under your garden fence, or languidly frescoed it with +pigments from the nearest pool. It was a time of peace; it was the poor +man's golden age. Your cow, your goat, your pig, led vagrant, wandering +lives, and picked up a subsistence wherever they could, like the bees, +which was almost everywhere. Your cow went forth in the morning and came +home fraught with milk at night, and you never troubled yourself where +she went or how far she roamed. + +Chloe took very naturally to this kind of life. At first I had to go +with her a few times and pilot her to the nearest commons, and then I +left her to her own wit, which never failed her. What adventures she +had, what acquaintances she made, how far she wandered, I never knew. +I never came across her in my walks or rambles. Indeed, on several +occasions I thought I would look her up and see her feeding in national +pastures, but I never could find her. There were plenty of cows, but +they were all strangers. But punctually, between four and five o'clock +in the afternoon, her white horns would be seen tossing above the gate +and her impatient low be heard. Sometimes, when I turned her forth in +the morning, she would pause and apparently consider which way she would +go. Should she go toward Kendall Green to-day, or follow the Tiber, +or over by the Big Spring, or out around Lincoln Hospital? She seldom +reached a conclusion till she had stretched forth her neck and blown a +blast on her trumpet that awoke the echoes in the very lantern on the +dome of the Capitol. Then, after one or two licks, she would disappear +around the corner. Later in the season, when the grass was parched or +poor on the commons, and the corn and cabbage tempting in the garden, +Chloe was loath to depart in the morning, and her deliberations were +longer than ever, and very often I had to aid her in coming to a +decision. + +For two summers she was a wellspring of pleasure and profit in my farm +of one acre, when, in an evil moment, I resolved to part with her and +try another. In an evil moment I say, for from that time my luck in +cattle left me. The goddess never forgave me the execution of that rash +and cruel resolve. + +The day is indelibly stamped on my memory when I exposed my Chloe for +sale in the public market-place. It was in November, a bright, dreamy, +Indian summer day. A sadness oppressed me, not unmixed with guilt and +remorse. An old Irish woman came to the market also with her pets to +sell, a sow and five pigs, and took up a position next me. We condoled +with each other; we bewailed the fate of our darlings together; we +berated in chorus the white-aproned but blood-stained fraternity who +prowled about us. When she went away for a moment I minded the pigs, and +when I strolled about she minded my cow. How shy the innocent beast was +of those carnal marketmen! How she would shrink away from them! When +they put out a hand to feel her condition she would "scrooch" down her +back, or bend this way or that, as if the hand were a branding-iron. So +long as I stood by her head she felt safe--deluded creature!--and chewed +the cud of sweet content; but the moment I left her side she seemed +filled with apprehension, and followed me with her eyes, lowing softly +and entreatingly till I returned. + +At last the money was counted out for her, and her rope surrendered to +the hand of another. How that last look of alarm and incredulity, which +I caught as I turned for a parting glance, went to my heart! + +Her stall was soon filled, or partly filled, and this time with a +native,--a specimen of what may be called the cornstalk breed of +Virginia; a slender, furtive, long-geared heifer just verging on +cowhood, that in spite of my best efforts would wear a pinched and +hungry look. She evidently inherited a humped back. It was a family +trait, and evidence of the purity of her blood. For the native blooded +cow of Virginia, from shivering over half rations of cornstalks in the +open air during those bleak and windy winters, and roaming over those +parched fields in summer, has come to have some marked features. For +one thing, her pedal extremities seem lengthened; for another, her +udder does not impede her traveling; for a third, her backbone inclines +strongly to the curve; then, she despiseth hay. This last is a sure +test. Offer a thorough-bred Virginia cow hay, and she will laugh in +your face; but rattle the husks or shucks, and she knows you to be her +friend. + +The new-comer even declined corn-meal at first. She eyed it furtively, +then sniffed it suspiciously, but finally discovered that it bore some +relation to her native "shucks," when she fell to eagerly. + +I cherish the memory of this cow, however, as the most affectionate +brute I ever knew. Being deprived of her calf, she transferred her +affections to her master, and would fain have made a calf of him, lowing +in the most piteous and inconsolable manner when he was out of her +sight, hardly forgetting her grief long enough to eat her meal, and +entirely neglecting her beloved husks. Often in the middle of the night +she would set up that sonorous lamentation, and continue it till sleep +was chased from every eye in the household. This generally had the +effect of bringing the object of her affection before her, but in a mood +anything but filial or comforting. Still, at such times a kick seemed +a comfort to her, and she would gladly have kissed the rod that was the +instrument of my midnight wrath. + +But her tender star was destined soon to a fatal eclipse. Being tied +with too long a rope on one occasion during my temporary absence, she +got her head into the meal-barrel, and stopped not till she had devoured +nearly half a bushel of dry meal. The singularly placid and benevolent +look that beamed from the meal-besmeared face when I discovered her was +something to be remembered. For the first time, also, her spinal column +came near assuming a horizontal line. But the grist proved too much +for her frail mill, and her demise took place on the third day, not of +course without some attempt to relieve her on my part. I gave her, as is +usual in such emergencies, everything I "could think of," and everything +my neighbors could think of, besides some fearful prescriptions which I +obtained from a German veterinary surgeon, but to no purpose. I imagined +her poor maw distended and inflamed with the baking sodden mass which no +physic could penetrate or enliven. + +Thus ended my second venture in live-stock. My third, which followed +sharp upon the heels of this disaster, was scarcely more of a success. +This time I led to the altar a buffalo cow, as they call the "muley" +down South,--a large, spotted, creamy-skinned cow, with a fine udder, +that I persuaded a Jew drover to part with for ninety dollars. "Pag like +a dish rack (rag)," said he, pointing to her udder after she had been +milked. "You vill come pack and gif me the udder ten tollar" (for he +had demanded an even hundred), he continued, "after you have had her a +gouple of days." True, I felt like returning to him after a "gouple of +days," but not to pay the other ten dollars. The cow proved to be as +blind as a bat, though capable of counterfeiting the act of seeing to +perfection. For did she not lift up her head and follow with her eyes a +dog that scaled the fence and ran through the other end of the lot, +and the next moment dash my hopes thus raised by trying to walk over +a locust-tree thirty feet high? And when I set the bucket before her +containing her first mess of meal, she missed it by several inches, and +her nose brought up against the ground. Was it a kind of far-sightedness +and near blindness? That was it, I think; she had genius, but not +talent; she could see the man in the moon, but was quite oblivious to +the man immediately in her front. Her eyes were telescopic and required +a long range. + +As long as I kept her in the stall, or confined to the inclosure, this +strange eclipse of her sight was of little consequence. But when spring +came, and it was time for her to go forth and seek her livelihood in the +city's waste places, I was embarrassed. Into what remote corners or into +what _terra incognita_ might she not wander! There was little doubt but +that she would drift around home in the course of the summer, or perhaps +as often as every week or two; but could she be trusted to find her way +back every night? Perhaps she could be taught. Perhaps her other senses +were acute enough to compensate in a measure for her defective vision. +So I gave her lessons in the topography of the country. I led her forth +to graze for a few hours each day and led her home again. Then I left +her to come home alone, which feat she accomplished very encouragingly. +She came feeling her way along, stepping very high, but apparently a +most diligent and interested sight-seer. But she was not sure of the +right house when she got to it, though she stared at it very hard. + +Again I turned her forth, and again she came back, her telescopic eyes +apparently of some service to her. On the third day, there was a fierce +thunder-storm late in the afternoon, and old buffalo did not come home. +It had evidently scattered and bewildered what little wits she had. +Being barely able to navigate those streets on a calm day, what could +she be expected to do in a tempest? + +After the storm had passed, and near sundown, I set out in quest of +her, but could get no clew. I heard that two cows had been struck by +lightning about a mile out on the commons. My conscience instantly told +me that one of them was mine. It would be a fit closing of the third act +of this pastoral drama. Thitherward I bent my steps, and there upon the +smooth plain I beheld the scorched and swollen forms of two cows slain +by thunderbolts, but neither of them had ever been mine. + +The next day I continued the search, and the next, and the next. Finally +I hoisted an umbrella over my head, for the weather had become hot, and +set out deliberately and systematically to explore every foot of open +common on Capitol Hill. I tramped many miles, and found every man's cow +but my own,--some twelve or fifteen hundred, I should think. I saw many +vagrant boys and Irish and colored women, nearly all of whom had seen a +buffalo cow that very day that answered exactly to my description, but +in such diverse and widely separate places that I knew it was no cow of +mine. And it was astonishing how many times I was myself deceived; how +many rumps or heads, or line backs or white flanks, I saw peeping over +knolls, or from behind fences or other objects, that could belong to no +cow but mine! + +Finally I gave up the search, concluded the cow had been stolen, and +advertised her, offering a reward. But days passed, and no tidings were +obtained. Hope began to burn pretty low,--was indeed on the point of +going out altogether,--when one afternoon, as I was strolling over the +commons (for in my walks I still hovered about the scenes of my lost +milcher), I saw the rump of a cow, over a grassy knoll, that looked +familiar. Coming nearer, the beast lifted up her head; and, behold! it +was she! only a few squares from home, where doubtless she had been most +of the time. I had overshot the mark in my search. I had ransacked the +far-off, and had neglected the near-at-hand, as we are so apt to do. But +she was ruined as a milcher, and her history thenceforward was brief and +touching! + + + + +VII BEFORE GENIUS + +If there did not something else go to the making of literature besides +mere literary parts, even the best of them, how long ago the old bards +and the Biblical writers would have been superseded by the learned +professors and the gentlemanly versifiers of later times! Is there +to-day a popular poet, using the English language, who does not, in +technical acquirements and in the artificial adjuncts of poetry,--rhyme, +metre, melody, and especially sweet, dainty fancies,--surpass Europe's +and Asia's loftiest and oldest? Indeed, so marked is the success of the +latter-day poets in this respect, that any ordinary reader may well be +puzzled, and ask, if the shaggy antique masters are poets, what are the +refined and euphonious producers of our own day? + +If we were to inquire what this something else is which is prerequisite +to any deep and lasting success in literature, we should undoubtedly +find that it is the man behind the book. It is the fashion of the day +to attribute all splendid results to genius and culture. But genius and +culture are not enough. "All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has +not the science of honesty and goodness," says Montaigne. The quality +of simple manhood, and the universal human traits which form the bond +of union between man and man,--which form the basis of society, of the +family, of government, of friendship,--are quite overlooked; and the credit +is given to some special facility, or to brilliant and lucky hit. Does +any one doubt that the great poets and artists are made up mainly of the +most common universal human and heroic characteristics?--that in them, +though working to other ends, is all that construct the soldier, the +sailor, the farmer, the discoverer, the bringer-to-pass in any field, +and that their work is good and enduring in proportion as it is +saturated and fertilized by the qualities of these? Good human stock is +the main dependence. No great poet ever appeared except from a race of +good fighters, good eaters, good sleepers, good breeders. Literature +dies with the decay of the _un-_literary element. It is not in the +spirit of something far away in the clouds or under the moon, something +ethereal, visionary, and anti-mundane, that Angelo, Dante, and +Shakespeare work, but in the spirit of common Nature and of the +homeliest facts; through these, and not away from them, the path of the +creator lies. + +It is no doubt this tendency, always more or less marked in highly +refined and cultivated times, to forget or overlook the primary +basic qualities, and to parade and make much of verbal and technical +acquirements, that led Huxley to speak with such bitter scorn of the +"sensual caterwauling of the literary classes," for this is not the +only country in which books are produced that are a mere skin of elegant +words blown up by copious literary gas. + +In imaginative works, especially, much depends upon the quality of +mere weight. A stern, material inertia is indispensable. It is like +the immobility and the power of resistance of a piece of ordnance, upon +which the force and efficacy of the projectile finally depend. In +the most daring flights of the master, there is still something which +remains indifferent and uncommitted, and which acts as reserve power, +making the man always superior to his work. He must always leave the +impression that if he wanted to pull harder or to fly higher he could +easily do so. In Homer there is much that is not directly available +for Homer's purposes as poet. This is his personality,--the real +Homer,--which lies deeper than his talents and skill, and which works +through these by indirections. This gives the authority; this is the +unseen backer, which makes every promise good. + +What depths can a man sound but his own, or what heights explore? "We +carry within us," says Sir Thomas Browne, "the wonders we seek without +us." + +Indeed, there is a strict moral or ethical dependence of the capacity +to conceive or to project great things upon the capacity to be or to +do them. It is as true as any law of hydraulics or of statics, that the +workmanship of a man can never rise above the level of his character. +He can never adequately say or do anything greater than he himself is. +There is no such thing, for instance, as deep insight into the mystery +of Creation, without integrity and simplicity of character. + +In the highest mental results and conditions the whole being +sympathizes. The perception of a certain range of truth, such as is +indicated by Plato, Hegel, Swedenborg, and which is very far from +what is called "religious" or "moral," I should regard as the best +testimonial that could be offered of a man's probity and essential +nobility of soul. Is it possible to imagine a fickle, inconstant, or a +sly, vain, mean person reading and appreciating Emerson? Think of the +real men of science, the great geologists and astronomers, one opening +up time, the other space! Shall mere intellectual acumen be accredited +with these immense results? What noble pride, self-reliance, and +continuity of character underlie Newton's deductions! + +Only those books are for the making of men into which a man has gone in +the making. Mere professional skill and sleight of hand, of themselves, +are to be apprized as lightly in letters as in war or in government, +or in any kind of leadership. Strong native qualities only avail in the +long run; and the more these dominate over the artificial endowments, +sloughing or dropping the latter in the final result, the more we are +refreshed and enlarged. Who has not, at some period of his life, been +captivated by the rhetoric and fine style of nearly all the popular +authors of a certain sort, but at last waked up to discover that behind +these brilliant names was no strong, loving man, but only a refined +taste, a fertile invention, or a special talent of one kind or another. + +Think of the lather of the modern novel, and the fashion-plate men and +women that figure in it! What noble person has Dickens sketched, or +has any novelist since Scott? The utter poverty of almost every current +novelist, in any grand universal human traits in his own character, is +shown in nothing more clearly than in the _kind_ of interest the reader +takes in his books. We are led along solely by the ingenuity of the +plot, and a silly desire to see how the affair came out. What must be +the effect, long continued, of this class of jugglers working upon the +sympathies and the imagination of a nation of gestating women? + +How the best modern novel collapses before the homely but immense human +significance of Homer's celestial swineherd entertaining divine Ulysses, +or even the solitary watchman in Aeschylus' "Agamemnon," crouched, like +a night-dog, on the roofs of the Atreidae, waiting for the signal fires +that should announce the fall of sacred Ilion! + +But one need not look long, even in contemporary British literature, to +find a man. In the author of "Characteristics" and "Sartor Resartus" +we surely encounter one of the true heroic cast. We are made aware that +here is something more than a _littérateur,_ something more than genius. +Here is veracity, homely directness and sincerity, and strong primary +idiosyncrasies. Here the man enters into the estimate of the author. +There is no separating them, as there never is in great examples. A +curious perversity runs through all, but in no way vitiates the result. +In both his moral and intellectual nature, Carlyle seems made with +a sort of stub and twist, like the best gun-barrels. The knotty and +corrugated character of his sentences suits well the peculiar and +intense activity of his mind. What a transition from his terse and +sharply articulated pages, brimming with character and life, and a +strange mixture of rage, humor, tenderness, poetry, philosophy, to the +cold disbelief and municipal splendor of Macaulay! Nothing in Carlyle's +contributions seems fortuitous. It all flows from a good and sufficient +cause in the character of the man. + +Every great man is, in a certain way, an Atlas, with the weight of the +world upon him. And if one is to criticise at all, he may say that, if +Carlyle had not been quite so conscious of this weight, his work would +have been better done. Yet to whom do we owe more, even as Americans? +Anti-democratic in his opinions, he surely is not so in spirit, or +in the quality of his make. The nobility of labor and the essential +nobility of man were never so effectively preached before. The deadliest +enemy of democracy is not the warning or dissenting voice, but it is the +spirit, rife among us, which would engraft upon our hardy Western stock +the sickly and decayed standards of the expiring feudal world. + +With two or three exceptions, there is little as yet in American +literature that shows much advance beyond the merely conventional and +scholastic,--little, I mean, in which one gets a whiff of the strong, +unbreathed air of mountain or prairie, or a taste of rude, new power +that is like the tonic of the sea. Thoreau occupies a niche by himself. +Thoreau was not a great personality, yet his writings have a strong +characteristic flavor. He is anti-scorbutic, like leeks and onions. He +has reference, also, to the highest truths. + +It is very likely true that our most native and original characters do +not yet take to literature. It is, perhaps, too early in the day. Iron +and lime have to pass through the vegetable before they can reach the +higher organization of the animal, and maybe this Western nerve and +heartiness will yet emerge on the intellectual plane. Let us hope that +it will indeed be Western nerve and heartiness when it gets there, and +not Eastern wit and epigram! + +In Abraham Lincoln we had a character of very marked and lofty type, the +most suggestive study or sketch of the future American man that has +yet appeared in our history. How broad, unconventional, and humane! +How democratic! how adhesive! No fine arabesque carvings, but strong, +unhewn, native traits, and deep lines of care, toil, and human +sympathy. Lincoln's Gettysburg speech is one of the most genuine +and characteristic utterances in our annals. It has the true antique +simplicity and impressiveness. It came straight from the man, and is as +sure an index of character as the living voice, or the physiognomy, or +the personal presence. Indeed, it may be said of Mr. Lincoln's entire +course while at the head of the nation, that no President, since the +first, ever in his public acts allowed the man so fully to appear, or +showed so little disposition to retreat behind the featureless political +mask which seems to adhere to the idea of gubernatorial dignity. + +It would be hardly fair to cite Everett's speech on the same occasion +as a specimen of the opposite style, wherein ornate scholarship and the +pride of talents dominate. Yet a stern critic would be obliged to +say that, as an author, Everett allowed, for the most part, only +the expurgated, complimenting, drawing-room man to speak; and that, +considering the need of America to be kept virile and broad at all +hazards, his contribution, both as man and writer, falls immeasurably +short of Abraham Lincoln's. + +What a noble specimen of its kind, and how free from any verbal tricks +or admixture of literary sauce, is Thoreau's "Maine Woods"! And what a +marked specimen of the opposite style is a certain other book I could +mention in which these wild and grand scenes serve but as a medium to +advertise the author's fund of classic lore! + +Can there be any doubt about the traits and outward signs of a noble +character, and is not the style of an author the manners of his soul? + +Is there a lyceum lecturer in the country who is above manoeuvring for +the applause of his audience? or a writer who is willing to make himself +of no account for the sake of what he has to say? Even in the best there +is something of the air and manners of a performer on exhibition. The +newspaper, or magazine, or book is a sort of raised platform upon which +the advertiser advances before a gaping and expectant crowd. Truly, how +well he _handles_ his subject! He turns it over, and around, and inside +out, and top-side down. He tosses it about; he twirls it; he takes it +apart and puts it together again, and knows well beforehand where the +applause will come in. Any reader, in taking up the antique authors, +must be struck by the contrast. + +"In Aeschylus," says Landor, "there is no trickery, no trifling, no +delay, no exposition, no garrulity, no dogmatism, no declamation, no +prosing,... but the loud, clear challenge, the firm, unstealthy step, of +an erect, broad-breasted soldier." + +On the whole, the old authors are better than the new. The real question +of literature is not simplified by culture or a multiplication of books, +as the conditions of life are always the same, and are not made one +whit easier by all the myriads of men and women who have lived upon the +globe. The standing want is never for more skill, but for newer, fresher +power,--a more plentiful supply of arterial blood. The discoverer, or +the historian, or the man of science, may begin where his predecessor +left off, but the poet or any artist must go back for a fresh start. +With him it is always the first day of creation, and he must begin at +the stump or nowhere. + + + + +VIII BEFORE BEAUTY + +I + +Before genius is manliness, and before beauty is power. The Russian +novelist and poet, Turgenieff, scattered all through whose works you +will find unmistakable traits of greatness, makes one of his characters +say, speaking of beauty, "The old masters,--they never hunted after +it; it comes of itself into their compositions, God knows whence, from +heaven or elsewhere. The whole world belonged to them, but we are unable +to clasp its broad spaces; our arms are too short." + +From the same depth of insight come these lines from "Leaves of Grass," +apropos of true poems:-- + +"They do not seek beauty--they are sought; Forever touching them, or +close upon them, follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick." + +The Roman was perhaps the first to separate beauty from use, and to +pursue it as ornament merely. He built his grand edifice,--its piers, +its vaults, its walls of brick and concrete,--and then gave it a +marble envelope copied from the Greek architecture. The latter could be +stripped away, as in many cases it was by the hand of time, and leave +the essentials of the structure nearly complete. Not so with the Greek: +he did not seek the beautiful, he was beauty; his building had no +ornament, it was all structure; in its beauty was the flower of +necessity, the charm of inborn fitness and proportion. In other words, +"his art was structure refined into beautiful forms, not beautiful forms +superimposed upon structure," as with the Roman. And it is in Greek +mythology, is it not, that Beauty is represented as riding upon the back +of a lion? as she assuredly always does in their poetry and art,--rides +upon power, or terror, or savage fate; not only rides upon, but +is wedded and incorporated with it; hence the athletic desire and +refreshment her coming imparts. + +This is the invariable order of nature. Beauty without a rank material +basis enfeebles. The world is not thus made; man is not thus begotten +and nourished. + +It comes to me there is something implied or understood when we +look upon a beautiful object, that has quite as much to do with the +impression made upon the mind as anything in the object itself; perhaps +more. There is somehow an immense and undefined background of vast and +unconscionable energy, as of earthquakes, and ocean storms, and cleft +mountains, across which things of beauty play, and to which they +constantly defer; and when this background is wanting, as it is in much +current poetry, beauty sickens and dies, or at most has only a feeble +existence. + +Nature does nothing merely for beauty; beauty follows as the inevitable +result; and the final impression of health and finish which her works +make upon the mind is owing as much to those things which are not +technically called beautiful as to those which are. The former give +identity to the latter. The one is to the other what substance is to +form, or bone to flesh. The beauty of nature includes all that is called +beautiful, as its flower; and all that is not called beautiful, as its +stalk and roots. + +Indeed, when I go to the woods or the fields, or ascend to the hilltop, +I do not seem to be gazing upon beauty at all, but to be breathing it +like the air. I am not dazzled or astonished; I am in no hurry to look +lest it be gone. I would not have the litter and debris removed, or the +banks trimmed, or the ground painted. What I enjoy is commensurate +with the earth and sky itself. It clings to the rocks and trees; it is +kindred to the roughness and savagery; it rises from every tangle and +chasm; it perches on the dry oak-stubs with the hawks and buzzards; the +crows shed it from their wings and weave it into their nests of coarse +sticks; the fox barks it, the cattle low it, and every mountain path +leads to its haunts. I am not a spectator of, but a participator in it. +It is not an adornment; its roots strike to the centre of the earth. + +All true beauty in nature or in art is like the iridescent hue of +mother-of-pearl, which is intrinsic and necessary, being the result of +the arrangement of the particles,--the flowering of the mechanism of the +shell; or like the beauty of health which comes out of and reaches back +again to the bones and the digestion. There is no grace like the grace +of strength. What sheer muscular gripe and power lie back of the firm, +delicate notes of the great violinist! "Wit," says Heine,--and the same +thing is true of beauty,--"isolated, is worthless. It is only endurable +when it rests on a solid basis." + +In fact, beauty as a separate and distinct thing does not exist. Neither +can it be reached by any sorting or sifting or clarifying process. It is +an experience of the mind, and must be preceded by certain conditions, +just as light is an experience of the eye, and sound of the ear. + +To attempt to manufacture beauty is as vain as to attempt to manufacture +truth; and to give it to us in poems or any form of art, without a lion +of some sort, a lion of truth or fitness or power, is to emasculate it +and destroy its volition. + +But current poetry is, for the most part, an attempt to do this very +thing, to give us beauty without beauty's antecedents and foil. The +poets want to spare us the annoyance of the beast. Since beauty is +the chief attraction, why not have this part alone, pure and +unadulterated,--why not pluck the plumage from the bird, the flower +from its stalk, the moss from the rock, the shell from the shore, the +honey-bag from the bee, and thus have in brief what pleases us? Hence, +with rare exceptions, one feels, on opening the latest book of poems, +like exclaiming, Well, here is the beautiful at last divested of +everything else,--of truth, of power, of utility,--and one may add of +beauty, too. It charms as color, or flowers, or jewels, or perfume +charms--and that is the end of it. + +It is ever present to the true artist, in his attempt to report nature, +that every object as it stands in the circuit of cause and effect has +a history which involves its surroundings, and that the depth of the +interest which it awakens in us is in proportion as its integrity in +this respect is preserved. In nature we are prepared for any opulence +of color or of vegetation, or freak of form, or display of any kind, +because of the preponderance of the common, ever-present feature of the +earth. The foil is always at hand. In like manner in the master poems we +are never surfeited with mere beauty. + +Woe to any artist who disengages Beauty from the wide background of +rudeness, darkness, and strength,--and disengages her from absolute +nature! The mild and beneficent aspects of nature,--what gulfs and +abysses of power underlie them! The great shaggy, barbaric earth,--yet +the summing-up, the plenum, of all we know or can know of beauty! So the +orbic poems of the world have a foundation as of the earth itself, and +are beautiful because they are something else first. Homer chose for his +groundwork War, clinching, tearing, tugging war; in Dante, it is Hell; +in Milton, Satan and the Fall; in Shakespeare, it is the fierce Feudal +world, with its towering and kingly personalities; in Byron, it is +Revolt and diabolic passion. When we get to Tennyson, the lion is a good +deal tamed, but he is still there in the shape of the proud, haughty, +and manly Norman, and in many forms yet stimulates the mind. + +The perception of cosmical beauty comes by a vital original process. +It is in some measure a creative act, and those works that rest upon +it make demands--perhaps extraordinary ones--upon the reader or the +beholder. We regard mere surface glitter, or mere verbal sweetness, in +a mood entirely passive, and with a pleasure entirely profitless. The +beauty of excellent stage scenery seems much more obvious and easy of +apprehension than the beauty of trees and hills themselves, inasmuch as +the act of association in the mind is much easier and cheaper than the +act of original perception. + +Only the greatest works in any department afford any explanation of this +wonder we call nature, or aid the mind in arriving at correct +notions concerning it. To copy here and there a line or a trait is no +explanation; but to translate nature into another language--to bridge +it to us, to repeat in some sort the act of creation itself--is the +crowning triumph of poetic art. + + + +II + +After the critic has enumerated all the stock qualities of the poet, +as taste, fancy, melody, it remains to be said that unless there is +something in him that is _living identity,_ something analogous to the +growing, pushing, reproducing forces of nature, all the rest in the end +pass for but little. + +This is perhaps what the German critic, Lessing, really means by +_action,_ for true poems are more like deeds, expressive of something +behind, more like acts of heroism or devotion, or like personal +character, than like thoughts or intellections. + +All the master poets have in their work an interior, chemical, +assimilative property, a sort of gastric juice which dissolves thought +and form, and holds in vital fusion religions, times, races, and the +theory of their own construction, naming up with electric and defiant +power,--power without any admixture of resisting form, as in a living +organism. + +There are in nature two types or forms, the cell and the crystal. +One means the organic, the other the inorganic; one means growth, +development, life; the other means reaction, solidification, rest. The +hint and model of all creative works is the cell; critical, reflective, +and philosophical works are nearer akin to the crystal; while there +is much good literature that is neither the one nor the other +distinctively, but which in a measure touches and includes both. But +crystallic beauty or cut and polished gems of thought, the result of the +reflex rather than the direct action of the mind, we do not expect to +find in the best poems, though they may be most prized by specially +intellectual persons. In the immortal poems the solids are very few, or +do not appear at all as solids,--as lime and iron,--any more than they +do in organic nature, in the flesh of the peach or the apple. The main +thing in every living organism is the vital fluids: seven tenths of man +is water; and seven tenths of Shakespeare is passion, emotion,--fluid +humanity. Out of this arise his forms, as Venus arose out of the sea, +and as man is daily built up out of the liquids of the body. We cannot +taste, much less assimilate, a solid until it becomes a liquid; and your +great idea, your sermon or moral, lies upon your poem a dead, cumbrous +mass unless there is adequate heat and solvent, emotional power. Herein +I think Wordsworth's "Excursion" fails as a poem. It has too much +solid matter. It is an over-freighted bark that does not ride the waves +buoyantly and lifelike; far less so than Tennyson's "In Memoriam," which +is just as truly a philosophical poem as the "Excursion." (Wordsworth is +the fresher poet; his poems seem really to have been written in the open +air, and to have been brought directly under the oxygenating influence +of outdoor nature; while in Tennyson this influence seems tempered or +farther removed.) + +The physical cosmos itself is not a thought, but an act. Natural objects +do not affect us like well-wrought specimens or finished handicraft, +which have nothing to follow, but as living, procreating energy. Nature +is perpetual transition. Everything passes and presses on; there is no +pause, no completion, no explanation. To produce and multiply endlessly, +without ever reaching the last possibility of excellence, and without +committing herself to any end, is the law of Nature. + +These considerations bring us very near the essential difference +between prose and poetry, or rather between the poetic and the didactic +treatment of a subject. The essence of creative art is always the same; +namely, interior movement and fusion; while the method of the didactic +or prosaic treatment is fixity, limitation. The latter must formulate +and define; but the principle of the former is to flow, to suffuse, to +mount, to escape. We can conceive of life only as something constantly +_becoming._ It plays forever on the verge. It is never _in loco,_ but +always _in transitu._ Arrest the wind, and it is no longer the wind; +close your hands upon the light, and behold, it is gone. + +The antithesis of art in method is science, as Coleridge has intimated. +As the latter aims at the particular, so the former aims at the +universal. One would have truth of detail, the other truth of +_ensemble._ The method of science may be symbolized by the straight +line, that of art by the curve. The results of science, relatively to +its aim, must be parts and pieces; while art must give the whole +in every act; not quantitively of course, but qualitively,--by the +integrity of the spirit in which it works. + +The Greek mind will always be the type of the artist mind, mainly +because of its practical bent, its healthful objectivity. The Greek +never looked inward, but outward. Criticism and speculation were foreign +to him. His head shows a very marked predominance of the motive and +perceptive powers over the reflective. The expression of the face is +never what we call intellectual or thoughtful, but commanding. His gods +are not philosophers, but delight in deeds, justice, rulership. + +Among the differences between the modern and the classical aesthetic +mind is the greater precision and definiteness of the latter. The +modern genius is Gothic, and demands in art a certain vagueness and +spirituality like that of music, refusing to be grasped and formulated. +Hence for us (and this is undoubtedly an improvement) there must always +be something about a poem, or any work of art, besides the evident +intellect or plot of it, or what is on its surface, or what it tells. +This something is the Invisible, the Undefined, almost Unexpressed, +and is perhaps the best part of any work of art, as it is of a noble +personality. To amuse, to exhibit culture, to formulate the aesthetic, +or even to excite the emotions, is by no means all,--is not even the +deepest part. Beside these, and inclosing all, is the general impalpable +effect, like good air, or the subtle presence of good spirits, wordless +but more potent far than words. As, in the superbest person, it is not +merely what he says or knows or shows, or even how he behaves, but the +silent qualities, like gravitation, that insensibly but resistlessly +hold us; so in a good poem, or in any other expression of art. + + + + +IX EMERSON + +Wherein the race has so far lost and gained, in being transplanted from +Europe to the New England soil and climate, is well illustrated by the +writings of Emerson. There is greater refinement and sublimation of +thought, greater clearness and sharpness of outline, greater audacity of +statement, but, on the other hand, there is a loss of bulk, of unction, +of adipose tissue, and shall we say of power? + +Emerson is undoubtedly a master on the New England scale,--such a master +as the land and race are capable of producing. He stands out clear and +undeniable. The national type, as illustrated by that section of the +country, is the purest and strongest in him of any yet. He can never +suffer eclipse. Compared with the English or German master, he is +undoubtedly deficient in viscera, in moral and intellectual stomach; +but, on the other hand, he is of a fibre and quality hard to match +in any age or land. From first to last he strikes one as something +extremely pure and compact, like a nut or an egg. Great matters and +tendencies lie folded in him, or rather are summarized in his pages. He +writes short but pregnant chapters on great themes, as in his "English +Traits," a book like rich preserves put up pound for pound, a pound +of Emerson to every pound of John Bull. His chapter on Swedenborg in +"Representative Men" is a good sample of his power to abbreviate and +restate with added force. His mind acts like a sun-lens in gathering the +cold pale beams of that luminary to a focus which warms and stimulates +the reader in a surprising manner. The gist of the whole matter is here; +and how much weariness and dullness and plodding is left out! + +In fact, Emerson is an essence, a condensation; more so, perhaps, than +any other man who has appeared in literature. Nowhere else is there such +a preponderance of pure statement, of the very attar of thought, over +the bulkier, circumstantial, qualifying, or secondary elements. He gives +us net results. He is like those strong artificial fertilizers. A pinch +of him is equivalent to a page or two of Johnson, and he is pitched many +degrees higher as an essayist than even Bacon. He has had an immediate +stimulating effect upon all the best minds of the country; how deep or +lasting this influence will be remains to be seen. + +This point and brevity has its convenience and value especially in +certain fields of literature. I by no means would wish to water Emerson; +yet it will not do to lose sight of the fact that mass and inertia are +indispensable to the creator. Considering him as poet alone, I have +no doubt of his irremediable deficiency here. You cannot have broad, +massive effect, deep light and shade, or a torrent of power, with such +extreme refinement and condensation. The superphosphates cannot take the +place of the coarser, bulkier fertilizers. Especially in poetry do +we require pure thought to be well diluted with the human, emotional +qualities. In the writing most precious to the race, how little is +definition and intellectual formula, and how much is impulse, emotion, +will, character, blood, chyle! We must have liquids and gases and +solvents. We perhaps get more of them in Carlyle. Emerson's page +has more serene astral beauty than Carlyle's, but not that intense +blast-furnace heat that melts down the most obdurate facts and +characters into something plastic and poetical. Emerson's ideal is +always the scholar, the man of books and ready wit; Carlyle's hero is a +riding or striding ruler, or a master worker in some active field. + +The antique mind no doubt affords the true type of health and wholeness +in this respect. The Greek could see, and feel, and paint, and carve, +and speak nothing but emotional man. In nature he saw nothing but +personality,--nothing but human or superhuman qualities; to him the +elements all took the human shape. Of that vague, spiritual, abstract +something which we call Nature he had no conception. He had no +sentiment, properly speaking, but impulse and will-power. And the +master minds of the world, in proportion to their strength, their spinal +strength, have approximated to this type. Dante, Angelo, Shakespeare, +Byron, Goethe, saw mainly man, and him not abstractly but concretely. +And this is the charm of Burns and the glory of Scott. Carlyle has +written the best histories and biographies of modern times, because he +sees man with such fierce and steadfast eyes. Emerson sees him also, +but he is not interested in him as a man, but mainly as a spirit, as a +demigod, or as a wit or a philosopher. + +Emerson's quality has changed a good deal in his later writings. His +corn is no longer in the milk; it has grown hard, and we that read have +grown hard, too. He has now ceased to be an expansive, revolutionary +force, but he has not ceased to be a writer of extraordinary gripe and +unexpected resources of statement. His startling piece of advice, "Hitch +your wagon to a star," is typical of the man, as combining the most +unlike and widely separate qualities. Because not less marked than his +idealism and mysticism is his shrewd common sense, his practical bent, +his definiteness,--in fact, the sharp New England mould in which he is +cast. He is the master Yankee, the centennial flower of that thrifty and +peculiar stock. More especially in his later writings and speakings +do we see the native New England traits,--the alertness, eagerness, +inquisitiveness, thrift, dryness, archness, caution, the nervous energy +as distinguished from the old English unction and vascular force. How he +husbands himself,--what prudence, what economy, always spending up, as +he says, and not down! How alert, how attentive; what an inquisitor; +always ready with some test question, with some fact or idea to match +or to verify, ever on the lookout for some choice bit of adventure or +information, or some anecdote that has pith and point! No tyro basks and +takes his ease in his presence, but is instantly put on trial and must +answer or be disgraced. He strikes at an idea like a falcon at a bird. +His great fear seems to be lest there be some fact or point worth +knowing that will escape him. He is a close-browed miser of the +scholar's gains. He turns all values into intellectual coin. Every book +or person or experience is an investment that will or will not warrant +a good return in ideas. He goes to the Radical Club, or to the literary +gathering, and listens with the closest attention to every word that is +said, in hope that something will be said, some word dropped, that has +the ring of the true metal. Apparently he does not permit himself a +moment's indifference or inattention. His own pride is always to have +the ready change, to speak the exact and proper word, to give to every +occasion the dignity of wise speech. You are bartered with for your +best. There is no profit in life but in the interchange of ideas, and +the chief success is to have a head well filled with them. Hard cash at +that; no paper promises satisfy him; he loves the clink and glint of the +real coin. + +His earlier writings were more flowing and suggestive, and had reference +to larger problems; but now everything has got weighed and stamped and +converted into the medium of wise and scholarly conversation. It is of +great value; these later essays are so many bags of genuine coin, which +it has taken a lifetime to hoard; not all gold, but all good, and the +fruit of wise industry and economy. + +I know of no other writing that yields the reader so many strongly +stamped medallion-like sayings and distinctions. There is a perpetual +refining and recoining of the current wisdom of life and conversation. +It is the old gold or silver or copper, but how bright and new it looks +in his pages! Emerson loves facts, things, objects, as the workman his +tools. He makes everything serve. The stress of expression is so great +that he bends the most obdurate element to his purpose; as the bird, +under her keen necessity, weaves the most contrary and diverse +materials into her nest. He seems to like best material that is a little +refractory; it makes his page more piquant and stimulating. Within +certain limits he loves roughness, but not at the expense of harmony. +He has wonderful hardiness and push. Where else in literature is there +a mind, moving in so rare a medium, that gives one such a sense of +tangible resistance and force? It is a principle in mechanics that +velocity is twice as great as mass: double your speed and you double +your heat, though you halve your weight. In like manner this body we +are considering is not the largest, but its speed is great, and the +intensity of its impact with objects and experience is almost without +parallel. Everything about a man like Emerson is important. I find his +phrenology and physiognomy more than ordinarily typical and suggestive. +Look at his picture there,--large, strong features on a small face and +head,--no blank spaces; all given up to expression; a high predaceous +nose, a sinewy brow, a massive, benevolent chin. In most men there is +more face than feature, but here is a vast deal more feature than face, +and a corresponding alertness and emphasis of character. Indeed, the +man is made after this fashion. He is all type; his expression is +transcendent. His mind has the hand's pronounced anatomy,--its cords +and sinews and multiform articulations and processes, its opposing and +coordinating power. If his brain is small, its texture is fine and +its convolutions are deep. There have been broader and more catholic +natures, but few so towering and audacious in expression and so rich +in characteristic traits. Every scrap and shred of him is important +and related. Like the strongly aromatic herbs and simples,--sage, mint, +wintergreen, sassafras,--the least part carries the flavor of the whole. +Is there one indifferent or equivocal or unsympathizing drop of blood +in him? Where he is at all, he is entirely,--nothing extemporaneous; +his most casual word seems to have lain in pickle a long time, and is +saturated through and through with the Emersonian brine. Indeed, so +pungent and penetrating is his quality that even his quotations seem +more than half his own. + +He is a man who occupies every inch of his rightful territory; he is +there in proper person to the farthest bound. Not every man is himself +and his best self at all times and to his finger points. Many great +characters, perhaps the greatest, have more or less neutral or waste +ground. You must penetrate a distance before you reach the real quick. +Or there is a good wide margin of the commonplace which is sure to put +them on good terms with the mass of their fellow-citizens. And one would +think Emerson could afford to relax a little; that he had earned the +right to a dull page or two now and then. The second best or third best +word sometimes would make us appreciate his first best all the more. +Even his god-father Plato nods occasionally, but Emerson's good breeding +will not for a moment permit such a slight to the reader. + +Emerson's peculiar quality is very subtle, but very sharp and firm +and unmistakable. It is not analogous to the commoner, slower-going +elements, as heat, air, fire, water, but is nearer akin to that +elusive but potent something we call electricity. It is abrupt, freaky, +unexpected, and always communicates a little wholesome shock. It darts +this way and that, and connects the far and the near in every line. +There is always a leaping thread of light, and there is always a kind +of answering peal or percussion. With what quickness and suddenness +extremes are brought together! The reader is never prepared for what is +to come next; the spark will most likely leap from some source or +fact least thought of. His page seldom glows and burns, but there is a +never-ceasing crackling and discharge of moral and intellectual force +into the mind. + +His chief weapon, and one that he never lays down, is identical with +that of the great wits, namely, surprise. The point of his remark or +idea is always sprung upon the reader, never quietly laid before him. +He has a mortal dread of tameness and flatness, and would make the very +water we drink bite the tongue. + +He has been from the first a speaker and lecturer, and his style has +been largely modeled according to the demand of those sharp, heady New +England audiences for ceaseless intellectual friction and chafing. Hence +every sentence is braided hard, and more or less knotted, and, though +of silk, makes the mind tingle. He startles by overstatement, by +understatement, by paradox, by antithesis, and by synthesis. Into +every sentence enters the unexpected,--the congruous leaping from the +incongruous, the high coming down, the low springing up, likeness or +relation suddenly coming into view where before was only difference or +antagonism. How he delights to bring the reader up with a short turn, +to impale him on a knotty point, to explode one of his verbal bombshells +under his very nose! Yet there is no trickery or rhetorical legerdemain. +His heroic fibre always saves him. + +The language in which Taine describes Bacon applies with even more force +to Emerson:-- + +"Bacon," he says, "is a producer of conceptions and of sentences. The +matter being explored, he says to us: 'Such it is; touch it not on that +side; it must be approached from the other.' Nothing more; no proof, no +effort to convince; he affirms, and nothing more; he has thought in the +manner of artists and poets, and he speaks after the manner of prophets +and seers. 'Cogita et visa,'--this title of one of his books might be +the title of all. His process is that of the creators; it is intuition, +not reasoning.... There is nothing more hazardous, more like fantasy, +than this mode of thought when it is not checked by natural and good +strong common sense. This common sense, which is a kind of natural +divination, the stable equilibrium of an intellect always gravitating +to the true, like the needle to the north pole, Bacon possesses in the +highest degree. He has a preëminently practical, even an utilitarian +mind." + +It is significant, and is indeed the hidden seed or root out of which +comes the explanation of much, if not the main part, of his life and +writings, that Emerson comes of a long line of clergymen; that the blood +in his veins has been teaching, and preaching, and thinking, and +growing austere, these many generations. One wonders that it is still so +bounding and strong, so red with iron and quick with oxygen. But in +him seems to be illustrated one of those rare cases in the genealogy +of families where the best is carried forward each time, and steadily +recruited and intensified. It does not seem possible for any man to +become just what Emerson is from the stump, though perhaps great men +have been the fruit of one generation; but there is a quality in him, an +aroma of fine manners, a propriety, a chivalry in the blood, that dates +back, and has been refined and transmitted many times. Power is born +with a man, and is always first hand, but culture, genius, noble +instincts, gentle manners, or the easy capacity for these things, may +be, and to a greater or a lesser extent are, the contribution of the +past. Emerson's culture is radical and ante-natal, and never fails him. +The virtues of all those New England ministers and all those tomes of +sermons are in this casket. One fears sometimes that he has been too +much clarified, or that there is not enough savage grace or original +viciousness and grit in him to save him. How he hates the roysterers, +and all the rank, turbulent, human passions, and is chilled by the +thought that perhaps after all Shakespeare led a vulgar life! + +When Tyndall was here, he showed us how the dark, coarse, invisible heat +rays could be strained out of the spectrum; or, in other words, that +every solar beam was weighted with a vast, nether, invisible side, which +made it a lever of tremendous power in organic nature. After some such +analogy, one sees how the highest order of power in the intellectual +world draws upon and is nourished by those rude, primitive, barbaric +human qualities that our culture and pietism tend to cut off and strain +out. Our culture has its eye on the other end of the spectrum, where +the fine violet and indigo rays are; but all the lifting, rounding, +fructifying powers of the system are in the coarse, dark rays--the +black devil--at the base. The angel of light is yoked with the demon of +darkness, and the pair create and sustain the world. + +In rare souls like Emerson, the fruit of extreme culture, it is +inevitable that at least some of the heat rays should be lost, and we +miss them especially when we contrast him with the elder masters. The +elder masters did not seem to get rid of the coarse or vulgar in human +life, but royally accepted it, and struck their roots into it, and drew +from it sustenance and power: but there is an ever-present suspicion +that Emerson prefers the saints to the sinners; prefers the prophets and +seers to Homer, Shakespeare, and Dante. Indeed, it is to be distinctly +stated and emphasized, that Emerson is essentially a priest, and that +the key to all he has said and written is to be found in the fact +that his point of view is not that of the acceptor, the +creator,--Shakespeare's point of view,--but that of the refiner and +selector, the priest's point of view. He described his own state rather +than that of mankind when he said, "The human mind stands ever in +perplexity, demanding intellect, demanding sanctity, impatient equally +of each without the other." + +Much surprise has been expressed in literary circles in this country +that Emerson has not followed up his first off-hand indorsement of Walt +Whitman with fuller and more deliberate approval of that poet, but has +rather taken the opposite tack. But the wonder is that he should have +been carried off his feet at all in the manner he was; and it must +have been no ordinary breeze that did it. Emerson shares with his +contemporaries the vast preponderance of the critical and discerning +intellect over the fervid, manly qualities and faith. His power of +statement is enormous; his scope of being is not enormous. The prayer +he uttered many years ago for a poet of the modern, one who could see in +the gigantic materialism of the times the carnival of the same deities +we so much admire in Greece and Rome, seems to many to have even been +explicitly answered in Whitman; but Emerson is balked by the cloud of +materials, the din and dust of action, and the moving armies, in which +the god comes enveloped. + +But Emerson has his difficulties with all the poets. Homer is too +literal, Milton too literary, and there is too much of the whooping +savage in Whitman. He seems to think the real poet is yet to appear; a +poet on new terms, the reconciler, the poet-priest,--one who shall unite +the whiteness and purity of the saint with the power and unction of the +sinner; one who shall bridge the chasm between Shakespeare and St. John. +For when our Emerson gets on his highest horse, which he does only on +two or three occasions, he finds Shakespeare only a half man, and +that it would take Plato and Manu and Moses and Jesus to complete him. +Shakespeare, he says, rested with the symbol, with the festal beauty of +the world, and did not take the final step, and explore the essence +of things, and ask, "Whence? What? and Whither?" He was not wise for +himself; he did not lead a beautiful, saintly life, but ate, and drank, +and reveled, and affiliated with all manner of persons, and quaffed the +cup of life with gusto and relish. The elect, spotless souls will always +look upon the heat and unconscious optimism of the great poet with deep +regret. But if man would not become emasculated, if human life is to +continue, we must cherish the coarse as well as the fine, the root as +well as the top and flower. The poet-priest in the Emersonian sense +has never yet appeared, and what reason have we to expect him? The poet +means life, the whole of life,--all your ethics and philosophies, and +essences and reason of things, in vital play and fusion, clothed with +form and color, and throbbing with passion: the priest means a part, a +thought, a precept; he means suppression, expurgation, death. To have +gone farther than Shakespeare would have been to cease to be a poet, and +to become a mystic or a seer. + +Yet it would be absurd to say, as a leading British literary journal +recently did, that Emerson is not a poet. He is one kind of a poet. He +has written plenty of poems that are as melodious as the hum of a wild +bee in the air,--chords of wild aeolian music. + +Undoubtedly his is, on the whole, a bloodless kind of poetry. It +suggests the pale gray matter of the cerebrum rather than flesh and +blood. Mr. William Rossetti has made a suggestive remark about him. He +is not so essentially a poet, says this critic, as he is a Druid that +wanders among the bards, and strikes the harp with even more than bardic +stress. + +Not in the poetry of any of his contemporaries is there such a burden +of the mystery of things, nor are there such round wind-harp tones, nor +lines so tense and resonant, and blown upon by a breeze from the highest +heaven of thought. In certain respects he has gone beyond any other. He +has gone beyond the symbol to the thing signified. He has emptied poetic +forms of their meaning and made poetry of that. He would fain cut the +world up into stars to shine in the intellectual firmament. He is more +and he is less than the best. + +He stands among other poets like a pine-tree amid a forest of oak and +maple. He seems to belong to another race, and to other climes and +conditions. He is great in one direction, up; no dancing leaves, but +rapt needles; never abandonment, never a tossing and careering, never +an avalanche of emotion; the same in sun and snow, scattering his cones, +and with night and obscurity amid his branches. He is moral first and +last, and it is through his impassioned and poetic treatment of the +moral law that he gains such an ascendency over his reader. He says, as +for other things he makes poetry of them, but the moral law makes poetry +of him. He sees in the world only the ethical, but he sees it through +the aesthetic faculty. Hence his page has the double charm of the +beautiful and the good. + + + +II + +One of the penalties Emerson pays for his sharp decision, his mental +pertinence and resistance, is the curtailment of his field of vision and +enjoyment. He is one of those men whom the gods drive with blinders on, +so that they see fiercely in only a few directions. Supreme lover as he +is of poetry,--Herrick's poetry,--yet from the whole domain of what may +be called emotional poetry, the poetry of fluid humanity, tallied by +music, he seems to be shut out. This may be seen by his reference +to Shelley in his last book, "Letters and Social Aims," and by +his preference of the metaphysical poet throughout his writings. +Wordsworth's famous "Ode" is, he says, the high-water mark of English +literature. What he seems to value most in Shakespeare is the marvelous +wit, the pregnant sayings. He finds no poet in France, and in his +"English Traits" credits Tennyson with little but melody and color. (In +our last readings, do we not surely come to feel the manly and robust +fibre beneath Tennyson's silken vestments?) He demands of poetry that +it be a kind of spiritual manna, and is at last forced to confess that +there are no poets, and that when such angels do appear, Homer and +Milton will be tin pans. + +One feels that this will not do, and that health, and wholeness, and +the well-being of man are more in the keeping of Shakespeare than in the +hands of Zoroaster or any of the saints. I doubt if that rarefied air +will make good red blood and plenty of it. + +But Emerson makes his point plain, and is not indebted to any of his +teachers for it. It is the burden of all he writes upon the subject. The +long discourse that opens his last volume [footnote: _Letters and Social +Aims_] has numerous subheadings, as "Poetry," "Imagination," "Creation," +"Morals," and "Transcendency;" but it's all a plea for transcendency. I +am reminded of the story of an old Indian chief who was invited to some +great dinner where the first course was "succotash." When the second +course was ready the old Indian said he would have a little more +succotash, and when the third was ready he called for more succotash and +so with the fourth and fifth, and on to the end. In like manner Emerson +will have nothing but the "spiritual law" in poetry, and he has an +enormous appetite for that. Let him have it, but why should he be so +sure that mankind all want succotash? Mankind finally comes to care +little for what any poet has to _say,_ but only for what he has to +_sing._ We want the pearl of thought dissolved in the wine of life. How +much better are sound bones and a good digestion in poetry than all the +philosophy and transcendentalism in the world! + +What one comes at last to want is power, mastery; and, whether it be +mastery over the subtleties of the intellect, as in Emerson himself, or +over the passions and the springs of action, as in Shakespeare, or over +our terrors and the awful hobgoblins of hell and Satan, as in Dante, or +over vast masses and spaces of nature and the abysms of aboriginal man, +as in Walt Whitman, what matters it? Are we not refreshed by all? There +is one mastery in Burns, another in Byron, another in Rabelais, and in +Victor Hugo, and in Tennyson; and though the critic has his preferences, +though he affect one more than another, yet who shall say this one is +a poet and that one is not? "There may be any number of supremes," says +the master, and "one by no means contravenes another." Every gas is +a vacuum to every other gas, says Emerson, quoting the scientist; and +every great poet complements and leaves the world free to every other +great poet. + +Emerson's limitation or fixity is seen also in the fact that he has +taken no new step in his own direction, if indeed another step could be +taken in that direction and not step off. He is a prisoner on his +peak. He cannot get away from the old themes. His later essays are +upon essentially the same subjects as his first. He began by writing +on nature, greatness, manners, art, poetry, and he is still writing on +them. He is a husbandman who practices no rotation of crops, but submits +to the exhaustive process of taking about the same things from his soil +year after year. Some readers think they detect a falling off. It is +evident there is not the same spontaneity, and that the soil has to be +more and more stirred and encouraged, which is not at all to be wondered +at. + +But if Emerson has not advanced, he has not receded, at least in +conviction and will, which is always the great danger with our bold +prophets. The world in which he lives, the themes upon which he writes, +never become hackneyed to him. They are always fresh and new. He has +hardened, but time has not abated one jot or tittle his courage and +hope,--no cynicism and no relaxing of his hold, no decay of his faith, +while the nobleness of his tone, the chivalry of his utterance, is even +more marked than at first. Better a hundred-fold than his praise of fine +manners is the delicacy and courtesy and the grace of generous breeding +displayed on every page. Why does one grow impatient and vicious when +Emerson writes of fine manners and the punctilios of conventional life, +and feel like kicking into the street every divinity enshrined in the +drawing-room? It is a kind of insult to a man to speak the word in his +presence. Purify the parlors indeed by keeping out the Choctaws, the +laughers! Let us go and hold high carnival for a week, and split the +ears of the groundlings with our "contemptible squeals of joy." And when +he makes a dead set at praising eloquence, I find myself instantly on +the side of the old clergyman he tells of who prayed that he might never +be eloquent; or when he makes the test of a man an intellectual one, as +his skill at repartee, and praises the literary crack shot, and defines +manliness to be readiness, as he does in this last volume and in the +preceding one, I am filled with a perverse envy of all the confused and +stammering heroes of history. Is Washington faltering out a few broken +and ungrammatical sentences, in reply to the vote of thanks of the +Virginia legislature, less manly than the glib tongue in the court-room +or in the club that can hit the mark every time? The test of a wit or of +a scholar is one thing; the test of a man, I take it, is quite another. +In this and some other respects Emerson is well antidoted by Carlyle, +who lays the stress on the opposite qualities, and charges his hero to +hold his tongue. But one cheerfully forgives Emerson the way he puts his +thumb-nail on the bores. He speaks feelingly, and no doubt from as deep +an experience as any man in America. + +I really hold Emerson in such high esteem that I think I can safely +indulge myself in a little more fault-finding with him. + +I think it must be admitted that he is deficient in sympathy. This +accounts in a measure for his coolness, his self-possession, and that +kind of uncompromising rectitude or inflexibleness that marks his +career, and that he so lauds in his essays. No man is so little liable +to be warped or compromised in any way as the unsympathetic man. +Emerson's ideal is the man who stands firm, who is unmoved, who never +laughs, or apologizes, or deprecates, or makes concessions, or assents +through good-nature, or goes abroad; who is not afraid of giving +offense; "who answers you without supplication in his eye,"--in fact, +who stands like a granite pillar amid the slough of life. You may +wrestle with this man, he says, or swim with him, or lodge in the same +chamber with him, or eat at the same table, and yet he is a thousand +miles off, and can at any moment finish with you. He is a sheer +precipice, is this man, and not to be trifled with. You shrinking, +quivering, acquiescing natures, avaunt! You sensitive plants, you +hesitating, indefinite creatures, you uncertain around the edges, you +non-resisting, and you heroes, whose courage is quick, but whose wit is +tardy, make way, and let the human crustacean pass. Emerson is moulded +upon this pattern. It is no mush and milk that you get at this table. "A +great man is coming to dine with me; I do not wish to please him; I wish +that he should wish to please me." On the lecture stand he might be +of wood, so far as he is responsive to the moods and feelings of his +auditors. They must come to him; he will not go to them: but they do not +always come. Latterly the people have felt insulted, the lecturer showed +them so little respect. Then, before a promiscuous gathering, and in +stirring and eventful times like ours, what anachronisms most of his +lectures are, even if we take the high ground that they are pearls +before swine! The swine may safely demand some apology of him who offers +them pearls instead of corn. + +Emerson's fibre is too fine for large public uses. He is what he is, and +is to be accepted as such, only let us _know_ what he is. He does not +speak to universal conditions, or to human nature in its broadest, +deepest, strongest phases. His thought is far above the great sea level +of humanity, where stand most of the world's masters. He is like one of +those marvelously clear mountain lakes whose water-line runs above +all the salt seas of the globe. He is very precious, taken at his real +worth. Why find fault with the isolation and the remoteness in view of +the sky-like purity and depth? + +Still I must go on sounding and exploring him, reporting where I touch +bottom and where I do not. He reaps great advantage from his want of +sympathy. The world makes no inroads upon him through this channel. He +is not distracted by the throng or maybe the mob of emotions that find +entrance here. He shines like a star undimmed by current events. He +speaks as from out the interstellar spaces. 'T is vulgar sympathy makes +mortals of us all, and I think Emerson's poetry finally lacks just that +human coloring and tone, that flesh tint of the heart, which vulgar +sympathy with human life as such imparts. + +But after we have made all possible deductions from Emerson, there +remains the fact that he is a living force, and, tried by home +standards, a master. Wherein does the secret of his power lie? He is +the prophet and philosopher of young men. The old man and the man of the +world make little of him, but of the youth who is ripe for him he takes +almost an unfair advantage. One secret of his charm I take to be the +instant success with which he transfers our interest in the romantic, +the chivalrous, the heroic, to the sphere of morals and the intellect. +We are let into another realm unlooked for, where daring and imagination +also lead. The secret and suppressed heart finds a champion. To the +young man fed upon the penny precepts and staple Johnsonianism of +English literature, and upon what is generally doled out in the schools +and colleges, it is a surprise; it is a revelation. A new world opens +before him. The nebulae of his spirit are resolved or shown to be +irresolvable. The fixed stars of his inner firmament are brought +immeasurably near. He drops all other books. He will gaze and wonder. +From Locke or Johnson or Wayland to Emerson is like a change from the +school history to the Arabian Nights. There may be extravagances and +some jugglery, but for all that the lesson is a genuine one, and to us +of this generation immense. + +Emerson is the knight-errant of the moral sentiment. He leads, in +our time and country, one illustrious division, at least, in the holy +crusade of the affections and the intuitions against the usurpations of +tradition and theological dogma. He marks the flower, the culmination, +under American conditions and in the finer air of the New World, of the +reaction begun by the German philosophers, and passed along by later +French and English thinkers, of man against circumstance, of +spirit against form, of the present against the past. What splendid +affirmation, what inspiring audacity, what glorious egoism, what +generous brag, what sacred impiety! There is an _eclat_ about his words, +and a brave challenging of immense odds, that is like an army with +banners. It stirs the blood like a bugle-call: beauty, bravery, and a +sacred cause,--the three things that win with us always. The first essay +is a forlorn hope. See what the chances are: "The world exists for the +education of each man.... He should see that he can live all history in +his own person. He must sit solidly at home, and not suffer himself to +be bullied by kings or empires, but know that he is greater than all +the geography and all the government of the world; he must transfer the +point of view from which history is commonly read from Rome and Athens +and London to himself, and not deny his conviction that he is the court, +and, if England or Egypt have anything to say to him, he will try the +case; if not, let them forever be silent." In every essay that follows, +there are the same great odds and the same electric call to the youth +to face them. It is, indeed, as much a world of fable and romance that +Emerson introduces us to as we get in Homer or Herodotus. It is true, +all true,--true as Arthur and his knights, or Pilgrim's Progress, and I +pity the man who has not tasted its intoxication, or who can see nothing +in it. + +The intuitions are the bright band, without armor or shield, that +slay the mailed and bucklered giants of the understanding. Government, +institutions, religions, fall before the glance of the hero's eye. Art +and literature, Shakespeare, Angelo, Aeschylus, are humble suppliants +before you, the king. The commonest fact is idealized, and the whole +relation of man to the universe is thrown into a kind of gigantic +perspective. It is not much to say there is exaggeration; the very start +makes Mohammed's attitude toward the mountain tame. The mountain _shall_ +come to Mohammed, and, in the eyes of all born readers of Emerson, the +mountain does come, and comes with alacrity. + +Some shrewd judges apprehend that Emerson is not going to last; basing +their opinion upon the fact, already alluded to, that we outgrow him, or +pass through him as through an experience that we cannot repeat. He is +but a bridge to other things; he gets you over. He is an exceptional +fact in literature, say they, and does not represent lasting or +universal conditions. He is too fine for the rough wear and tear of +ages. True, we do not outgrow Dante, or Cervantes, or Bacon; and I doubt +if the Anglo-Saxon stock at least ever outgrows that king of romancers, +Walter Scott. These men and their like appeal to a larger audience, and +in some respects a more adult one, at least one more likely to be found +in every age and people. Their achievement was more from the common +level of human nature than are Emerson's astonishing paradoxes. Yet I +believe his work has the seal of immortality upon it as much as that +of any of them. No doubt he has a meaning to us now and in this country +that will be lost to succeeding time. His religious significance will +not be so important to the next generation. He is being or has been so +completely absorbed by his times, that readers and hearers hereafter +will get him from a thousand sources, or his contribution will become +the common property of the race. All the masters probably had some +peculiar import or tie to their contemporaries that we at a distance +miss. It is thought by scholars that we have lost the key, or one key, +to Dante, and Chaucer, and Shakespeare,--the key or the insight that +people living under the same roof get of each other. + +But, aside from and over and above everything else, Emerson _appeals +to youth and to genius._ If you have these, you will understand him and +delight in him; if not, or neither of them, you will make little of him. +And I do not see why this should not be just as true any time hence as +at present. + + + + +X THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE + + TO WALT WHITMAN + + "'I, thirty-six years old, in perfect health, begin, + Hoping to cease not till death.'" + CHANTS DEMOCRATIC. + + + "They say that thou art sick, art growing old, + Thou Poet of unconquerable health, + With youth far-stretching, through the golden wealth + Of autumn, to Death's frostful, friendly cold. + The never-blenching eyes, that did behold + Life's fair and foul, with measureless content, + And gaze ne'er sated, saddened as they bent + Over the dying soldier in the fold + Of thy large comrade love;--then broke the tear! + War-dream, field-vigil, the bequeathed kiss, + Have brought old age to thee; yet, Master, now, + Cease not thy song to us; lest we should miss + A death-chant of indomitable cheer, + Blown as a gale from God;--oh sing it thou!" + ARRAN LEIGH (England). + +I + +Whoever has witnessed the flight of any of the great birds, as the +eagle, the condor, the sea-gulls, the proud hawks, has perhaps felt that +the poetic suggestion of the feathered tribes is not all confined to the +sweet and tiny songsters,--the thrushes, canaries, and mockingbirds of +the groves and orchards, or of the gilded cage in my lady's chamber. +It is by some such analogy that I would indicate the character of the +poetry I am about to discuss, compared with that of the more popular and +melodious singer,--the poetry of the strong wing and the daring flight. + +Well and profoundly has a Danish critic said, in "For Ide og +Virkelighed" ("For the Idea and the Reality"), a Copenhagen magazine:-- + +"It may be candidly admitted that the American poet has not the +elegance, special melody, nor _recherché_ aroma of the accepted poets +of Europe or his own country; but his compass and general harmony are +infinitely greater. The sweetness and spice, the poetic _ennui,_ the +tender longings, the exquisite art-finish of those choice poets are +mainly unseen and unmet in him,--perhaps because he cannot achieve them, +more likely because he disdains them. But there is an electric _living +soul_ in his poetry, far more fermenting and bracing. His wings do not +glitter in their movement from rich and varicolored plumage, nor are his +notes those of the accustomed song-birds; but his flight is the flight +of the eagle." + +Yes, there is not only the delighting of the ear with the outpouring of +sweetest melody and its lessons, but there is the delighting of the eye +and soul through that soaring and circling in the vast empyrean of "a +strong bird on pinions free,"--lessons of freedom, power, grace, and +spiritual suggestion,--vast, unparalleled, _formless_ lessons. + +It is now upwards of twenty years since Walt Whitman printed (in 1855) +his first thin beginning volume of "Leaves of Grass;" and, holding him +to the test which he himself early proclaimed, namely, "that the proof +of the poet shall be sternly deferred till his country has absorb'd him +as affectionately as he has absorb'd it," he is yet on trial, yet +makes his appeal to an indifferent or to a scornful audience. That his +complete absorption, however, by his own country and by the world, is +ultimately to take place, is one of the beliefs that grows stronger and +stronger within me as time passes, and I suppose it is with a hope to +help forward this absorption that I write of him now. Only here and +there has he yet effected a lodgment, usually in the younger and +more virile minds. But considering the unparalleled audacity of his +undertaking, and the absence in most critics and readers of anything +like full-grown and robust aesthetic perception, the wonder really is +not that he should have made such slow progress, but that he should have +gained any foothold at all. The whole literary _technique_ of the race +for the last two hundred years has been squarely against him, laying, as +it does, the emphasis upon form and scholarly endowments instead of upon +aboriginal power and manhood. + +My own mastery of the poet, incomplete as it is, has doubtless been much +facilitated by contact--talks, meals, and jaunts--with him, stretching +through a decade of years, and by seeing how everything in his +_personnel_ was resumed and carried forward in his literary expression; +in fact, how the one was a living commentary upon the other. After the +test of time, nothing goes home like the test of actual intimacy; and to +tell me that Whitman is not a large, fine, fresh, magnetic personality, +making you love him and want always to be with him, were to tell me +that my whole past life is a deception, and all the impression of my +perceptive faculties a fraud. I have studied him as I have studied +the birds, and have found that the nearer I got to him the more I saw. +Nothing about a first-class man can be overlooked; he is to be studied +in every feature,--in his physiology and phrenology, in the shape of his +head, in his brow, his eye, his glance, his nose, his ear (the ear is +as indicative in a man as in a horse), his voice. In Whitman all these +things are remarkably striking and suggestive. His face exhibits a rare +combination of harmony and sweetness with strength,--strength like the +vaults and piers of the Roman architecture. Sculptor never carved a +finer ear or a more imaginative brow. Then his heavy-lidded, absorbing +eye, his sympathetic voice, and the impression which he makes of +starting from the broad bases of the universal human traits. (If Whitman +was grand in his physical and perfect health, I think him far more so +now (1877), cheerfully mastering paralysis, penury, and old age.) You +know, on seeing the man and becoming familiar with his presence, that, +if he achieve the height at all, it will be from where every man stands, +and not from some special genius, or exceptional and adventitious +point. He does not make the impression of the scholar or artist or +_littérateur,_ but such as you would imagine the antique heroes to +make,--that of a sweet-blooded, receptive, perfectly normal, catholic +man, with, further than that, a look about him that is best suggested by +the word elemental or cosmical. It was this, doubtless, that led Thoreau +to write, after an hour's interview, that he suggested "something a +little more than human." In fact, the main clew to Walt Whitman's life +and personality, and the expression of them in his poems, is to be found +in about the largest emotional element that has appeared anywhere. This, +if not controlled by a potent rational balance, would either have tossed +him helplessly forever, or wrecked him as disastrously as ever storm +and gale drove ship to ruin. These volcanic emotional fires appear +everywhere in his books; and it is really these, aroused to intense +activity and unnatural strain during the four years of the war and his +persistent labors in the hospitals, that have resulted in his illness +and paralysis since. + +It has been impossible, I say, to resist these personal impressions and +magnetisms, and impossible with me not to follow them up in the poems, +in doing which I found that his "Leaves of Grass" was really the _drama +of himself,_ played upon various and successive stages of nature, +history, passion, experience, patriotism, and that he had not made, +nor had he intended to make, mere excellent "poems," tunes, statues, or +statuettes, in the ordinary sense. + +Before the man's complete acceptance and assimilation by America, he +may have to be first passed down through the minds of critics and +commentators, and given to the people with some of his rank new quality +taken off,--a quality like that which adheres to objects in the open +air, and makes them either forbidding or attractive, as one's mood is +healthful and robust or feeble and languid. The processes are silently +at work. Already seen from a distance, and from other atmospheres and +surroundings, he assumes magnitude and orbic coherence; for in curious +contrast to the general denial of Whitman in this country (though he +has more lovers and admirers here than is generally believed) stands +the reception accorded him in Europe. The poets there, almost without +exception, recognize his transcendent quality, the men of science his +thorough scientific basis, the republicans his inborn democracy, and all +his towering picturesque personality and modernness. Professor Clifford +says he is more thoroughly in harmony with the spirit and letter of +advanced scientism than any other living poet. Professor Tyrrell and Mr. +Symonds find him eminently Greek, in the sense in which to be natural +and "self-regulated by the law of perfect health" is to be Greek. The +French "Revue des Deux Mondes" pronounces his war poems the most vivid, +the most humanly passionate, and the most modern, of all the verse of +the nineteenth century. Freiligrath translated him into German, and +hailed him as the founder of a new democratic and modern order of +poetry, greater than the old. But I do not propose to go over the whole +list here; I only wish to indicate that the absorption is well commenced +abroad, and that probably her poet will at last reach America by way of +those far-off, roundabout channels. The old mother will first masticate +and moisten the food which is still too tough for her offspring. + +When I first fell in with "Leaves of Grass," I was taken by isolated +passages scattered here and there through the poems; these I seized +upon, and gave myself no concern about the rest. Single lines in it +often went to the bottom of the questions that were vexing me. The +following, though less here than when encountered in the frame of mind +which the poet begets in you, curiously settled and stratified a certain +range of turbid, fluctuating inquiry:-- + + "There was never any more inception than there is now,-- + Nor any more youth or age than there is now; + And will never be any more perfection than there is now, + Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now." + +These lines, also, early had an attraction for me I could not define, +and were of great service:-- + + "Pleasantly and well-suited I walk, + Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good, + The whole universe indicates that it is good, + The past and the present indicate that it is good." + +In the following episode, too, there was to me something far deeper than +the words or the story:-- + + "The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside; + I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the wood-pile; + Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak, + And went where he sat on a log, and led him in, and assured him, + And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and + bruis'd feet, + And gave him a room that entered from my own, and gave him some + coarse clean clothes; + And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness, + And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles: + He stayed with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd North; + (I had him sit next me at table--my firelock lean'd in the corner.)" + +But of the book as a whole I could form no adequate conception, and +it was not for many years, and after I had known the poet himself, as +already stated, that I saw in it a teeming, rushing globe well worthy my +best days and strength to surround and comprehend. + +One thing that early took me in the poems was (as before alluded to) the +tremendous personal force back of them, and felt through them as the +sun through vapor; not merely intellectual grasp or push, but a warm, +breathing, towering, magnetic Presence that there was no escape from. + +Another fact I was quick to perceive, namely, that this man had almost +in excess a quality in which every current poet was lacking,--I mean the +faculty of being in entire sympathy with actual nature, and the objects; +and shows of nature, and of rude, abysmal man; and appalling directness +of utterance therefrom, at first hand, without any intermediate agency +or modification. + +The influence of books and works of art upon an author may be seen in +all respectable writers. If knowledge alone made literature, or culture +genius, there would be no dearth of these things among the moderns. But +I feel bound to say that there is something higher and deeper than the +influence or perusal of any or all books, or all other productions of +genius,--a quality of information which the masters can never impart, +and which all the libraries do not hold. This is the absorption by an +author, previous to becoming so, of the spirit of nature, through +the visible objects of the universe, and his affiliation with them +subjectively and objectively. Not more surely is the blood quickened and +purified by contact with the unbreathed air than is the spirit of man +vitalized and made strong by intercourse with the real things of the +earth. The calm, all-permitting, wordless spirit of nature,--yet so +eloquent to him who hath ears to hear! The sunrise, the heaving sea, +the woods and mountains, the storm and the whistling winds, the gentle +summer day, the winter sights and sounds, the night and the high dome of +stars,--to have really perused these, especially from childhood onward, +till what there is in them, so impossible to define, finds its full mate +and echo in the mind,--this only is the lore which breathes the breath +of life into all the rest. Without it, literary productions may have the +superb beauty of statues, but with it only can they have the beauty of +life. + +I was never troubled at all by what the critics called Whitman's want +of art, or his violation of art. I saw that he at once designedly swept +away all which the said critics have commonly meant by that term. The +dominant impression was of the living presence and voice. He would have +no curtains, he said, not the finest, between himself and his reader; +and in thus bringing me face to face with his subject I perceived he +not only did not escape conventional art, but I perceived an enlarged, +enfranchised art in this very abnegation of art. "When half-gods go, +whole gods arrive." It was obvious to me that the new style gained more +than it lost, and that in this fullest operatic launching forth of the +voice, though it sounded strange at first, and required the ear to get +used to it, there might be quite as much science, and a good deal more +power, than in the tuneful but constricted measures we were accustomed +to. + +To the eye the page of the new poet presented about the same contrast +with the page of the popular poets that trees and the free, unbidden +growths of nature do with a carefully clipped hedge; and to the spirit +the contrast was about the same. The hedge is the more studiedly and +obviously beautiful, but, ah! there is a kind of beauty and satisfaction +in trees that one would not care to lose. There are symmetry and +proportion in the sonnet, but to me there is something I would not +exchange for them in the wild swing and balance of many free and +unrhymed passages in Shakespeare; like the one, for instance, in which +these lines occur:-- + + "To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, + And blown with restless violence round + About the pendent world." + +Here is the spontaneous grace and symmetry of a forest tree, or a +soughing mass of foliage. + +And this passage from my poet I do not think could be improved by the +verse-maker's art:-- + + "This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded + heaven, + And I said to my Spirit, _When we become the enfolders of those orbs + and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be + fill'd and satisfied then?_ + And my Spirit said, No, _we but level that lift, to pass and continue + beyond."_ + +Such breaking with the routine poetic, and with the grammar of verse, +was of course a dangerous experiment, and threw the composer absolutely +upon his intrinsic merits, upon his innately poetic and rhythmic +quality. He must stand or fall by these alone, since he discarded all +artificial, all adventitious helps. If interior, spontaneous rhythm +could not be relied on, and the natural music and flexibility of +language, then there was nothing to shield the ear from the pitiless +hail of words,--not one softly padded verse anywhere. + +All poets, except those of the very first order, owe immensely to the +form, the art, the stereotyped metres, and stock figures they find ready +to hand. The form is suggestive,--it invites and aids expression, and +lends itself readily, like fashion, to conceal, or extenuate, or eke +out poverty of thought and feeling in the verse. The poet can "cut and +cover," as the farmer says, in a way the prose-writer never can, nor one +whose form is essentially prose, like Whitman's. + +I, too, love to see the forms worthily used, as they always are by the +master; and I have no expectation that they are going out of fashion +right away. A great deal of poetry that serves, and helps sweeten one's +cup, would be impossible without them,--would be nothing when separated +from them. It is for the ear, and for the sense of tune and of carefully +carved and modeled forms, and is not meant to arouse the soul with the +taste of power, and to start off on journeys for itself. But the great +inspired utterances, like the Bible,--what would they gain by being cast +in the moulds of metrical verse? In all that concerns art, viewed from +any high standpoint,--proportion, continence, self-control, unfaltering +adherence to natural standards, subordination of parts, perfect +adjustment of the means to the end, obedience to inward law, no +trifling, no levity, no straining after effect, impartially attending to +the back and loins as well as to the head, and even holding toward his +subject an attitude of perfect acceptance and equality,--principles +of art to which alone the great spirits are amenable,--in all these +respects, I say, this poet is as true as an orb in astronomy. + +To his literary expression pitched on scales of such unprecedented +breadth and loftiness, the contrast of his personal life comes in with a +foil of curious homeliness and simplicity. Perhaps never before has +the absolute and average _commonness of humanity_ been so steadily and +unaffectedly adhered to. I give here a glimpse of him in Washington on +a Navy Yard horse-car, toward the close of the war, one summer day at +sundown. The car is crowded and suffocatingly hot, with many passengers +on the rear platform, and among them a bearded, florid-faced man, +elderly but agile, resting against the dash, by the side of the young +conductor, and evidently his intimate friend. The man wears a broad-brim +white hat. Among the jam inside, near the door, a young Englishwoman, of +the working class, with two children, has had trouble all the way with +the youngest, a strong, fat, fretful, bright babe of fourteen or fifteen +months, who bids fair to worry the mother completely out, besides +becoming a howling nuisance to everybody. As the car tugs around Capitol +Hill the young one is more demoniac than ever, and the flushed and +perspiring mother is just ready to burst into tears with weariness and +vexation. The car stops at the top of the hill to let off most of the +rear platform passengers, and the white-hatted man reaches inside, and, +gently but firmly disengaging the babe from its stifling place in the +mother's arms, takes it in his own, and out in the air. The astonished +and excited child, partly in fear, partly in satisfaction at the change, +stops its screaming, and, as the man adjusts it more securely to his +breast, plants its chubby hands against him, and, pushing off as far +as it can, gives a good long look squarely in his face,--then, as if +satisfied, snuggles down with its head on his neck, and in less than a +minute is sound and peacefully asleep without another whimper, utterly +fagged out. A square or so more and the conductor, who has had an +unusually hard and uninterrupted day's work, gets off for his first +meal and relief since morning. And now the white-hatted man, holding +the slumbering babe, also acts as conductor the rest of the distance, +keeping his eye on the passengers inside, who have by this time thinned +out greatly. He makes a very good conductor, too, pulling the bell to +stop or to go on as needed, and seems to enjoy the occupation. The babe +meanwhile rests its fat cheeks close on his neck and gray beard, one of +his arms vigilantly surrounding it, while the other signals, from time +to time, with the strap; and the flushed mother inside has a good half +hour to breathe, and to cool and recover herself. + + + +II + +No poem of our day dates and locates itself as absolutely as "Leaves of +Grass;" but suppose it had been written three or four centuries ago, +and had located itself in mediaeval Europe, and was now first brought +to light, together with a history of Walt Whitman's simple and +disinterested life, can there be any doubt about the cackling that would +at once break out in the whole brood of critics over the golden egg that +had been uncovered? This reckon would be a favorite passage with all:-- + + "You sea! I resign myself to you also--I guess what you mean; + I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers; + I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me; + We must have a turn together--I undress--hurry me out of sight of + the land; + Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse; + Dash me with amorous wet--I can repay you. + + "Sea of stretch'd ground-swells! + Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths! + Sea of the brine of life! sea of unshovel'd yet always ready graves! + Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea! + I am integral with you--I too am of one phase, and of all phases." + +This other passage would afford many a text for the moralists and +essayists:-- + + "Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarship, + and the like; + To me, all that those persons have arrived at sinks away from them, + except as it results to their Bodies and Souls, + So that often, to me, they appear gaunt and naked, + And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and mocks himself + or herself, + And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness, is full of + the rotten excrement of maggots; + And often, to me, those men and women pass unwittingly the true + realities of life, and go toward false realities, + And often, to me, they are alive after what custom has served + them, but nothing more, + And often, to me, they are sad, hasty, unwaked somnambules, + walking the dusk." + +Ah, Time, you enchantress! what tricks you play with us! The old +is already proved,--the past and the distant hold nothing but the +beautiful. + +Or let us take another view. Suppose Walt Whitman had never existed, and +some bold essayist, like Mr. Higginson or Matthew Arnold, had projected +him in abstract, outlined him on a scholarly ideal background, +formulated and put in harmless critical periods the principles of art +which he illustrates, and which are the inevitable logic of his +poems,--said essayist would have won great applause. "Yes, indeed, that +were a poet to cherish; fill those shoes and you have a god." + +How different a critic's account of Shakespeare from Shakespeare +himself,--the difference between the hewn or sawed timber and the living +tree! A few years ago we had here a lecturer from over seas, who gave to +our well-dressed audiences the high, moral, and intellectual statement +of the poet Burns. It was very fine, and people were greatly pleased, +vastly more so, I fear, than they were with Burns himself. Indeed, I +could not help wondering how many of those appreciative listeners had +any original satisfaction in the Scotch poet at first hand, or would +have accepted him had he been their neighbor and fellow-citizen. But as +he filtered through the scholarly mind in trickling drops, oh, he was so +sweet! + +Everybody stirred with satisfaction as the lecturer said: "When +literature becomes dozy, respectable, and goes in the smooth grooves +of fashion, and copies and copies again, something must be done; and +to give life to that dying literature a man must be found _not educated +under its influence."_ I applauded with the rest, for it was a bold +saying; but I could not help thinking how that theory, brought home +to ourselves and illustrated in a living example, would have sent that +nodding millinery and faultless tailory flying downstairs, as at an +alarm of fire. + +One great service of Walt Whitman is that he exerts a tremendous +influence to bring the race up on this nether side,--to place the +emotional, the assimilative, the sympathetic, the spontaneous, intuitive +man, the man of the fluids and of the affections, flush with +the intellectual man. That we moderns have fallen behind here is +unquestionable, and we in this country more than the Old World peoples. +All the works of Whitman, prose and verse, are embosomed in a sea of +emotional humanity, and they float deeper than they show; there is far +more in what they necessitate and imply than in what they say. + +It is not so much of fatty degeneration that we are in danger in +America, but of calcareous. The fluids, moral and physical, are +evaporating; surfaces are becoming encrusted, there is a deposit of +flint in the veins and arteries, outlines are abnormally sharp and hard, +nothing is held in solution, all is precipitated in well-defined ideas +and opinions. + +But when I think of the type of character planted and developed by my +poet, I think of a man or a woman rich above all things in the genial +human attributes, one "nine times folded" in an atmosphere of tenderest, +most considerate humanity,--an atmosphere warm with the breath of a +tropic heart, that makes your buds of affection and of genius start and +unfold like a south wind in May. Your intercourse with such a character +is not merely intellectual; it is deeper and better than that. Walter +Scott carried such a fund of sympathy and goodwill that even the animals +found fellowship with him, and the pigs understood his great heart. + +It was the large endowment of Whitman, in his own character in this +respect, that made his services in the army hospitals during the war +so ministering and effective, and that renders his "Drum-Taps" the +tenderest and most deeply yearning and sorrowful expression of the human +heart in poetry that ever war called forth. Indeed, from my own point +of view, there is no false or dangerous tendency among us, in life or in +letters, that this poet does not offset and correct. Fret and chafe as +much as we will, we are bound to gravitate, more or less, toward this +mountain, and feel its bracing, rugged air. + +Without a certain self-surrender there is no greatness possible in +literature, any more than in religion, or in anything else. It is always +a trait of the master that he is not afraid of being compromised by +the company he keeps. He is the central and main fact in any company. +Nothing so lowly but he will do it reverence; nothing so high but he +can stand in its presence. His theme is the river, and he the ample and +willing channel. Little natures love to disparage and take down; they +do it in self-defense; but the master gives you all, and more than your +due. Whitman does not stand aloof, superior, a priest or a critic: he +abandons himself to all the strong human currents; he enters into and +affiliates with every phase of life; he bestows himself royally upon +whoever and whatever will receive him. There is no competition between +himself and his subject; he is not afraid of over-praising, or making +too much of the commonest individual. What exalts others exalts him. + +We have had great help in Emerson in certain ways,--first-class service. +He probes the conscience and the moral purpose as few men have done, and +gives much needed stimulus there. But, after him, the need is all the +more pressing for a broad, powerful, opulent, human personality to +absorb these ideals, and to make something more of them than fine +sayings. With Emerson alone we are rich in sunlight, but poor in +rain and dew,--poor, too, in soil, and in the moist, gestating earth +principle. Emerson's tendency is not to broaden and enrich, but to +concentrate and refine. + +Then, is there not an excessive modesty, without warrant in philosophy +or nature, dwindling us in this country, drying us up in the viscera? Is +there not a decay--a deliberate, strange abnegation and dread--of sane +sexuality, of maternity and paternity, among us, and in our literary +ideals and social types of men and women? For myself, I welcome any +evidence to the contrary, or any evidence that deeper and counteracting +agencies are at work, as unspeakably precious. I do not know where this +evidence is furnished in such ample measure as in the pages of +Walt Whitman. The great lesson of nature, I take it, is that a sane +sensuality must be preserved at all hazards, and this, it seems to me, +is also the great lesson of his writings. The point is fully settled in +him that, however they may have been held in abeyance or restricted to +other channels, there is still sap and fecundity, and depth of virgin +soil in the race, sufficient to produce a man of the largest mould and +the most audacious and unconquerable egotism, and on a plane the last to +be reached by these qualities; a man of antique stature, of Greek fibre +and gripe, with science and the modern added, without abating one jot or +tittle of his native force, adhesiveness, Americanism, and democracy. + +As I have already hinted, Whitman has met with by far his amplest +acceptance and appreciation in Europe. There is good reason for this, +though it is not what has been generally claimed, namely, that the +cultivated classes of Europe are surfeited with respectability, half +dead with _ennui_ and routine, and find an agreeable change in the +daring unconventionality of the new poet. For the fact is, it is not the +old and jaded minds of London, or Paris, or Dublin, or Copenhagen, that +have acknowledged him, but the fresh, eager, young minds. Nine tenths of +his admirers there are the sturdiest men in the fields of art, science, +and literature. + +In many respects, as a race, we Americans have been pampered and +spoiled; we have been brought up on sweets. I suppose that, speaking +literally, no people under the sun consume so much confectionery, so +much pastry and cake, or indulge in so many gassy and sugared drinks. +The soda-fountain, with its syrups, has got into literature, and +furnishes the popular standard of poetry. The old heroic stamina of our +ancestors, that craved the bitter but nourishing home-brewed, has died +out, and in its place there is a sickly cadaverousness that must be +pampered and cosseted. Among educated people here there is a mania for +the bleached, the double-refined,--white houses, white china, white +marble, and white skins. We take the bone and sinew out of the flour +in order to have white bread, and are bolting our literature as fast as +possible. + +It is for these and kindred reasons that Walt Whitman is more read +abroad than in his own country. It is on the rank, human, and +emotional side--sex, magnetism, health, physique,--that he is so +full. Then his receptivity and assimilative powers are enormous, and +he demands these in his reader. In fact, his poems are physiological as +much as they are intellectual. They radiate from his entire being, +and are charged to repletion with that blended quality of mind and +body--psychic and physiologic--which the living form and presence send +forth. Never before in poetry has the body received such ennoblement. +The great theme is IDENTITY, and identity comes through the body; and +all that pertains to the body, the poet teaches, is entailed upon +the spirit. In his rapt gaze, the body and the soul are one, and what +debases the one debases the other. Hence he glorifies the body. Not more +ardently and purely did the great sculptors of antiquity carve it in the +enduring marble than this poet has celebrated it in his masculine and +flowing lines. The bearing of his work in this direction is invaluable. +Well has it been said that the man or the woman who has "Leaves of +Grass" for a daily companion will be under the constant, invisible +influence of sanity, cleanliness, strength, and a gradual severance from +all that corrupts and makes morbid and mean. + +In regard to the unity and construction of the poems, the reader +sooner or later discovers the true solution to be, that the dependence, +cohesion, and final reconciliation of the whole are in the Personality +of the poet himself. As in Shakespeare everything is strung upon the +plot, the play, and loses when separated from it, so in this poet every +line and sentence refers to and necessitates the Personality behind it, +and derives its chief significance therefrom. In other words, "Leaves of +Grass" is essentially a dramatic poem, a free representation of man in +his relation to the outward world,--the play, the interchanges between +him and it, apart from social and artificial considerations,--in which +we discern the central purpose or thought to be for every man and woman +his or her Individuality, and around that, Nationality. To show rather +than to tell,--to body forth as in a play how these arise and blend; how +the man is developed and recruited, his spirit's descent; how he walks +through materials absorbing and conquering them; how he confronts the +immensities of time and space; where are the true sources of his power, +the soul's real riches,--that which "adheres and goes forward and is not +dropped by death;" how he is all defined and published and made certain +through his body; the value of health and physique; the great solvent, +Sympathy,--to show the need of larger and fresher types in art and in +life, and then how the state is compacted, and how the democratic idea +is ample and composite, and cannot fail us,--to show all this, I +say, not as in a lecture or a critique, but suggestively and +inferentially,--to work it out freely and picturesquely, with endless +variations, with person and picture and parable and adventure, is the +lesson and object of "Leaves of Grass." From the first line, where the +poet says, + + "I loafe and invite my Soul," + +to the last, all is movement and fusion,--all is clothed in flesh and +blood. The scene changes, the curtain rises and falls, but the theme is +still Man,--his opportunities, his relations, his past, his future, his +sex, his pride in himself, his omnivorousness, his "great hands," his +yearning heart, his seething brain, the abysmal depths that underlie him +and open from him, all illustrated in the poet's own character,--he the +chief actor always. His personality directly facing you, and with its +eye steadily upon you, runs through every page, spans all the details, +and rounds and completes them, and compactly holds them. This gives the +form and the art conception, and gives homogeneousness. + +When Tennyson sends out a poem, it is perfect, like an apple or a peach; +slowly wrought out and dismissed, it drops from his boughs holding +a conception or an idea that spheres it and makes it whole. It is +completed, distinct, and separate,--might be his, or might be any man's. +It carries his quality, but it is a thing of itself, and centres and +depends upon itself. Whether or not the world will hereafter consent, +as in the past, to call only beautiful creations of this sort _poems,_ +remains to be seen. But this is certainly not what Walt Whitman does, +or aims to do, except in a few cases. He completes no poems apart and +separate from himself, and his pages abound in hints to that effect:-- + + "Let others finish specimens--I never finish specimens; + I shower them by exhaustless laws, as Nature does, fresh + and modern continually." + +His lines are pulsations, thrills, waves of force, indefinite dynamics, +formless, constantly emanating from the living centre, and they carry +the quality of the author's personal presence with them in a way that is +unprecedented in literature. + +Occasionally there is a poem or a short piece that detaches itself, +and assumes something like ejaculatory and statuesque proportion, as +"O Captain, my Captain," "Pioneers," "Beat, Beat, Drums," and others in +"Drum-Taps;" but all the great poems, like "Walt Whitman," "Song of +the Open Road," "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "To Working Men," +"Sleep-Chasings," etc., are out-flamings, out-rushings, of the pent +fires of the poet's soul. The first-named poem, which is the seething, +dazzling sun of his subsequent poetic system, shoots in rapid succession +waves of almost consuming energy. It is indeed a central orb of fiercest +light and heat, swept by wild storms of emotion, but at the same time +of sane and beneficent potentiality. Neither in it nor in either of +the others is there the building-up of a fair verbal structure, +a symmetrical piece of mechanism, whose last stone is implied and +necessitated in the first. + +"The critic's great error," says Heine, "lies in asking, 'What ought +the artist to do?' It would be far more correct to ask, 'What does the +artist intend?'" + +It is probably partly because his field is so large, his demands +so exacting, his method so new (necessarily so), and from the whole +standard of the poems being what I may call an astronomical one, that +the critics complain so generally of want of form in him. And the +critics are right enough, as far as their objection goes. There is no +deliberate form here, any more than there is in the forces of nature. +Shall we say, then, that nothing but the void exists? The void is filled +by a Presence. There is a controlling, directing, overarching will +in every page, every verse, that there is no escape from. Design and +purpose, natural selection, growth, culmination, are just as pronounced +as in any poet. + +There is a want of form in the unfinished statue, because it is +struggling into form; it is nothing without form; but there is no want +of form in the elemental laws and effusions,--in fire, or water, or +rain, or dew, or the smell of the shore or the plunging waves. And may +there not be the analogue of this in literature,--a potent, quickening, +exhilarating quality in words, apart from and without any consideration +of constructive form? Under the influence of the expansive, creative +force that plays upon me from these pages, like sunlight or gravitation, +the question of form never comes up, because I do not for one moment +escape the eye, the source from which the power and action emanate. + +I know that Walt Whitman has written many passages with reference far +more to their position, interpretation, and scanning ages hence, than +for current reading. Much of his material is too near us; it needs time. +Seen through the vista of long years, perhaps centuries, it will assume +quite different hues. Perhaps those long lists of trades, tools, and +occupations would not be so repellent if we could read them, as we read +Homer's catalogue of the ships, through the retrospect of ages. They are +justified in the poem aside from their historic value, because they +are alive and full of action,--panoramas of the whole mechanical and +industrial life of America, north, east, south, west,--bits of scenery, +bird's-eye views, glimpses of moving figures, caught as by a flash, +characteristic touches indoors and out, all passing in quick succession +before you. They have in the fullest measure what Lessing demands in +poetry,--the quality of ebbing and flowing action, as distinct from the +dead water of description; they are thoroughly dramatic, fused, pliant, +and obedient to the poet's will. No glamour is thrown over them, no wash +of sentiment; and if they have not the charm of novelty and distance, +why, that is an accident that bars them in a measure to us, but not to +the future. Very frequently in these lists or enumerations of objects, +actions, shows, there are sure to occur lines of perfect description:-- + + "Where the heifers browse--where geese nip their food with short + jerks; + Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome + prairie; + Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles + far and near; + Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon; + Where the katydid works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree + over the well." + + "Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown + apprentices, + The swing of their axes on the square-hew'd log, shaping it toward + the shape of a mast, + The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, + The butter-color'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, + The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes." + + "Always these compact lands--lands tied at the hips with the belt + stringing the huge oval lakes." + + "Far breath'd land! Arctic braced! Mexican breez'd!--the diverse! + the compact!" + +Tried by the standards of the perfect statuesque poems, these pages will +indeed seem strange enough; but viewed as a part of the poetic +compend of America, the swift gathering-in, from her wide-spreading, +multitudinous, material life, of traits and points and suggestions that +belong here and are characteristic, they have their value. The poet +casts his great seine into events and doings and material progress, +and these are some of the fish, not all beautiful by any means, but all +terribly alive, and all native to these waters. + +In the "Carol of Occupations" occur, too, those formidable inventories +of the more heavy and coarsegrained trades and tools that few if any +readers have been able to stand before, and that have given the scoffers +and caricaturists their favorite weapons. If you detach a page of these +and ask, "Is it poetry? have the 'hog-hook,' the 'killing-hammer,' 'the +cutter's cleaver,' 'the packer's maul,' met with a change of heart, and +been converted into celestial cutlery?" I answer, No, they are as barren +of poetry as a desert is of grass; but in their place in the poem, and +in the collection, they serve as masses of shade or neutral color in +pictures, or in nature, or in character,--a negative service, but still +indispensable. The point, the moral of the poem, is really backed up +and driven home by this list. The poet is determined there shall be +no mistake about it. He will not put in the dainty and pretty things +merely,--he will put in the coarse and common things also, and he swells +the list till even his robust muse begins to look uneasy. Remember, too, +that Whitman declaredly writes the lyrics of America, of the masses, +of democracy, and of the practical labor of mechanics, boatmen, and +farmers:-- + + "The sum of all known reverence I add up in you, whoever you are; + All doctrines, all politics and civilization, exude from you; + All sculpture and monuments, and anything inscribed anywhere, are + tallied in you; + The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records + reach, is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same: + If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they + all be? + The most renown'd poems would be ashes, orations and plays would + be vacuums. + + "All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it; + (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of + the arches and cornices?) + + "All music is what awakens from you when you are reminded by the + instruments; + It is not the violins and the cornets--it is not the oboe, nor + the beating drums--nor the score of the baritone singer singing + his sweet romanza--nor that of the men's chorus, nor that of + the women's chorus, + It is nearer and farther than they." + +Out of this same spirit of reverence for man and all that pertains +essentially to him, and the steady ignoring of conventional and social +distinctions and prohibitions, and on the same plane as the universal +brotherhood of the poems, come those passages in "Leaves of Grass" that +have caused so much abuse and fury,--the allusions to sexual acts and +organs,--the momentary contemplation of man as the perpetuator of his +species. Many good judges, who have followed Whitman thus far, stop here +and refuse their concurrence. But if the poet has failed in this part, +he has failed in the rest. It is of a piece with the whole. He has felt +in his way the same necessity as that which makes the anatomist or +the physiologist not pass by, or neglect, or falsify, the loins of his +typical personage. All the passages and allusions that come under this +head have a scientific coldness and purity, but differ from science, as +poetry always must differ, in being alive and sympathetic, instead of +dead and analytic. There is nothing of the forbidden here, none of those +sweet morsels that we love to roll under the tongue, such as are found +in Byron and Shakespeare, and even in austere Dante. If the fact is not +lifted up and redeemed by the solemn and far-reaching laws of maternity +and paternity, through which the poet alone contemplates it, then it +is irredeemable, and one side of our nature is intrinsically vulgar and +mean. + +Again: Out of all the full-grown, first-class poems, no matter what +their plot or theme, emerges a sample of Man, each after its kind, its +period, its nationality, its antecedents. The vast and cumbrous Hindu +epics contribute their special types of both man and woman, impossible +except from far-off Asia and Asian antiquity. Out of Homer, after all +his gorgeous action and events, the distinct personal identity, the +heroic and warlike chieftain of Hellas only permanently remains. In the +same way, when the fire and fervor of Shakespeare's plots and passions +subside, the special feudal personality, as lord or gentleman, still +towers in undying vitality. Even the Sacred Writings themselves, +considered as the first great poems, leave on record, out of all the +rest, the portraiture of a characteristic Oriental Man. Far different +from these (and yet, as he says, "the same old countenance pensively +looking forth," and "the same red running blood"), "Leaves of Grass" +and "Two Rivulets" also bring their contribution; nay, behind every page +_that_ is the main purport,--to outline a New World Man and a New +World Woman, modern, complete, democratic, not only fully and nobly +intellectual and spiritual, but in the same measure physical, emotional, +and even fully and nobly carnal. + +An acute person once said to me, "As I read and re-read these poems, I +more and more think their inevitable result in time must be to produce + + 'A race of splendid and savage _old men,_' + +of course dominated by moral and spiritual laws, but with volcanoes of +force always alive beneath the surface." + +And still again: One of the questions to be put to any poem assuming a +first-class importance among us--and I especially invite this inquiry +toward "Leaves of Grass"--is, How far is this work consistent with, and +the outcome of, that something which secures to the race ascendency, +empire, and perpetuity? There is in every dominant people a germ, a +quality, an expansive force, that, no matter how it is overlaid, gives +them their push and their hold upon existence,--writes their history +upon the earth, and stamps their imprint upon the age. To what extent is +your masterpiece the standard-bearer of this quality,--helping the race +to victory? helping me to be more myself than I otherwise would? + + + +III + +Not the least of my poet's successes is in his thorough assimilation of +the modern sciences, transmuting them into strong poetic nutriment, and +in the extent to which all his main poems are grounded in the deepest +principles of modern philosophical inquiry. + +Nearly all the old literatures may be said to have been founded upon +fable, and upon a basis and even superstructure of ignorance, that, +however charming it may be, we have not now got, and could not keep if +we had. The bump of wonder and the feeling of the marvelous,--a kind +of half-pleasing fear, like that of children in the dark or in the +woods,--were largely operative with the old poets, and I believe are +necessary to any eminent success in this field; but they seem nearly to +have died out of the modern mind, like organs there is no longer any +use for. The poetic temperament has not yet adjusted itself to the new +lights, to science, and to the vast fields and expanses opened up in +the physical cosmos by astronomy and geology, and in the spiritual or +intellectual world by the great German metaphysicians. The staple of +a large share of our poetic literature is yet mainly the result of the +long age of fable and myth that now lies behind us. "Leaves of Grass" +is, perhaps, the first serious and large attempt at an expression in +poetry of a knowledge of the earth as one of the orbs, and of man as +a microcosm of the whole, and to give to the imagination these new and +true fields of wonder and romance. In it fable and superstition are at +an end, priestcraft is at an end, skepticism and doubt are at an end, +with all the misgivings and dark forebodings that have dogged the human +mind since it began to relax its hold upon tradition and the past; and +we behold man reconciled, happy, ecstatic, full of reverence, awe, and +wonder, reinstated in Paradise,--the paradise of perfect knowledge and +unrestricted faith. + +It needs but a little pondering to see that the great poet of the future +will not be afraid of science, but will rather seek to plant his feet +upon it as upon a rock. He knows that, from an enlarged point of view, +there is no feud between Science and Poesy, any more than there is +between Science and Religion, or between Science and Life. He sees that +the poet and the scientist do not travel opposite but parallel roads, +that often approach each other very closely, if they do not at times +actually join. The poet will always pause when he finds himself in +opposition to science; and the scientist is never more worthy the name +than when he escapes from analysis into synthesis, and gives us living +wholes. And science, in its present bold and receptive mood, may be said +to be eminently creative, and to have made every first-class thinker and +every large worker in any aesthetic or spiritual field immeasurably +its debtor. It has dispelled many illusions, but it has more than +compensated the imagination by the unbounded vistas it has opened up +on every hand. It has added to our knowledge, but it has added to our +ignorance in the same measure: the large circle of light only reveals +the larger circle of darkness that encompasses it, and life and being +and the orbs are enveloped in a greater mystery to the poet to-day than +they were in the times of Homer or Isaiah. Science, therefore, does not +restrict the imagination, but often compels it to longer flights. +The conception of the earth as an orb shooting like a midnight meteor +through space, a brand cast by the burning sun with the fire at its +heart still unquenched, the sun itself shooting and carrying the whole +train of worlds with it, no one knows whither,--what a lift has science +given the imagination in this field! Or the tremendous discovery of the +correlation and conservation of forces, the identity and convertibility +of heat and force and motion, and that no ounce of power is lost, +but forever passed along, changing form but not essence, is a poetic +discovery no less than a scientific one. The poets have always felt +that it must be so, and, when the fact was authoritatively announced by +science, every profound poetic mind must have felt a thrill of pleasure. +Or the nebular hypothesis of the solar system,--it seems the conception +of some inspired madman, like William Blake, rather than the cool +conclusion of reason, and to carry its own justification, as great +power always does. Indeed, our interest in astronomy and geology is +essentially a poetic one,--the love of the marvelous, of the sublime, +and of grand harmonies. The scientific conception of the sun is +strikingly Dantesque, and appalls the imagination. Or the hell of fire +through which the earth has passed, and the aeons of monsters from which +its fair forms have emerged,--from which of the seven circles of the +Inferno did the scientist get his hint? Indeed, science everywhere +reveals a carnival of mightier gods than those that cut such fantastic +tricks in the ancient world. Listen to Tyndall on light, or to Youmans +on the chemistry of a sunbeam, and see how fable pales its ineffectual +fires, and the boldest dreams of the poets are eclipsed. + +The vibratory theory of light and its identity with the laws of sound, +the laws of the tides and the seasons, the wonders of the spectroscope, +the theory of gravitation, of electricity, of chemical affinity, the +deep beneath deep of the telescope, the world within world of the +microscope,--in these and many other fields it is hard to tell whether +it is the scientist or the poet we are listening to. What greater magic +than that you can take a colorless ray of light, break it across a +prism, and catch upon a screen all the divine hues of the rainbow? + +In some respects science has but followed out and confirmed the dim +foreshadowings of the human breast. Man in his simplicity has called the +sun father and the earth mother. Science shows this to be no fiction, +but a reality; that we are really children of the sun, and that every +heart-beat, every pound of force we exert, is a solar emanation. The +power with which you now move and breathe came from the sun just as +literally as the bank-notes in your pocket came from the bank. + +The ancients fabled the earth as resting upon the shoulders of Atlas, +and Atlas as standing upon a turtle; but what the turtle stood upon was +a puzzle. An acute person says that science has but changed the terms +of the equation, but that the unknown quantity is the same as ever. The +earth now rests upon the sun,--in his outstretched palm; the sun rests +upon some other sun, and that upon some other; but what they all finally +rest upon, who can tell? Well may Tennyson speak of the "fairy tales of +science," and well may Walt Whitman say:-- + + "I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the + reasons of things; + They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen." + +But, making all due acknowledgments to science, there is one danger +attending it that the poet alone can save us from,--the danger that +science, absorbed with its great problems, will forget Man. Hence the +especial office of the poet with reference to science is to endow +it with a human interest. The heart has been disenchanted by having +disclosed to it blind, abstract forces where it had enthroned personal +humanistic divinities. In the old time, man was the centre of the +system; everything was interested in him, and took sides for or against +him. There were nothing but men and gods in the universe. But in the +results of science the world is more and more, and man is less and +less. The poet must come to the rescue, and place man again at the top, +magnify him, exalt him, reinforce him, and match these wonders from +without with equal wonders from within. Welcome to the bard who is not +appalled by the task, and who can readily assimilate and turn into +human emotions these vast deductions of the savants! The minor poets do +nothing in this direction; only men of the largest calibre and the most +heroic fibre are adequate to the service. Hence one finds in Tennyson a +vast deal more science than he would at first suspect; but it is under +his feet; it is no longer science, but faith, or reverence, or poetic +nutriment. It is in "Locksley Hall," "The Princess," "In Memoriam," +"Maud," and in others of his poems. Here is a passage from "In +Memoriam:"-- + + "They say, + The solid earth whereon we tread + + "In tracts of fluent heat began, + And grew to seeming-random forms, + The seeming prey of cyclic storms, + Till at the last arose the man; + + "Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime, + The herald of a higher race, + And of himself in higher place + If so he type this work of time + + "Within himself, from more to more; + Or, crown'd with attributes of woe, + Like glories, move his course, and show + That life is not as idle ore, + + "But iron dug from central gloom, + And heated hot with burning fears, + And dipt in baths of hissing tears, + And batter'd with the shocks of doom + + "To shape and use. Arise and fly + The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; + Move upward, working out the beast, + And let the ape and tiger die." + +Or in this stanza behold how the science is disguised or turned into the +sweetest music:-- + + "Move eastward, happy earth, and leave + Yon orange sunset waning slow; + From fringes of the faded eve, + O happy planet, eastward go; + Till over thy dark shoulder glow + Thy silver sister-world, and rise + To glass herself in dewy eyes + That watch me from the glen below." + +A recognition of the planetary system, and of the great fact that +the earth moves eastward through the heavens, in a soft and tender +love-song! + +But in Walt Whitman alone do we find the full, practical absorption, and +re-departure therefrom, of the astounding idea that the earth is a star +in the heavens like the rest, and that man, as the crown and finish, +carries in his moral consciousness the flower, the outcome, of all this +wide field of turbulent unconscious nature. Of course in his handling it +is no longer science, or rather it is science dissolved in the fervent +heat of the poet's heart, and charged with emotion. "The words of true +poems," he says, "are the tufts and final applause of science." Before +Darwin or Spencer he proclaimed the doctrine of evolution:-- + + "I am stuccoed with quadrupeds and birds all over, + And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons, + And call anything close again when I desire it. + + "In vain the speeding and shyness; + In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach; + In vain the mastodon retreats beneath his own powder'd bones; + In vain objects stand leagues off, and assume manifold shapes; + In vain the ocean settling in hollows, and the great monsters + lying low." + +In the following passage the idea is more fully carried out, and man +is viewed through a vista which science alone has laid open; yet how +absolutely a work of the creative imagination is revealed:-- + + "I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I am incloser of things + to be. + My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs; + On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the + steps; + All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount. + + "Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me; + Afar down I see the huge first Nothing--I know I was even there; + I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, + And took my time, and took no hurt from the foetid carbon. + + "Long I was hugg'd close--long and long, + Immense have been the preparations for me, + Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me, + Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful + boatmen; + For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings; + They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. + + "Before I was born out of my mother, generations guided me; + My embryo has never been torpid--nothing could overlay it, + For it the nebula cohered to an orb, + The long low strata piled to rest it on, + Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, + Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths, and deposited + it with care; + All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight + me: + Now on this spot I stand with my robust Soul." + +I recall no single line of poetry in the language that fills my +imagination like that beginning the second stanza:-- + + "Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me." + +One seems to see those huge Brocken shadows of the past sinking and +dropping below the horizon like mountain peaks, as he presses onward on +his journey. Akin to this absorption of science is another quality in +my poet not found in the rest, except perhaps a mere hint of it now and +then in Lucretius,--a quality easier felt than described. It is a tidal +wave of emotion running all through the poems, which is now and then +crested with such passages as this:-- + + "I am he that walks with the tender and growing night; + I call to the earth and sea, half held by the night. + + "Press close, bare-bosom'd night! Press close, magnetic, + nourishing night! + Night of south winds! night of the large, few stars! + Still, nodding night! mad, naked, summer night. + + "Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath'd earth! + Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! + Earth of departed sunset! Earth of the mountains, misty topt! + Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with + blue! + Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river! + Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my + sake! + Far-swooping, elbow'd earth! rich, apple-blossom'd earth! + Smile, for your lover comes!" + +Professor Clifford calls it "cosmic emotion,"--a poetic thrill and +rhapsody in contemplating the earth as a whole,--its chemistry and +vitality, its bounty, its beauty, its power, and the applicability +of its laws and principles to human, aesthetic, and art products. It +affords the key to the theory of art upon which Whitman's poems are +projected, and accounts for what several critics call their sense of +magnitude,--"something of the vastness of the succession of objects in +Nature." + + "I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those + of the earth! + I swear there can be no theory of any account, unless it corroborate + the theory of the earth! + No politics, art, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account, + unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth, + Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude + of the earth." + +Or again, in his "Laws for Creation:"-- + + "All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the + compact truth of the world, + There shall be no subject too pronounced--All works shall illustrate + the divine law of indirections." + +Indeed, the earth ever floats in this poet's mind as his mightiest +symbol,--his type of completeness and power. It is the armory from which +he draws his most potent weapons. See, especially, "To the Sayers of +Words," "This Compost," "The Song of the Open Road," and "Pensive on her +Dead gazing I heard the Mother of all." + +The poet holds essentially the same attitude toward cosmic humanity, +well illustrated in "Salut au Monde:"-- + + "My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the + whole earth; + I have look'd for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me + in all lands; + I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them. + + "O vapors! I think I have risen with you and moved away to distant + continents, and fallen down there for reasons; + I think I have blown with you, O winds; + O waters, I have finger'd every shore with you." + +Indeed, the whole book is leavened with vehement Comradeship. Not only +in the relations of individuals to each other shall loving good-will +exist and be cultivated,--not only between the different towns and +cities, and all the States of this indissoluble, compacted Union,--but +it shall make a tie of fraternity and fusion holding all the races and +peoples and countries of the whole earth. + +Then the National question. As Whitman's completed works now stand, in +their two volumes, it is certain they could only have grown out of the +Secession War; and they will probably go to future ages as in literature +the most characteristic identification of that war,--risen from +and portraying it, representing its sea of passions and progresses, +partaking of all its fierce movements and perturbed emotions, and yet +sinking the mere military parts of that war, great as those were, below +and with matters far greater, deeper, more human, more expanding, and +more enduring. + +I must not close this paper without some reference to Walt Whitman's +prose writings, which are scarcely less important than his poems. Never +has Patriotism, never has the antique Love of Country, with even +doubled passion and strength, been more fully expressed than in these +contributions. They comprise two thin volumes,--now included in "Two +Rivulets,"--called "Democratic Vistas" and "Memoranda during the War;" +the former exhibiting the personality of the poet in more vehement +and sweeping action even than do the poems, and affording specimens of +soaring vaticination and impassioned appeal impossible to match in the +literature of our time. The only living author suggested is Carlyle; but +so much is added, the _presence_ is so much more vascular and human, and +the whole page so saturated with faith and love and democracy, that even +the great Scotchman is overborne. Whitman, too, radiates belief, while +at the core of Carlyle's utterances is despair. The style here is +eruptive and complex, or what Jeremy Taylor calls _agglomerative,_ and +puts the Addisonian models utterly to rout,--a style such as only the +largest and most Titanic workman could effectively use. A sensitive lady +of my acquaintance says reading the "Vistas" is like being exposed to +a pouring hailstorm,--the words fairly bruise her mind. In its literary +construction the book is indeed a shower, or a succession of showers, +multitudinous, wide-stretching, down-pouring,--the wrathful bolt and the +quick veins of poetic fire lighting up the page from time to time. I +can easily conceive how certain minds must be swayed and bent by some +of these long, involved, but firm and vehement passages. I cannot deny +myself the pleasure of quoting one or two pages. The writer is referring +to the great literary relics of past times:-- + +"For us, along the great highways of time, those monuments stand,--those +forms of majesty and beauty. For us those beacons burn through all the +nights. Unknown Egyptians, graving hieroglyphs; Hindus, with hymn and +apothegm and endless epic; Hebrew prophet, with spirituality, as in +flames of lightning, conscience like red-hot iron, plaintive songs and +screams of vengeance for tyrannies and enslavement; Christ, with bent +head, brooding love and peace, like a dove; Greek, creating eternal +shapes of physical and aesthetic proportion; Roman, lord of satire, the +sword, and the codex,--of the figures, some far off and veiled, others +near and visible; Dante, stalking with lean form, nothing but fibre, +not a grain of superfluous flesh; Angelo, and the great painters, +architects, musicians; rich Shakespeare, luxuriant as the sun, artist +and singer of Feudalism in its sunset, with all the gorgeous colors, +owner thereof, and using them at will;--and so to such as German Kant +and Hegel, where they, though near us, leaping over the ages, sit again, +impassive, imperturbable, like the Egyptian gods. Of these, and the like +of these, is it too much, indeed, to return to our favorite figure, +and view them as orbs, moving in free paths in the spaces of that other +heaven, the cosmic intellect, the Soul? + +"Ye powerful and resplendent ones! ye were, in your atmospheres, grown +not for America, but rather for her foes, the Feudal and the old--while +our genius is democratic and modern. Yet could ye, indeed, but breathe +your breath of life into our New World's nostrils--not to enslave us as +now, but, for our needs, to breed a spirit like your own--perhaps (dare +we to say it?) to dominate, even destroy what you yourselves have left! +On your plane, and no less, but even higher and wider, will I mete and +measure for our wants to-day and here. I demand races of orbic bards, +with unconditional, uncompromising sway. Come forth, sweet democratic +despots of the west!" + +Here is another passage of a political cast, but showing the same great +pinions and lofty flight:-- + +"It seems as if the Almighty had spread before this nation charts of +imperial destinies, dazzling as the sun, yet with lines of blood, and +many a deep intestine difficulty, and human aggregate of cankerous +imperfection,--saying, Lo! the roads, the only plans of development, +long, and varied with all terrible balks and ebullitions. You said in +your soul, I will be empire of empires, overshadowing all else, past and +present, putting the history of Old World dynasties, conquests, behind +me as of no account,--making a new history, the history of Democracy, +making old history a dwarf,--I alone inaugurating largeness, culminating +time. If these, O lands of America, are indeed the prizes, the +determinations of your Soul, be it so. But behold the cost, and already +specimens of the cost. Behold the anguish of suspense, existence itself +wavering in the balance, uncertain whether to rise or fall; already, +close behind you and around you, thick winrows of corpses on +battlefields, countless maimed and sick in hospitals, treachery among +Generals, folly in the Executive and Legislative departments, schemers, +thieves everywhere,--cant, credulity, make-believe everywhere. Thought +you greatness was to ripen for you, like a pear? If you would have +greatness, know that you must conquer it through ages, centuries,--must +pay for it with a proportionate price. For you, too, as for all lands, +the struggle, the traitor, the wily person in office, scrofulous wealth, +the surfeit of prosperity, the demonism of greed, the hell of passion, +the decay of faith, the long postponement, the fossil-like lethargy, the +ceaseless need of revolutions, prophets, thunder-storms, deaths, births, +new projections, and invigorations of ideas and men." + +The "Memoranda during the War" is mainly a record of personal +experiences, nursing the sick and wounded soldiers in the hospitals: +most of it is in a low key, simple, unwrought, like a diary kept for +one's self; but it reveals the large, tender, sympathetic soul of the +poet even more than his elaborate works, and puts in practical form that +unprecedented and fervid comradeship which is his leading element. It is +printed almost verbatim, just as the notes were jotted down at the time +and on the spot. It is impossible to read it without the feeling of +tears, while there is elsewhere no such portrayal of the common soldier, +and such appreciation of him, as is contained in its pages. It is +heart's blood, every word of it, and along with "Drum-Taps" is the only +literature of the war thus far entirely characteristic and worthy of +serious mention. There are in particular two passages in the "Memoranda" +that have amazing dramatic power, vividness, and rapid action, like some +quick painter covering a large canvas. I refer to the account of +the assassination of President Lincoln, and to that of the scenes in +Washington after the first battle of Bull Run. What may be called +the mass-movement of Whitman's prose style--the rapid marshaling +and grouping together of many facts and details, gathering up, and +recruiting, and expanding as the sentences move along, till the force +and momentum become like a rolling flood, or an army in echelon on the +charge--is here displayed with wonderful effect. + +Noting and studying what forces move the world, the only sane +explanation that comes to me of the fact that such writing as these +little volumes contain has not, in this country especially, met with its +due recognition and approval, is that, like all Whitman's works, they +have really never yet been published at all in the true sense,--have +never entered the arena where the great laurels are won. They have been +printed by the author, and a few readers have found them out, but to all +intents and purposes they are unknown. + +I have not dwelt on Whitman's personal circumstances, his age (he is +now, 1877, entering his fifty-ninth year), paralysis, seclusion, and the +treatment of him by certain portions of the literary classes, although +these have all been made the subjects of wide discussion of late, both +in America and Great Britain, and have, I think, a bearing under the +circumstances on his character and genius. It is an unwritten tragedy +that will doubtless always remain unwritten. I will but mention an +eloquent appeal of the Scotch poet, Robert Buchanan, published in London +in March, 1876, eulogizing and defending the American bard, in his +old age, illness, and poverty, from the swarms of maligners who still +continue to assail him. The appeal has this fine passage:-- + +"He who wanders through the solitudes of far-off Uist or lonely Donegal +may often behold the Golden Eagle sick to death, worn with age or +famine, or with both, passing with weary waft of wing from promontory +to promontory, from peak to peak, pursued by a crowd of rooks and crows, +which fall back screaming whenever the noble bird turns his indignant +head, and which follow frantically once more, hooting behind him, +whenever he wends again upon his way." + +Skipping many things I should yet like to touch upon,--for this paper is +already too long,--I will say in conclusion that, if any reader of mine +is moved by what I have here written to undertake the perusal of "Leaves +of Grass," or the later volume, "Two Rivulets," let me yet warn him +that he little suspects what is before him. Poetry in the Virgilian, +Tennysonian, or Lowellian sense it certainly is not. Just as the living +form of man in its ordinary garb is less beautiful (yet more beautiful) +than the marble statue; just as the living woman and child that may have +sat for the model is less beautiful (yet more so) than one of Raphael's +finest Madonnas, or just as a forest of trees addresses itself less +directly to the feeling of what is called art and form than the house or +other edifice built from them; just as you, and the whole spirit of our +current times, have been trained to feed on and enjoy, not Nature or +Man, or the aboriginal forces, or the actual, but pictures, books, art, +and the selected and refined,--just so these poems will doubtless first +shock and disappoint you. Your admiration for the beautiful is never the +feeling directly and chiefly addressed in them, but your love for the +breathing flesh, the concrete reality, the moving forms and shows of the +universe. A man reaches and moves you, not an artist. Doubtless, too, a +certain withholding and repugnance has first to be overcome, analogous +to a cold sea plunge; and it is not till you experience the reaction, +the after-glow, and feel the swing and surge of the strong waves, +that you know what Walt Whitman's pages really are. They don't give +themselves at first,--like the real landscape and the sea, they are all +indirections. You may have to try them many times; there is something +of Nature's rudeness and forbiddingness, not only at the first, but +probably always. But after you have mastered them by resigning yourself +to them, there is nothing like them anywhere in literature for vital +help and meaning. The poet says:-- + + "The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections, + That scorn the best I can do to relate them." + +And the press of your mind to these pages will certainly start new and +countless problems that poetry and art have never before touched, and +that afford a perpetual stimulus and delight. + +It has been said that the object of poetry and the higher forms of +literature is to escape from the tyranny of the real into the freedom of +the ideal; but what is the ideal unless ballasted and weighted with the +real? All these poems have a lofty ideal background; the great laws +and harmonies stretch unerringly above them, and give their vista +and perspective. It is because Whitman's ideal is clothed with rank +materiality, as the soul is clothed with the carnal body, that his poems +beget such warmth and desire in the mind, and are the reservoirs of so +much power. No one can feel more than I how absolutely necessary it is +that the facts of nature and experience be born again in the heart +of the bard, and receive the baptism of the true fire before they be +counted poetical; and I have no trouble on this score with the author +of "Leaves of Grass." He never fails to ascend into spiritual meanings. +Indeed, the spirituality of Walt Whitman is the chief fact after all, +and dominates every page he has written. + +Observe that this singer and artist makes no _direct_ attempt to be +poetical, any more than he does to be melodious or rhythmical. He +approaches these qualities and results as it were from beneath, and +always indirectly; they are drawn to him, not he to them; and if they +appear absent from his page at first, it is because we have been looking +for them in the customary places on the outside, where he never puts +them, and have not yet penetrated the interiors. As many of the fowls +hide their eggs by a sort of intuitive prudery and secretiveness, +Whitman always half hides, or more than half hides, his thought, his +glow, his magnetism, his most golden and orbic treasures. + +Finally, as those men and women respect and love Walt Whitman best who +have known him longest and closest personally, the same rule will apply +to "Leaves of Grass" and the later volume, "Two Rivulets." It is indeed +neither the first surface reading of those books, nor perhaps even the +second or third, that will any more than prepare the student for the +full assimilation of the poems. Like Nature, and like the Sciences, they +suggest endless suites of chambers opening and expanding more and more +and continually. + + +INDEX + + [Transcribist's note: Index has been shortened to names + of authors and to birds, with scientific names.] + + Aeschylus + Akers, Elizabeth. + Apuleius. + Audubon, John Jaines. + + Bacon, Francis. + Benton, Myron. + Bible. + Bittern, American (_Botaurus lentiginosus_). + Björnson, Björnstjerne. + Blackbird, cow, or cowbird (_Molothrus ater_). + Blackbird, European. + Bluebird (_Sialia sialis_). + Bobolink (_Dolichonyx oryzivorus_). + Bryant, William Cullen. + Buchanan, Robert. + Bunting, snow, or snowflake (_Passerina nivalis_). + Burke, Edmund. + Burns, Robert. + Byron, Lord. + + Cardinal. See Grosbeak, cardinal. + Carlyle, Thomas. + Cedar-bird, or cedar waxwing (_Ampelis cedrorum_). + Chat, yellow-breasted (_Icteria virens_). + Chewink, or towhee (_Pipilo erythrophthalmus_). + Chickadee (_Parus atricapillus_). + Cicada. + Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. + Cowper, William. + Crow, American (_Corvis brachyrhynchos_). + Cuckoo, American. + Cuckoo, European. + Dante. + Darwin, Charles. + Dove, mourning (_Zenaidura macroura_). + + Eagle. + Emerson, Ralph Waldo. + Everett, Edward. + + Flagg, Wilson. + Flicker. See High-hole. + Flycatcher, great crested (_Myiarchus crinitus_). + Frogs. See Hyla. + + Gilder, Richard Watson. + Grasshopper of Greek poetry. + Grosbeak, cardinal, or cardinal (_Cardinalis cardinalis_). + Grosbeak, pine (_Pinicola enucleator leucura_). + Grouse, ruffed (_Bonasa umbellus_). + + Hamerton, Philip Gilbert. + Hawk. + High-hole, or yellow-hammer, or golden-shafted woodpecker, or + flicker (_Colaptes auratus luteus_). + Hogg, James. + Homer. + Hood, Thomas. + Hornets, black. + Hudson River valley. + Hummingbird, ruby-throated (_Trochilus colubris_). + Hyla, green. + Hyla, Pickering's. + + Ingelow, Jean. + + Jefferson, Thomas. + Jonson, Ben. + + Keats, John. + Kingbird (_Tyrannus tyrannus_). + + Lamb, Charles. + Lark. See Skylark. + Lark, shore or horned (_Otocoris alpestris_). + Lathrop, George Parson. + Lincoln, Abraham. + Lizard. + Locust. + Logan, John. + Loon (_Gavia imber_). + Lowell, James Russell. + Lyly, John. + + Macaulay, Thomas Babington. + Meadowlark (_Sturnella magna_). + Michael Angelo. + Milton, John. + Mockingbird (_Mimus polyglottos_). + + Oriole, Baltimore (_Icterus galbula_). + Oven-bird, or golden-crowned thrush (_Seiurus aurocapillus_). + Owl. + + Partridge. See Grouse, ruffed. + Pewee, wood (_Contopus virens_). + Phaedrus. + Phoebe-bird (_Sayornis phoebe_). + Pigeon, passenger (_Ectopistes migratorius_). + Pipit, American, or titlark (_Anthus pensilvanicus_). + Pipit, Sprague's (_Anthus spragueii_). + Pope, Alexander. + + Quail, or bob-white (_Colinus virginianus_). + + Redpoll (_Acanthis linaria_). + Robin, American (_Merula migratoria_). + + Sandpiper, spotted, or "tip-up" (_Actitis macularia_). + Sandpipers. + Shelley, Percy Bysshe. + + Snake. + Snake, garter. + Socrates. + Solomon. + Sparrow, social or chipping (_Spizella socialis_). + Sparrow, song (_Melospiza cinerea melodia_). + Sparrow, tree or Canada (_Spizella monticola_). + Sparrow, vesper (_Pooecetes gramineus_). + Sparrow, white-crowned (_Zonotrichia leucophrys_). + Sparrow, white-throated (_Zonotrichia albicollis_). + Spenser. + Strawberry. + Sugar-berry. + Swallow, barn (_Hirundo erythrogastra_). + Swallow, chimney, or chimney swift (_Chaetura pelagica_). + Swallow, cliff (Petrochellidon lunifrons). + Swift, chimney. See Swallow. + + Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe. + Tennyson, Alfred. + Thaxter, Celia. + Thomson, James. + Thoreau, Henry D.. + Thrasher, brown, or long-tailed thrush (_Toxostoma rufum_). + Thrush, golden-crowned. See Ovenbird. + Thrush, hermit (_Hylocichla guttata pallasii_). + Thrush, wood (_Hylocichla mustelina_). + Tip-up. See Sandpiper, spotted. + Titlark. See Pipit, American. + Townee. See Chewink. + Trowbridge, John T. + Turgenieff. + Turner, J. M. W. + Turtles. + + Warbler, pine (_Dendroica vigorsii_). + Water-thrush. + Whip-poor-will (_Antrostomus vociferous_). + Whitman, Walt. + Whittier, John Greenleaf. + Wilde, Richard Henry. + Wilson, Alexander. + Woodchuck. + Woodpecker, downy (_Dryobates pubescens medianus_). + Woodpecker, golden-shafted. See High-hole. + Woodpecker, hairy (_Dryobates villosus_). + Woodpecker, red-headed (_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_). + Wordsworth, William. + Wren, house (_Troglodytes aëdon_). + + Yellow-hammer. See High-hole. + Yellow-throat, Maryland, or northern yellow-throat (_Geothlypis + trichas brachidactyla_). + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds and Poets, by John Burroughs + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS AND POETS *** + +***** This file should be named 5177-8.txt or 5177-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/7/5177/ + +Produced by Jack Eden + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/5177-8.zip b/5177-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d8e7264 --- /dev/null +++ b/5177-8.zip diff --git a/5177-h.zip b/5177-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3afbd1f --- /dev/null +++ b/5177-h.zip diff --git a/5177-h/5177-h.htm b/5177-h/5177-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dde9a9a --- /dev/null +++ b/5177-h/5177-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7357 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Birds and Poets, by John Burroughs + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds and Poets, by John Burroughs + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Birds and Poets + +Author: John Burroughs + +Release Date: March 19, 2009 [EBook #5177] +Last Updated: February 1, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS AND POETS *** + + + + +Produced by Jack Eden, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + BIRDS AND POETS + </h1> + <h2> + WITH OTHER PAPERS + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + THE WRITINGS OF JOHN BURROUGHS, <br /> VOLUME III WITH PORTRAITS AND MANY + ILLUSTRATIONS + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By John Burroughs + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + I have deliberated a long time about coupling some of my sketches of + outdoor nature with a few chapters of a more purely literary character, + and thus confiding to my reader what absorbs and delights me inside my + four walls, as well as what pleases and engages me outside those walls; + especially since I have aimed to bring my outdoor spirit and method + within, and still to look upon my subject with the best naturalist's eye I + could command. + </p> + <p> + I hope, therefore, he will not be scared away when I boldly confront him + in the latter portions of my book with this name of strange portent, Walt + Whitman, for I assure him that in this misjudged man he may press the + strongest poetic pulse that has yet beaten in America, or perhaps in + modern times. Then, these chapters are a proper supplement or continuation + of my themes and their analogy in literature, because in them we shall + "follow out these lessons of the earth and air," and behold their + application to higher matters. + </p> + <p> + It is not an artificially graded path strewn with roses that invites us in + this part, but, let me hope, something better, a rugged trail through the + woods or along the beach where we shall now and then get a whiff of + natural air, or a glimpse of something to + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Make the wild blood start + In its mystic springs." +</pre> + <p> + ESOPUS-ON-HUDSON, March, 1877. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> + <b>BIRDS AND POETS</b> </a><br /> + </p> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> I. </a> + </td> + <td> + BIRDS AND POETS + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> II. </a> + </td> + <td> + TOUCHES OF NATURE + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> III. </a> + </td> + <td> + A BIRD MEDLEY + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> IV. </a> + </td> + <td> + APRIL + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> V. </a> + </td> + <td> + SPRING POEMS + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VI. </a> + </td> + <td> + OUR RURAL DIVINITY + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VII. </a> + </td> + <td> + BEFORE GENIUS + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> VIII. </a> + </td> + <td> + BEFORE BEAUTY + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> IX. </a> + </td> + <td> + EMERSON + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> X. </a> + </td> + <td> + THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + BIRDS AND POETS + </h1> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I BIRDS AND POETS + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "In summer, when the shawes be shene, + And leaves be large and long, + It is full merry in fair forest + To hear the fowlés' song. + The wood-wele sang, and wolde not cease, + Sitting upon the spray; + So loud, it wakened Robin Hood + In the greenwood where he lay." +</pre> + <p> + It might almost be said that the birds are all birds of the poets and of + no one else, because it is only the poetical temperament that fully + responds to them. So true is this, that all the great ornithologists—original + namers and biographers of the birds—have been poets in deed if not + in word. Audubon is a notable case in point, who, if he had not the tongue + or the pen of the poet, certainly had the eye and ear and heart—"the + fluid and attaching character"—and the singleness of purpose, the + enthusiasm, the unworldliness, the love, that characterize the true and + divine race of bards. + </p> + <p> + So had Wilson, though perhaps not in as large a measure; yet he took fire + as only a poet can. While making a journey on foot to Philadelphia, + shortly after landing in this country, he caught sight of the red-headed + woodpecker flitting among the trees,—a bird that shows like a + tricolored scarf among the foliage,—and it so kindled his enthusiasm + that his life was devoted to the pursuit of the birds from that day. It + was a lucky hit. Wilson had already set up as a poet in Scotland, and was + still fermenting when the bird met his eye and suggested to his soul a new + outlet for its enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird + seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his life,—large-brained, + large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart + with song. The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of + all climes, and knowing no bounds,—how many human aspirations are + realized in their free, holiday lives, and how many suggestions to the + poet in their flight and song! + </p> + <p> + Indeed, is not the bird the original type and teacher of the poet, and do + we not demand of the human lark or thrush that he "shake out his carols" + in the same free and spontaneous manner as his winged prototype? Kingsley + has shown how surely the old minnesingers and early ballad-writers have + learned of the birds, taking their key-note from the blackbird, or the + wood-lark, or the throstle, and giving utterance to a melody as simple and + unstudied. Such things as the following were surely caught from the fields + or the woods:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "She sat down below a thorn, + Fine flowers in the valley, + And there has she her sweet babe borne, + And the green leaves they grow rarely." +</pre> + <p> + Or the best lyric pieces, how like they are to certain bird-songs!—clear, + ringing, ecstatic, and suggesting that challenge and triumph which the + outpouring of the male bird contains. (Is not the genuine singing, lyrical + quality essentially masculine?) Keats and Shelley, perhaps more notably + than any other English poets, have the bird organization and the piercing + wild-bird cry. This, of course, is not saying that they are the greatest + poets, but that they have preëminently the sharp semi-tones of the + sparrows and the larks. + </p> + <p> + But when the general reader thinks of the birds of the poets, he very + naturally calls to mind the renowned birds, the lark and the nightingale, + Old World melodists, embalmed in Old World poetry, but occasionally + appearing on these shores, transported in the verse of some callow singer. + </p> + <p> + The very oldest poets, the towering antique bards, seem to make little + mention of the song-birds. They loved better the soaring, swooping birds + of prey, the eagle, the ominous birds, the vultures, the storks and + cranes, or the clamorous sea-birds and the screaming hawks. These suited + better the rugged, warlike character of the times and the simple, powerful + souls of the singers themselves. Homer must have heard the twittering of + the swallows, the cry of the plover, the voice of the turtle, and the + warble of the nightingale; but they were not adequate symbols to express + what he felt or to adorn his theme. Aeschylus saw in the eagle "the dog of + Jove," and his verse cuts like a sword with such a conception. + </p> + <p> + It is not because the old bards were less as poets, but that they were + more as men. To strong, susceptible characters, the music of nature is not + confined to sweet sounds. The defiant scream of the hawk circling aloft, + the wild whinny of the loon, the whooping of the crane, the booming of the + bittern, the vulpine bark of the eagle, the loud trumpeting of the + migratory geese sounding down out of the midnight sky; or by the seashore, + the coast of New Jersey or Long Island, the wild crooning of the flocks of + gulls, repeated, continued by the hour, swirling sharp and shrill, rising + and falling like the wind in a storm, as they circle above the beach or + dip to the dash of the waves,—are much more welcome in certain moods + than any and all mere bird-melodies, in keeping as they are with the + shaggy and untamed features of ocean and woods, and suggesting something + like the Richard Wagner music in the ornithological orchestra. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Nor these alone whose notes + Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain, + But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime + In still repeated circles, screaming loud, + The jay, the pie, and even the boding owl, + That hails the rising moon, have charms for me," +</pre> + <p> + says Cowper. "I never hear," says Burns in one of his letters, "the loud, + solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing + cadence of a troop of gray plovers in an autumnal morning, without feeling + an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry." + </p> + <p> + Even the Greek minor poets, the swarm of them that are represented in the + Greek Anthology, rarely make affectionate mention of the birds, except + perhaps Sappho, whom Ben Jonson makes speak of the nightingale as— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The dear glad angel of the spring." +</pre> + <p> + The cicada, the locust, and the grasshopper are often referred to, but + rarely by name any of the common birds. That Greek grasshopper must have + been a wonderful creature. He was a sacred object in Greece, and is spoken + of by the poets as a charming songster. What we would say of birds the + Greek said of this favorite insect. When Socrates and Phaedrus came to the + fountain shaded by the plane-tree, where they had their famous discourse, + Socrates said: "Observe the freshness of the spot, how charming and very + delightful it is, and how summer-like and shrill it sounds from the choir + of grasshoppers." One of the poets in the Anthology finds a grasshopper + struggling in a spider's web, which he releases with the words:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Go safe and free with your sweet voice of song." +</pre> + <p> + Another one makes the insect say to a rustic who had captured him:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Me, the Nymphs' wayside minstrel whose sweet note + O'er sultry hill is heard, and shady grove to float." +</pre> + <p> + Still another sings how a grasshopper took the place of a broken string on + his lyre, and "filled the cadence due." + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "For while six chords beneath my fingers cried, + He with his tuneful voice the seventh supplied; + The midday songster of the mountain set + His pastoral ditty to my canzonet; + And when he sang, his modulated throat + Accorded with the lifeless string I smote." +</pre> + <p> + While we are trying to introduce the lark in this country, why not try + this Pindaric grasshopper also? + </p> + <p> + It is to the literary poets and to the minstrels of a softer age that we + must look for special mention of the song-birds and for poetical + rhapsodies upon them. The nightingale is the most general favorite, and + nearly all the more noted English poets have sung her praises. To the + melancholy poet she is melancholy, and to the cheerful she is cheerful. + Shakespeare in one of his sonnets speaks of her song as mournful, while + Martial calls her the "most garrulous" of birds. Milton sang:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, + Most musical, most melancholy, + Thee, chantress, oft the woods among + I woo, to hear thy evening song." +</pre> + <p> + To Wordsworth she told another story:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "O nightingale! thou surely art + A creature of ebullient heart; + These notes of thine,—they pierce and pierce,— + Tumultuous harmony and fierce! + Thou sing'st as if the god of wine + Had helped thee to a valentine; + A song in mockery and despite + Of shades, and dews, and silent night, + And steady bliss, and all the loves + Now sleeping in these peaceful groves." +</pre> + <p> + In a like vein Coleridge sang:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "'T is the merry nightingale + That crowds and hurries and precipitates + With fast, thick warble his delicious notes." +</pre> + <p> + Keats's poem on the nightingale is doubtless more in the spirit of the + bird's strain than any other. It is less a description of the song and + more the song itself. Hood called the nightingale + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The sweet and plaintive Sappho of the dell." +</pre> + <p> + I mention the nightingale only to point my remarks upon its American + rival, the famous mockingbird of the Southern States, which is also a + nightingale,—a night-singer,—and which no doubt excels the Old + World bird in the variety and compass of its powers. The two birds belong + to totally distinct families, there being no American species which + answers to the European nightingale, as there are that answer to the + robin, the cuckoo, the blackbird, and numerous others. Philomel has the + color, manners, and habits of a thrush,—our hermit thrush,—but + it is not a thrush at all, but a warbler. I gather from the books that its + song is protracted and full rather than melodious,—a capricious, + long-continued warble, doubling and redoubling, rising and falling, + issuing from the groves and the great gardens, and associated in the minds + of the poets with love and moonlight and the privacy of sequestered walks. + All our sympathies and attractions are with the bird, and we do not forget + that Arabia and Persia are there back of its song. + </p> + <p> + <i>Our</i> nightingale has mainly the reputation of the caged bird, and is + famed mostly for its powers of mimicry, which are truly wonderful, + enabling the bird to exactly reproduce and even improve upon the notes of + almost any other songster. But in a state of freedom it has a song of its + own which is infinitely rich and various. It is a garrulous polyglot when + it chooses to be, and there is a dash of the clown and the buffoon in its + nature which too often flavors its whole performance, especially in + captivity; but in its native haunts, and when its love-passion is upon it, + the serious and even grand side of its character comes out. In Alabama and + Florida its song may be heard all through the sultry summer night, at + times low and plaintive, then full and strong. A friend of Thoreau and a + careful observer, who has resided in Florida, tells me that this bird is a + much more marvelous singer than it has the credit of being. He describes a + habit it has of singing on the wing on moonlight nights, that would be + worth going South to hear. Starting from a low bush, it mounts in the air + and continues its flight apparently to an altitude of several hundred + feet, remaining on the wing a number of minutes, and pouring out its song + with the utmost clearness and abandon,—a slowly rising musical + rocket that fills the night air with harmonious sounds. Here are both the + lark and nightingale in one; and if poets were as plentiful down South as + they are in New England, we should have heard of this song long ago, and + had it celebrated in appropriate verse. But so far only one Southern poet, + Wilde, has accredited the bird this song. This he has done in the + following admirable sonnet:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + TO THE MOCKINGBIRD + + Winged mimic of the woods! thou motley fool! + Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe? + Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule + Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe. + Wit—sophist—songster—Yorick of thy tribe, + Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school, + To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, + Arch scoffer, and mad Abbot of Misrule! + For such thou art by day—but all night long + Thou pour'st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, + As if thou didst in this, thy moonlight song, + Like to the melancholy Jaques, complain, + Musing on falsehood, violence, and wrong, + And sighing for thy motley coat again. +</pre> + <p> + Aside from this sonnet, the mockingbird has got into poetical literature, + so far as I know, in only one notable instance, and that in the page of a + poet where we would least expect to find him,—a bard who habitually + bends his ear only to the musical surge and rhythmus of total nature, and + is as little wont to turn aside for any special beauties or points as the + most austere of the ancient masters. I refer to Walt Whitman's "Out of the + cradle endlessly rocking," in which the mockingbird plays a part. The + poet's treatment of the bird is entirely ideal and eminently + characteristic. That is to say, it is altogether poetical and not at all + ornithological; yet it contains a rendering or free translation of a + bird-song—the nocturne of the mockingbird, singing and calling + through the night for its lost mate—that I consider quite unmatched + in our literature:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Once, Paumanok, + When the snows had melted, and the Fifth-month grass was growing, + Up this seashore, in some briers, + Two guests from Alabama—two together, + And their nest, and four light green eggs, spotted with brown, + And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand, + And every day the she-bird, crouched on her nest, silent, with bright + eyes, + And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, + Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. + + <i>Shine! Shine! Shine! + Pour down your warmth, great Sun! + While we bask—we two together.</i> + + <i>Two together! + Winds blow South, or winds blow North, + Day come white, or night come black, + Home, or rivers and mountains from home, + Singing all time, minding no time, + If we two but keep together.</i> + + Till of a sudden, + Maybe killed unknown to her mate, + One forenoon the she-bird crouched not on the nest, + Nor returned that afternoon, nor the next, + Nor ever appeared again. + + And thenceforward all summer, in the sound of the sea, + And at night, under the full of the moon, in calmer weather, + Over the hoarse surging of the sea, + Or flitting from brier to brier by day, + I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one, the he-bird, + The solitary guest from Alabama. + + <i>Blow! blow! blow! + Blow up, sea-winds, along Paumanok's shore! + I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me.</i> + + Yes, when the stars glistened, + All night long, on the prong of a moss-scalloped stake, + Down, almost amid the slapping waves, + Sat the lone singer, wonderful, causing tears. + + He called on his mate: + He poured forth the meanings which I, of all men, know. +</pre> + <p> + . . . . . . . . . . . + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Soothe! soothe! soothe! + Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, + And again another behind, embracing and lapping, every one close, + But my love soothes not me, not me.</i> + + <i>Low hangs the moon—it rose late. + Oh it is lagging—oh I think it is heavy with love, with love.</i> + + <i>Oh madly the sea pushes, pushes upon the land, + With love—with love.</i> + + <i>O night! do I not see my love fluttering out there among the breakers! + What is that little black thing I see there in the white?</i> + + <i>Loud! loud! loud! + Loud I call to you, my love! + High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves: + Surely you must know who is here, is here; + You must know who I am, my love.</i> + + <i>Low-hanging moon! + What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow? + Oh it is the shape, the shape of my mate! + O moon, do not keep her from me any longer.</i> + + <i>Land! land! O land! + Whichever way I turn, oh I think you could give my mate back again, + if you only would; + For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.</i> + + <i>O rising stars! + Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.</i> + + <i>O throat! O trembling throat! + Sound clearer through the atmosphere! + Pierce the woods, the earth; + Somewhere listening to catch you, must be the one I want.</i> + + <i>Shake out, carols! + Solitary here—the night's carols! + Carols of lonesome love! Death's carols! + Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon! + Oh, under that moon, where she droops almost down into the sea! + O reckless, despairing carols.</i> + + <i>But soft! sink low! Soft! let me just murmur; + And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea; + For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me, + So faint—I must be still, be still to listen! + But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately + to me.</i> + + <i>Hither, my love! + Here I am! Here! + With this just-sustained note I announce myself to you; + This gentle call is for you, my love, for you.</i> + + <i>Do not be decoyed elsewhere! + That is the whistle of the wind—it is not my voice; + That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray; + Those are the shadows of leaves.</i> + + <i>O darkness! Oh in vain! + Oh I am very sick and sorrowful.</i> +</pre> + <p> + . . . . . . . . . . . + </p> + <p> + The bird that occupies the second place to the nightingale in British + poetical literature is the skylark, a pastoral bird as the Philomel is an + arboreal,—a creature of light and air and motion, the companion of + the plowman, the shepherd, the harvester,—whose nest is in the + stubble and whose tryst is in the clouds. Its life affords that kind of + contrast which the imagination loves,—one moment a plain pedestrian + bird, hardly distinguishable from the ground, the next a soaring, untiring + songster, reveling in the upper air, challenging the eye to follow him and + the ear to separate his notes. + </p> + <p> + The lark's song is not especially melodious, but is blithesome, sibilant, + and unceasing. Its type is the grass, where the bird makes its home, + abounding, multitudinous, the notes nearly all alike and all in the same + key, but rapid, swarming, prodigal, showering down as thick and fast as + drops of rain in a summer shower. + </p> + <p> + Many noted poets have sung the praises of the lark, or been kindled by his + example. Shelley's ode and Wordsworth's "To a Skylark" are well known to + all readers of poetry, while every schoolboy will recall Hogg's poem, + beginning:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Bird of the wilderness, + Blithesome and cumberless, + Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! + Emblem of happiness, + Blest is thy dwelling-place— + Oh to abide in the desert with thee!" +</pre> + <p> + I heard of an enthusiastic American who went about English fields hunting + a lark with Shelley's poem in his hand, thinking no doubt to use it as a + kind of guide-book to the intricacies and harmonies of the song. He + reported not having heard any larks, though I have little doubt they were + soaring and singing about him all the time, though of course they did not + sing to his ear the song that Shelley heard. The poets are the best + natural historians, only you must know how to read them. They translate + the facts largely and freely. A celebrated lady once said to Turner, "I + confess I cannot see in nature what you do." "Ah, madam," said the + complacent artist, "don't you wish you could!" + </p> + <p> + Shelley's poem is perhaps better known, and has a higher reputation among + literary folk, than Wordsworth's; it is more lyrical and lark-like; but it + is needlessly long, though no longer than the lark's song itself, but the + lark can't help it, and Shelley can. I quote only a few stanzas:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "In the golden lightning + Of the sunken sun, + O'er which clouds are bright'ning + Thou dost float and run, + Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. + + "The pale purple even + Melts around thy flight; + Like a star of heaven, + In the broad daylight + Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, + + "Keen as are the arrows + Of that silver sphere, + Whose intense lamp narrows + In the white dawn clear, + Until we hardly see—we feel that it is there; + + "All the earth and air + With thy voice is loud, + As, when Night is bare, + From one lonely cloud + The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed." +</pre> + <p> + Wordsworth has written two poems upon the lark, in one of which he calls + the bird "pilgrim of the sky." This is the one quoted by Emerson in + "Parnassus." Here is the concluding stanza:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; + A privacy of glorious light is thine, + Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood + Of harmony, with instinct more divine; + Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam, + True to the kindred points of heaven and home." +</pre> + <p> + The other poem I give entire:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Up with me! up with me into the clouds! + For thy song, Lark, is strong; + Up with me, up with me into the clouds! + Singing, singing, + With clouds and sky about thee ringing, + Lift me, guide me till I find + That spot which seems so to thy mind! + + "I have walked through wilderness dreary, + And to-day my heart is weary; + Had I now the wings of a Faery + Up to thee would I fly. + There is madness about thee, and joy divine + In that song of thine; + Lift me, guide me high and high + To thy banqueting-place in the sky. + + "Joyous as morning + Thou art laughing and scorning; + Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest, + And, though little troubled with sloth, + Drunken Lark! thou wouldst be loth + To be such a traveler as I. + Happy, happy Liver! + With a soul as strong as a mountain river, + Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, + Joy and jollity be with us both! + + "Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven, + Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind; + But hearing thee, or others of thy kind, + As full of gladness and as free of heaven, + I, with my fate contented, will plod on, + And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done." +</pre> + <p> + But better than either—better and more than a hundred pages—is + Shakespeare's simple line,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings," +</pre> + <p> + or John Lyly's, his contemporary,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Who is't now we hear? + None but the lark so shrill and clear; + Now at heaven's gate she claps her wings, + The morn not waking till she sings." +</pre> + <p> + We have no well-known pastoral bird in the Eastern States that answers to + the skylark. The American pipit or titlark and the shore lark, both birds + of the far north, and seen in the States only in fall and winter, are said + to sing on the wing in a similar strain. Common enough in our woods are + two birds that have many of the habits and manners of the lark—the + water-thrush and the golden-crowned thrush, or oven-bird. They are both + walkers, and the latter frequently sings on the wing up aloft after the + manner of the lark. Starting from its low perch, it rises in a spiral + flight far above the tallest trees, and breaks out in a clear, ringing, + ecstatic song, sweeter and more richly modulated than the skylark's, but + brief, ceasing almost before you have noticed it; whereas the skylark goes + singing away after you have forgotten him and returned to him half a dozen + times. + </p> + <p> + But on the Great Plains, of the West there; is a bird whose song resembles + the skylark's quite closely and is said to be not at all inferior. This is + Sprague's pipit, sometimes called the Missouri skylark, an excelsior + songster, which from far up in the transparent blue rains down its notes + for many minutes together. It is, no doubt, destined to figure in the + future poetical literature of the West. + </p> + <p> + Throughout the northern and eastern parts of the Union the lark would find + a dangerous rival in the bobolink, a bird that has no European prototype, + and no near relatives anywhere, standing quite alone, unique, and, in the + qualities of hilarity and musical tintinnabulation, with a song unequaled. + He has already a secure place in general literature, having been laureated + by no less a poet than Bryant, and invested with a lasting human charm in + the sunny page of Irving, and is the only one of our songsters, I believe, + that the mockingbird cannot parody or imitate. He affords the most marked + example of exuberant pride, and a glad, rollicking, holiday spirit, that + can be seen among our birds. Every note expresses complacency and glee. He + is a beau of the first pattern, and, unlike any other bird of my + acquaintance, pushes his gallantry to the point of wheeling gayly into the + train of every female that comes along, even after the season of courtship + is over and the matches are all settled; and when she leads him on too + wild a chase, he turns, lightly about and breaks out with a song is + precisely analogous to a burst of gay and self-satisfied laughter, as much + as to say, <i>"Ha! ha! ha! I must have my fun, Miss Silverthimble, + thimble, thimble, if I break every heart in the meadow, see, see, see!"</i> + </p> + <p> + At the approach of the breeding season the bobolink undergoes a complete + change; his form changes, his color changes, his flight changes. From + mottled brown or brindle he becomes black and white, earning, in some + localities, the shocking name of "skunk bird;" his small, compact form + becomes broad and conspicuous, and his ordinary flight is laid aside for a + mincing, affected gait, in which he seems to use only the very tips of his + wings. It is very noticeable what a contrast he presents to his mate at + this season, not only in color but in manners, she being as shy and + retiring as he is forward and hilarious. Indeed, she seems disagreeably + serious and indisposed to any fun or jollity, scurrying away at his + approach, and apparently annoyed at every endearing word and look. It is + surprising that all this parade of plumage and tinkling of cymbals should + be gone through with and persisted in to please a creature so coldly + indifferent as she really seems to be. If Robert O'Lincoln has been + stimulated into acquiring this holiday uniform and this musical gift by + the approbation of Mrs. Robert, as Darwin, with his sexual selection + principle, would have us believe, then there must have been a time when + the females of this tribe were not quite so chary of their favors as they + are now. Indeed, I never knew a female bird of any kind that did not + appear utterly indifferent to the charms of voice and plumage that the + male birds are so fond of displaying. But I am inclined to believe that + the males think only of themselves and of outshining each other, and not + at all of the approbation of their mates, as, in an analogous case in a + higher species, it is well known whom the females dress for, and whom they + want to kill with envy! + </p> + <p> + I know of no other song-bird that expresses so much self-consciousness and + vanity, and comes so near being an ornithological coxcomb. The red-bird, + the yellowbird, the indigo-bird, the oriole, the cardinal grosbeak, and + others, all birds of brilliant plumage and musical ability, seem quite + unconscious of self, and neither by tone nor act challenge the admiration + of the beholder. + </p> + <p> + By the time the bobolink reaches the Potomac, in September, he has + degenerated into a game-bird that is slaughtered by tens of thousands in + the marshes. I think the prospects now are of his gradual extermination, + as gunners and sportsmen are clearly on the increase, while the limit of + the bird's productivity in the North has no doubt been reached long ago. + There are no more meadows to be added to his domain there, while he is + being waylaid and cut off more and more on his return to the South. It is + gourmand eat gourmand, until in half a century more I expect the blithest + and merriest of our meadow songsters will have disappeared before the + rapacity of human throats. + </p> + <p> + But the poets have had a shot at him in good time, and have preserved some + of his traits. Bryant's poem on this subject does not compare with his + lines "To a Water-Fowl,"—a subject so well suited to the peculiar, + simple, and deliberate motion of his mind; at the same time it is fit that + the poet who sings of "The Planting of the Apple-Tree" should render into + words the song of "Robert of Lincoln." I subjoin a few stanzas:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ROBERT OF LINCOLN + + Merrily swinging on brier and weed, + Near to the nest of his little dame, + Over the mountain-side or mead, + Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: + Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, + Spink, spank, spink: + Snug and safe is that nest of ours, + Hidden among the summer flowers. + Chee, chee, chee. + + Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, + Wearing a bright black wedding-coat, + White are his shoulders and white his crest, + Hear him call in his merry note: + Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, + Spink, spank, spink: + Look what a nice new coat is mine, + Sure there was never a bird so fine. + Chee, chee, chee. + + Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, + Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, + Passing at home a patient life, + Broods in the grass while her husband sings. + Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, + Spink, spank, spink: + Brood, kind creature; you need not fear + Thieves and robbers while I am here. + Chee, chee, chee. +</pre> + <p> + But it has been reserved for a practical ornithologist, Mr. Wilson Flagg, + to write by far the best poem on the bobolink that I have yet seen. It is + much more in the mood and spirit of the actual song than Bryant's poem:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + THE O'LINCOLN FAMILY + + A flock of merry singing-birds were sporting in the grove; + Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love: + There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,— + A livelier set was never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle,— + Crying, "Phew, shew, Wadolincon, see, see, Bobolincon, + Down among the tickletops, hiding in the buttercups! + I know the saucy chap, I see his shining cap + Bobbing in the clover there—see, see, see!" + + Up flies Bobolincon, perching on an apple-tree, + Startled by his rival's song, quickened by his raillery. + Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curveting in the air, + And merrily he turns about, and warns him to beware! + "'T is you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O! + But wait a week, till flowers are cheery,—wait a week,and, + ere you marry, + Be sure of a house wherein to tarry! + Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!" + + Every one's a funny fellow; every one's a little mellow; + Follow, follow, follow, follow, o'er the hill and in the hollow! + Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly; + They cross and turn, and in and out, and down in the middle, + and wheel about,— + With a "Phew, shew, Wadolincon! listen to me, Bobolincon!— + Happy's the wooing that's speedily doing, that's speedily doing, + That's merry and over with the bloom of the clover! + Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me!" +</pre> + <p> + Many persons, I presume, have admired Wordsworth's poem on the cuckoo, + without recognizing its truthfulness, or how thoroughly, in the main, the + description applies to our own species. If the poem had been written in + New England or New York, it could not have suited our case better:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "O blithe New-comer! I have heard, + I hear thee and rejoice, + O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, + Or but a wandering Voice? + + "While I am lying on the grass, + Thy twofold shout I hear, + From hill to hill it seems to pass, + At once far off, and near. + + "Though babbling only to the Vale, + Of sunshine and of flowers, + Thou bringest unto me a tale + Of visionary hours. + + "Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! + Even yet thou art to me + No bird, but an invisible thing, + A voice, a mystery; + + "The same whom in my schoolboy days + I listened to; that Cry + Which made me look a thousand ways + In bush, and tree, and sky. + + "To seek thee did I often rove + Through woods and on the green; + And thou wert still a hope, a love; + Still longed for, never seen. + + "And I can listen to thee yet; + Can lie upon the plain + And listen, till I do beget + That golden time again. + + "O blesséd Bird! the earth we pace + Again appears to be + An unsubstantial, faery place; + That is fit home for thee!" +</pre> + <p> + Logan's stanzas, "To the Cuckoo," have less merit both as poetry and + natural history, but they are older, and doubtless the latter poet + benefited by them. Burke admired them so much that, while on a visit to + Edinburgh, he sought the author out to compliment him:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove! + Thou messenger of spring! + Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, + And woods thy welcome sing. + + "What time the daisy decks the green, + Thy certain voice we hear; + Hast thou a star to guide thy path, + Or mark the rolling year? + + . . . . . . . . + + "The schoolboy, wandering through the wood + To pull the primrose gay, + Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, + And imitates thy lay. + + . . . . . . . . + + "Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, + Thy sky is ever clear; + Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, + No winter in thy year." +</pre> + <p> + The European cuckoo is evidently a much gayer bird than ours, and much + more noticeable. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Hark, how the jolly cuckoos sing + 'Cuckoo!' to welcome in the spring," +</pre> + <p> + says John Lyly three hundred years agone. Its note is easily imitated, and + boys will render it so perfectly as to deceive any but the shrewdest ear. + An English lady tells me its voice reminds one of children at play, and is + full of gayety and happiness. It is a persistent songster, and keeps up + its call from morning to night. Indeed, certain parts of Wordsworth's poem—those + that refer to the bird as a mystery, a wandering, solitary voice—seem + to fit our bird better than the European species. Our cuckoo is in fact a + solitary wanderer, repeating its loud, guttural call in the depths of the + forest, and well calculated to arrest the attention of a poet like + Wordsworth, who was himself a kind of cuckoo, a solitary voice, syllabling + the loneliness that broods over streams and woods,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "And once far off, and near." +</pre> + <p> + Our cuckoo is not a spring bird, being seldom seen or heard in the North + before late in May. He is a great devourer of canker-worms, and, when + these pests appear, he comes out of his forest seclusion and makes + excursions through the orchards stealthily and quietly, regaling himself + upon those pulpy, fuzzy titbits. His coat of deep cinnamon brown has a + silky gloss and is very beautiful. His note or call is not musical but + loud, and has in a remarkable degree the quality of remoteness and + introvertedness. It is like a vocal legend, and to the farmer bodes rain. + </p> + <p> + It is worthy of note, and illustrates some things said farther back, that + birds not strictly denominated songsters, but criers like the cuckoo, have + been quite as great favorites with the poets, and have received as + affectionate treatment at their hands, as have the song-birds. One readily + recalls Emerson's "Titmouse," Trowbridge's "Pewee," Celia Thaxter's + "Sandpiper," and others of a like character. + </p> + <p> + It is also worthy of note that the owl appears to be a greater favorite + with the poets than the proud, soaring hawk. The owl is doubtless the more + human and picturesque bird; then he belongs to the night and its weird + effects. Bird of the silent wing and expansive eye, grimalkin in feathers, + feline, mousing, haunting ruins" and towers, and mocking the midnight + stillness with thy uncanny cry! The owl is the great bugaboo of the + feathered tribes. His appearance by day is hailed by shouts of alarm and + derision from nearly every bird that flies, from crows down to sparrows. + They swarm about him like flies, and literally mob him back into his dusky + retreat. Silence is as the breath of his nostrils to him, and the uproar + that greets him when he emerges into the open day seems to alarm and + confuse him as it does the pickpocket when everybody cries Thief. + </p> + <p> + But the poets, I say, have not despised him:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The lark is but a bumpkin fowl; + He sleeps in his nest till morn; + But my blessing upon the jolly owl + That all night blows his horn." +</pre> + <p> + Both Shakespeare and Tennyson have made songs about him. This is + Shakespeare's, from "Love's Labor's Lost," and perhaps has reference to + the white or snowy owl:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "When icicles hang by the wall, + And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, + And Tom bears logs into the hall, + And milk comes frozen home in pail; + When blood is nipped and ways be foul, + Then nightly sings the staring owl, + Tu-whoo! + Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note, + While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. + + "When all aloud the wind doth blow, + And coughing drowns the parson's saw, + And birds sit brooding in the snow, + And Marian's nose looks red and raw; + When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, + Then nightly sings the staring owl, + Tu-whoo! + Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! a merry note, + While greasy Joan doth keel the pot." +</pre> + <p> + There is, perhaps, a slight reminiscence of this song in Tennyson's "Owl:"— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "When cats run home and light is come, + And dew is cold upon the ground, + And the far-off stream is dumb, + And the whirring sail goes round, + And the whirring sail goes round; + Alone and warming his five wits, + The white owl in the belfry sits. + + "When merry milkmaids click the latch, + And rarely smells the new-mown hay, + And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch + Twice or thrice his roundelay, + Twice or thrice his roundelay; + Alone and warming his five wits, + The white owl in the belfry sits." +</pre> + <p> + Tennyson has not directly celebrated any of the more famous birds, but his + poems contain frequent allusions to them. The + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, + Rings Eden through the budded quicks, + Oh, tell me where the senses mix, + Oh, tell me where the passions meet," +</pre> + <p> + of "In Memoriam," is doubtless the nightingale. And here we have the lark:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Now sings the woodland loud and long, + And distance takes a lovelier hue, + And drowned in yonder living blue + The lark becomes a sightless song." +</pre> + <p> + And again in this from "A Dream of Fair Women:"— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Then I heard + A noise of some one coming through the lawn, + And singing clearer than the crested bird + That claps his wings at dawn." +</pre> + <p> + The swallow is a favorite bird with Tennyson, and is frequently mentioned, + beside being the principal figure in one of those charming love-songs in + "The Princess." His allusions to the birds, as to any other natural + feature, show him to be a careful observer, as when he speaks of + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The swamp, where hums the dropping snipe." +</pre> + <p> + His single bird-poem, aside from the song I have quoted, is "The + Blackbird," the Old World prototype of our robin, as if our bird had + doffed the aristocratic black for a more democratic suit on reaching these + shores. In curious contrast to the color of its plumage is its beak, which + is as yellow as a kernel of Indian corn. The following are the two middle + stanzas of the poem:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Yet, though I spared thee all the spring, + Thy sole delight is, sitting still, + With that gold dagger of thy bill + To fret the summer jenneting. + + "A golden bill! the silver tongue + Cold February loved is dry; + Plenty corrupts the melody + That made thee famous once, when young." +</pre> + <p> + Shakespeare, in one of his songs, alludes to the blackbird as the + ouzel-cock; indeed, he puts quite a flock of birds in this song:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The ouzel-cock so black of hue, + With orange tawny bill; + The throstle with his note so true, + The wren with little quill; + The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, + The plain song cuckoo gray, + Whose note full many a man doth mark, + And dares not answer nay." +</pre> + <p> + So far as external appearances are concerned,—form, plumage, grace + of manner,—no one ever had a less promising subject than had + Trowbridge in the "Pewee." This bird, if not the plainest dressed, is the + most unshapely in the woods. It is stiff and abrupt in its manners and + sedentary in its habits, sitting around all day, in the dark recesses of + the woods, on the dry twigs and branches, uttering now and then its + plaintive cry, and "with many a flirt and flutter" snapping up its insect + game. + </p> + <p> + The pewee belongs to quite a large family of birds, all of whom have + strong family traits, and who are not the most peaceable and harmonious of + the sylvan folk. They are pugnacious, harsh-voiced, angular in form and + movement, with flexible tails and broad, flat, bristling beaks that stand + to the face at the angle of a turn-up nose, and most of them wear a black + cap pulled well down over their eyes. Their heads are large, neck and legs + short, and elbows sharp. The wild Irishman of them all is the great + crested flycatcher, a large, leather-colored or sandy-complexioned bird + that prowls through the woods, uttering its harsh, uncanny note and waging + fierce warfare upon its fellows. The exquisite of the family, and the + braggart of the orchard, is the kingbird, a bully that loves to strip the + feathers off its more timid neighbors such as the bluebird, that feeds on + the stingless bees of the hive, the drones, and earns the reputation of + great boldness by teasing large hawks, while it gives a wide berth to + little ones. + </p> + <p> + The best beloved of them all is the phoebe-bird, one of the firstlings of + the spring, of whom so many of our poets have made affectionate mention. + </p> + <p> + The wood pewee is the sweetest voiced, and, notwithstanding the ungracious + things I have said of it and of its relations, merits to the full all + Trowbridge's pleasant fancies. His poem is indeed a very careful study of + the bird and its haunts, and is good poetry as well as good ornithology:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The listening Dryads hushed the woods; + The boughs were thick, and thin and few + The golden ribbons fluttering through; + Their sun-embroidered, leafy hoods + The lindens lifted to the blue; + Only a little forest-brook + The farthest hem of silence shook; + When in the hollow shades I heard— + Was it a spirit or a bird? + Or, strayed from Eden, desolate, + Some Peri calling to her mate, + Whom nevermore her mate would cheer? + 'Pe-ri! pe-ri! peer!' + + . . . . . . . . + + "To trace it in its green retreat + I sought among the boughs in vain; + And followed still the wandering strain, + So melancholy and so sweet, + The dim-eyed violets yearned with pain. + 'T was now a sorrow in the air, + Some nymph's immortalized despair + Haunting the woods and waterfalls; + And now, at long, sad intervals, + Sitting unseen in dusky shade, + His plaintive pipe some fairy played, + With long-drawn cadence thin and clear,— + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!' + + "Long-drawn and clear its closes were— + As if the hand of Music through + The sombre robe of Silence drew + A thread of golden gossamer; + So pure a flute the fairy blew. + Like beggared princes of the wood, + In silver rags the birches stood; + The hemlocks, lordly counselors, + Were dumb; the sturdy servitors, + In beechen jackets patched and gray, + Seemed waiting spellbound all the day + That low, entrancing note to hear,— + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!' + + "I quit the search, and sat me down + Beside the brook, irresolute, + And watched a little bird in suit + Of sober olive, soft and brown, + Perched in the maple branches, mute; + With greenish gold its vest was fringed, + Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged, + With ivory pale its wings were barred, + And its dark eyes were tender-starred. + "Dear bird," I said, "what is thy name?" + And thrice the mournful answer came, + So faint and far, and yet so near,— + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!' + + "For so I found my forest bird,— + The pewee of the loneliest woods, + Sole singer in these solitudes, + Which never robin's whistle stirred, + Where never bluebird's plume intrudes. + Quick darting through the dewy morn, + The redstart trilled his twittering horn + And vanished in thick boughs; at even, + Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven, + The high notes of the lone wood thrush + Fell on the forest's holy hush; + But thou all day complainest here,— + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!'" +</pre> + <p> + Emerson's best natural history poem is the "Humble-Bee,"—a poem as + good in its way as Burns's poem on the mouse; but his later poem, "The + Titmouse," has many of the same qualities, and cannot fail to be + acceptable to both poet and naturalist. + </p> + <p> + The chickadee is indeed a truly Emersonian bird, and the poet shows him to + be both a hero and a philosopher. Hardy, active, social, a winter bird no + less than a summer, a defier of both frost and heat, lover of the + pine-tree, and diligent searcher after truth in the shape of eggs and + larvae of insects, preëminently a New England bird, clad in black and + ashen gray, with a note the most cheering and reassuring to be heard in + our January woods,—I know of none other of our birds so well + calculated to captivate the Emersonian muse. + </p> + <p> + Emerson himself is a northern hyperborean genius,—a winter bird with + a clear, saucy, cheery call, and not a passionate summer songster. His + lines have little melody to the ear, but they have the vigor and + distinctness of all pure and compact things. They are like the needles of + the pine—"the snow loving pine"—more than the emotional + foliage of the deciduous trees, and the titmouse becomes them well:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Up and away for life! be fleet!— + The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, + Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, + Curdles the blood to the marble bones, + Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, + And hems in life with narrowing fence. + Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,— + The punctual stars will vigil keep,— + Embalmed by purifying cold; + The wind shall sing their dead march old, + The snow is no ignoble shroud, + The moon thy mourner, and the cloud. + + "Softly,—but this way fate was pointing, + 'T was coming fast to such anointing, + When piped a tiny voice hard by, + Gay and polite, a cheerful cry, + <i>Chick-chickadeedee!</i> saucy note, + Out of sound heart and merry throat, + As if it said 'Good day, good sir! + Fine afternoon, old passenger! + Happy to meet you in these places, + Where January brings few faces.' + + "This poet, though he lived apart, + Moved by his hospitable heart, + Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort, + To do the honors of his court, + As fits a feathered lord of land; + Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hands + Hopped on the bough, then darting low, + Prints his small impress on the snow, + Shows feats of his gymnastic play, + Head downward, clinging to the spray. + + "Here was this atom in full breath, + Hurling defiance at vast death; + This scrap of valor just for play + Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray, + As if to shame my weak behavior; + I greeted loud my little savior, + 'You pet! what dost here? and what for? + In these woods, thy small Labrador, + At this pinch, wee San Salvador! + What fire burns in that little chest, + So frolic, stout, and self-possest? + Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine; + Ashes and jet all hues outshine. + Why are not diamonds black and gray, + To ape thy dare-devil array? + And I affirm, the spacious North + Exists to draw thy virtue forth. + I think no virtue goes with size; + The reason of all cowardice + Is, that men are overgrown, + And, to be valiant, must come down + To the titmouse dimension.' + + . . . . . . . . + + "I think old Caesar must have heard + In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, + And, echoed in some frosty wold, + Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold. + And I will write our annals new + And thank thee for a better clew. + I, who dreamed not when I came here + To find the antidote of fear, + Now hear thee say in Roman key, + <i>Poean! Veni, vidi, vici."</i> +</pre> + <p> + A late bird-poem, and a good one of its kind, is Celia Thaxter's + "Sandpiper," which recalls Bryant's "Water-Fowl" in its successful + rendering of the spirit and atmosphere of the scene, and the distinctness + with which the lone bird, flitting along the beach, is brought before the + mind. It is a woman's or a feminine poem, as Bryant's is + characteristically a man's. + </p> + <p> + The sentiment or feeling awakened by any of the aquatic fowls is + preëminently one of loneliness. The wood duck which your approach starts + from the pond or the marsh, the loon neighing down out of the April sky, + the wild goose, the curlew, the stork, the bittern, the sandpiper, awaken + quite a different train of emotions from those awakened by the land-birds. + They all have clinging to them some reminiscence and suggestion of the + sea. Their cries echo its wildness and desolation; their wings are the + shape of its billows. + </p> + <p> + Of the sandpipers there are many varieties, found upon the coast and + penetrating inland along the rivers and water-courses, one of the most + interesting of the family, commonly called the "tip-up," going up all the + mountain brooks and breeding in the sand along their banks; but the + characteristics are the same in all, and the eye detects little difference + except in size. + </p> + <p> + The walker on the beach sees it running or flitting before him, following + up the breakers and picking up the aquatic insects left on the sands; and + the trout-fisher along the farthest inland stream likewise intrudes upon + its privacy. Flitting along from stone to stone seeking its food, the hind + part of its body "teetering" up and down, its soft gray color blending it + with the pebbles and the rocks, or else skimming up or down the stream on + its long, convex wings, uttering its shrill cry, the sandpiper is not a + bird of the sea merely; and Mrs. Thaxter's poem is as much for the dweller + inland as for the dweller upon the coast:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + THE SANDPIPER + + Across the narrow beach we flit, + One little sandpiper and I; + And fast I gather, bit by bit, + The scattered driftwood bleached and dry. + The wild waves reach their hands for it, + The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, + As up and down the beach we flit,— + One little sandpiper and I. + + Above our heads the sullen clouds + Scud black and swift across the sky; + Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds + Stand out the white lighthouses high. + Almost as far as eye can reach + I see the close-reefed vessels fly, + As fast we flit along the beach,— + One little sandpiper and I. + + I watch him as he skims along, + Uttering his sweet and mournful cry; + He starts not at my fitful song, + Or flash of fluttering drapery; + He has no thought of any wrong; + He scans me with a fearless eye. + Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong, + The little sandpiper and I. + + Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night + When the loosed storm breaks furiously? + My driftwood fire will burn so bright! + To what warm shelter canst thou fly? + I do not fear for thee, though wroth + The tempest rushes through the sky; + For are we not God's children both, + Thou, little sandpiper, and I? +</pre> + <p> + Others of our birds have been game for the poetic muse, but in most cases + the poets have had some moral or pretty conceit to convey, and have not + loved the bird first. Mr. Lathrop preaches a little in his pleasant poem, + "The Sparrow," but he must some time have looked upon the bird with + genuine emotion to have written the first two stanzas:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Glimmers gay the leafless thicket + Close beside my garden gate, + Where, so light, from post to wicket, + Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate: + Who, with meekly folded wing, + Comes to sun himself and sing. + + "It was there, perhaps, last year, + That his little house he built; + For he seems to perk and peer, + And to twitter, too, and tilt + The bare branches in between, + With a fond, familiar mien." +</pre> + <p> + The bluebird has not been overlooked, and Halleek, Longfellow, and Mrs. + Sigourney have written poems upon him, but from none of them does there + fall that first note of his in early spring,—a note that may be + called the violet of sound, and as welcome to the ear, heard above the + cold, damp earth; as is its floral type to the eye a few weeks later + Lowell's two lines come nearer the mark:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The bluebird, shifting his light load of song + From post to post along the cheerless fence." +</pre> + <p> + Or the first swallow that comes twittering up the southern valley, + laughing a gleeful, childish laugh, and awakening such memories in the + heart, who has put him in a poem? So the hummingbird, too, escapes through + the finest meshes of rhyme. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +The most melodious of our songsters, the wood thrush and the hermit +thrush,—birds whose strains, more than any others, express harmony +and serenity,—have not yet, that I am aware, had reared to them their +merited poetic monument, unless, indeed, Whitman has done this service +for the hermit thrush in his "President Lincoln's Burial Hymn." Here +the threnody is blent of three chords, the blossoming lilac, the evening +star, and the hermit thrush, the latter playing the most prominent part +throughout the composition. It is the exalting and spiritual utterance +of the "solitary singer" that calms and consoles the poet when the +powerful shock of the President's assassination comes upon him, and he +flees from the stifling atmosphere and offensive lights and conversation +of the house,— + + "Forth to hiding, receiving night that talks not, +Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, +To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still." +</pre> + <p> + Numerous others of our birds would seem to challenge attention by their + calls and notes. There is the Maryland yellowthroat, for instance, + standing in the door of his bushy tent, and calling out as you approach, + <i>"which way, sir! which way, sir!"</i> If he says this to the ear of + common folk, what would he not say to the poet? One of the peewees says <i>"stay + there!"</i> with great emphasis. The cardinal grosbeak calls out <i>"what + cheer" "what cheer;"</i> " the bluebird says <i>"purity," "purity," + "purity;"</i> the brown thrasher, or ferruginous thrush, according to + Thoreau, calls out to the farmer planting his corn, <i>"drop it," "drop + it," "cover it up," "cover it up"</i> The yellow-breasted chat says <i>"who," + "who"</i> and <i>"tea-boy"</i> What the robin says, caroling that simple + strain from the top of the tall maple, or the crow with his hardy haw-haw, + or the pedestrain meadowlark sounding his piercing and long-drawn note in + the spring meadows, the poets ought to be able to tell us. I only know the + birds all have a language which is very expressive, and which is easily + translatable into the human tongue. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II TOUCHES OF NATURE + </h2> + <p> + I + </p> + <p> + WHEREVER Nature has commissioned one creature to prey upon another, she + has preserved the balance by forewarning that other creature of what she + has done. Nature says to the cat, "Catch the mouse," and she equips her + for that purpose; but on the selfsame day she says to the mouse, "Be wary,—the + cat is watching for you." Nature takes care that none of her creatures + have smooth sailing, the whole voyage at least. Why has she not made the + mosquito noiseless and its bite itchless? Simply because in that case the + odds would be too greatly in its favor. She has taken especial pains to + enable the owl to fly softly and silently, because the creatures it preys + upon are small and wary, and never venture far from their holes. She has + not shown the same caution in the case of the crow, because the crow feeds + on dead flesh, or on grubs and beetles, or fruit and grain, that do not + need to be approached stealthily. The big fish love to cat up the little + fish, and the little fish know it, and, on the very day they are hatched, + seek shallow water, and put little sandbars between themselves and their + too loving parents. + </p> + <p> + How easily a bird's tail, or that of any fowl, or in fact any part of the + plumage, comes out when the hold of its would-be capturer is upon this + alone; and how hard it yields in the dead bird! No doubt there is + relaxation in the former case. Nature says to the pursuer, "Hold on," and + to the pursued, "Let your tail go." What is the tortuous, zigzag course of + those slow-flying moths for but to make it difficult for the birds to snap + them up? The skunk is a slow, witless creature, and the fox and lynx love + its meat; yet it carries a bloodless weapon that neither likes to face. + </p> + <p> + I recently heard of an ingenious method a certain other simple and + slow-going creature has of baffling its enemy. A friend of mine was + walking in the fields when he saw a commotion in the grass a few yards + off. Approaching the spot, he found a snake—the common garter snake—trying + to swallow a lizard. And how do you suppose the lizard was defeating the + benevolent designs of the snake? By simply taking hold of its own tail and + making itself into a hoop. The snake went round and round, and could find + neither beginning nor end. Who was the old giant that found himself + wrestling with Time? This little snake had a tougher customer the other + day in the bit of eternity it was trying to swallow. + </p> + <p> + The snake itself has not the same wit, because I lately saw a black snake + in the woods trying to swallow the garter snake, and he had made some + headway, though the little snake was fighting every inch of the ground, + hooking his tail about sticks and bushes, and pulling back with all his + might, apparently not liking the look of things down there at all. I + thought it well to let him have a good taste of his own doctrines, when I + put my foot down against further proceedings. + </p> + <p> + This arming of one creature against another is often cited as an evidence + of the wisdom of Nature, but it is rather an evidence of her impartiality. + She does not care a fig more for one creature than for another, and is + equally on the side of both, or perhaps it would be better to say she does + not care a fig for either. Every creature must take its chances, and man + is no exception. We can ride if we know how and are going her way, or we + can be run over if we fall or make a mistake. Nature does not care whether + the hunter slay the beast or the beast the hunter; she will make good + compost of them both, and her ends are prospered whichever succeeds. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "If the red slayer think he slays, + Or if the slain think he is slain, + They know not well the subtle ways + I keep, and pass, and turn again." +</pre> + <p> + What is the end of Nature? Where is the end of a sphere? The sphere + balances at any and every point. So everything in Nature is at the top, + and yet no <i>one</i> thing is at the top. + </p> + <p> + She works with reference to no measure of time, no limit of space, and + with an abundance of material, not expressed by exhaustless. Did you think + Niagara a great exhibition of power? What is that, then, that withdraws + noiseless and invisible in the ground about, and of which Niagara is but + the lifting of the finger? + </p> + <p> + Nature is thoroughly selfish, and looks only to her own ends. One thing + she is bent upon, and that is keeping up the supply, multiplying endlessly + and scattering as she multiplies. Did Nature have in view our delectation + when she made the apple, the peach, the plum, the cherry? Undoubtedly; but + only as a means to her own private ends. What a bribe or a wage is the + pulp of these delicacies to all creatures to come and sow their seed! And + Nature has taken care to make the seed indigestible, so that, though the + fruit be eaten, the germ is not, but only planted. + </p> + <p> + God made the crab, but man made the pippin; but the pippin cannot + propagate itself, and exists only by violence and usurpation. Bacon says, + "It is easier to deceive Nature than to force her," but it seems to me the + nurserymen really force her. They cut off the head of a savage and clap on + the head of a fine gentleman, and the crab becomes a Swaar or a Baldwin. + Or is it a kind of deception practiced upon Nature, which succeeds only by + being carefully concealed? If we could play the same tricks upon her in + the human species, how the great geniuses could be preserved and + propagated, and the world stocked with them! But what a frightful + condition of things that would be! No new men, but a tiresome and endless + repetition of the old ones,—a world perpetually stocked with Newtons + and Shakespeares! + </p> + <p> + We say Nature knows best, and has adapted this or that to our wants or to + our constitution,—sound to the ear, light and color to the eye; but + she has not done any such thing, but has adapted man to these things. The + physical cosmos is the mould, and man is the molten metal that is poured + into it. The light fashioned the eye, the laws of sound made the ear; in + fact, man is the outcome of Nature and not the reverse. Creatures that + live forever in the dark have no eyes; and would not any one of our senses + perish and be shed, as it were, in a world where it could not be used? + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + It is well to let down our metropolitan pride a little. Man thinks himself + at the top, and that the immense display and prodigality of Nature are for + him. But they are no more for him than they are for the birds and beasts, + and he is no more at the top than they are. He appeared upon the stage + when the play had advanced to a certain point, and he will disappear from + the stage when the play has reached another point, and the great drama + will go on without him. The geological ages, the convulsions and + parturition throes of the globe, were to bring him forth no more than the + beetles. Is not all this wealth of the seasons, these solar and sidereal + influences, this depth and vitality and internal fire, these seas, and + rivers, and oceans, and atmospheric currents, as necessary to the life of + the ants and worms we tread under foot as to our own? And does the sun + shine for me any more than for yon butterfly? What I mean to say is, we + cannot put our finger upon this or that and say, Here is the end of + Nature. The Infinite cannot be measured. The plan of Nature is so immense,—but + she has no plan, no scheme, but to go on and on forever. What is size, + what is time, distance, to the Infinite? Nothing. The Infinite knows no + time, no space, no great, no small, no beginning, no end. + </p> + <p> + I sometimes think that the earth and the worlds are a kind of nervous + ganglia in an organization of which we can form no conception, or less + even than that. If one of the globules of blood that circulate in our + veins were magnified enough million times, we might see a globe teeming + with life and power. Such is this earth of ours, coursing in the veins of + the Infinite. Size is only relative, and the imagination finds no end to + the series either way. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Looking out of the car window one day, I saw the pretty and unusual sight + of an eagle sitting upon the ice in the river, surrounded by half a dozen + or more crows. The crows appeared as if looking up to the noble bird and + attending his movements. "Are those its young?" asked a gentleman by my + side. How much did that man know—not about eagles, but about Nature? + If he had been familiar with geese or hens, or with donkeys, he would not + have asked that question. The ancients had an axiom that he who knew one + truth knew all truths; so much else becomes knowable when one vital fact + is thoroughly known. You have a key, a standard, and cannot be deceived. + Chemistry, geology, astronomy, natural history, all admit one to the same + measureless interiors. + </p> + <p> + I heard a great man say that he could see how much of the theology of the + day would fall before the standard of him who had got even the insects. + And let any one set about studying these creatures carefully, and he will + see the force of the remark. We learn the tremendous doctrine of + metamorphosis from the insect world; and have not the bee and the ant + taught man wisdom from the first? I was highly edified the past summer by + observing the ways and doings of a colony of black hornets that + established themselves under one of the projecting gables of my house. + This hornet has the reputation of being a very ugly customer, but I found + it no trouble to live on the most friendly terms with her. She was as + little disposed to quarrel as I was. She is indeed the eagle among + hornets, and very noble and dignified in her bearing. She used to come + freely into the house and prey upon the flies. You would hear that deep, + mellow hum, and see the black falcon poising on wing, or striking here and + there at the flies, that scattered on her approach like chickens before a + hawk. When she had caught one, she would alight upon some object and + proceed to dress and draw her game. The wings were sheared off, the legs + cut away, the bristles trimmed, then the body thoroughly bruised and + broken. When the work was completed, the fly was rolled up into a small + pellet, and with it under her arm the hornet flew to her nest, where no + doubt in due time it was properly served up on the royal board. Every + dinner inside these paper walls is a state dinner, for the queen is always + present. + </p> + <p> + I used to mount the ladder to within two or three feet of the nest and + observe the proceedings. I at first thought the workshop must be inside,—a + place where the pulp was mixed, and perhaps treated with chemicals; for + each hornet, when she came with her burden of materials, passed into the + nest, and then, after a few moments, emerged again and crawled to the + place of building. But I one day stopped up the entrance with some cotton, + when no one happened to be on guard, and then observed that, when the + loaded hornet could not get inside, she, after some deliberation, + proceeded to the unfinished part and went forward with her work. Hence I + inferred that maybe the hornet went inside to report and to receive + orders, or possibly to surrender her material into fresh hands. Her career + when away from the nest is beset with dangers; the colony is never large, + and the safe return of every hornet is no doubt a matter of solicitude to + the royal mother. + </p> + <p> + The hornet was the first paper-maker, and holds the original patent. The + paper it makes is about like that of the newspaper; nearly as firm, and + made of essentially the same material,—woody fibres scraped from old + rails and boards. And there is news on it, too, if one could make out the + characters. + </p> + <p> + When I stopped the entrance with cotton, there was no commotion or + excitement, as there would have been in the case of yellow-jackets. Those + outside went to pulling, and those inside went to pushing and chewing. + Only once did one of the outsiders come down and look me suspiciously in + the face, and inquire very plainly what my business might be up there. I + bowed my head, being at the top of a twenty-foot ladder, and had nothing + to say. + </p> + <p> + The cotton was chewed and moistened about the edges till every fibre was + loosened, when the mass dropped. But instantly the entrance was made + smaller, and changed so as to make the feat of stopping it more difficult. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + There are those who look at Nature from the standpoint of conventional and + artificial life,—from parlor windows and through gilt-edged poems,—the + sentimentalists. At the other extreme are those who do not look at Nature + at all, but are a grown part of her, and look away from her toward the + other class,—the backwoodsmen and pioneers, and all rude and simple + persons. Then there are those in whom the two are united or merged,—the + great poets and artists. In them the sentimentalist is corrected and + cured, and the hairy and taciturn frontiersman has had experience to some + purpose. The true poet knows more about Nature than the naturalist because + he carries her open secrets in his heart. Eckermann could instruct Goethe + in ornithology, but could not Goethe instruct Eckermann in the meaning and + mystery of the bird? It is my privilege to number among my friends a man + who has passed his life in cities amid the throngs of men, who never goes + to the woods or to the country, or hunts or fishes, and yet he is the true + naturalist. I think he studies the orbs. I think day and night and the + stars, and the faces of men and women, have taught him all there is worth + knowing. + </p> + <p> + We run to Nature because we are afraid of man. Our artists paint the + landscape because they cannot paint the human face. If we could look into + the eyes of a man as coolly as we can into the eyes of an animal, the + products of our pens and brushes would be quite different from what they + are. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + But I suspect, after all, it makes but little difference to which school + you go, whether to the woods or to the city. A sincere man learns pretty + much the same things in both places. The differences are superficial, the + resemblances deep and many. The hermit is a hermit, and the poet a poet, + whether he grow up in the town or the country. I was forcibly reminded of + this fact recently on opening the works of Charles Lamb after I had been + reading those of our Henry Thoreau. Lamb cared nothing for nature, Thoreau + for little else. One was as attached to the city and the life of the + street and tavern as the other to the country and the life of animals and + plants. Yet they are close akin. They give out the same tone and are + pitched in about the same key. Their methods are the same; so are their + quaintness and scorn of rhetoric. Thoreau has the drier humor, as might be + expected, and is less stomachic. There is more juice and unction in Lamb, + but this he owes to his nationality. Both are essayists who in a less + reflective age would have been poets pure and simple. Both were spare, + high-nosed men, and I fancy a resemblance even in their portraits. Thoreau + is the Lamb of New England fields and woods, and Lamb is the Thoreau of + London streets and clubs. There was a willfulness and perversity about + Thoreau, behind which he concealed his shyness and his thin skin, and + there was a similar foil in Lamb, though less marked, on account of his + good-nature; that was a part of his armor, too. + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + Speaking of Thoreau's dry humor reminds me how surely the old English + unctuous and sympathetic humor is dying out or has died out of our + literature. Our first notable crop of authors had it,—Paulding, + Cooper, Irving, and in a measure Hawthorne,—but our later humorists + have it not at all, but in its stead an intellectual quickness and + perception of the ludicrous that is not unmixed with scorn. + </p> + <p> + One of the marks of the great humorist, like Cervantes, or Sterne, or + Scott, is that he approaches his subject, not through his head merely, but + through his heart, his love, his humanity. His humor is full of + compassion, full of the milk of human kindness, and does not separate him + from his subject, but unites him to it by vital ties. How Sterne loved + Uncle Toby and sympathized with him, and Cervantes his luckless knight! I + fear our humorists would have made fun of them, would have shown them up + and stood aloof superior, and "laughed a laugh of merry scorn." Whatever + else the great humorist or poet, or any artist, may be or do, there is no + contempt in his laughter. And this point cannot be too strongly insisted + on in view of the fact that nearly all our humorous writers seem impressed + with the conviction that their own dignity and self-respect require them + to <i>look down</i> upon what they portray. But it is only little men who + look down upon anything or speak down to anybody. One sees every day how + clear it is that specially fine, delicate, intellectual persons cannot + portray satisfactorily coarse, common, uncultured characters. Their + attitude is at once scornful and supercilious. The great man, like + Socrates, or Dr. Johnson, or Abraham Lincoln, is just as surely coarse as + he is fine, but the complaint I make with our humorists is that they are + fine and not coarse in any healthful and manly sense. A great part of the + best literature and the best art is of the vital fluids, the bowels, the + chest, the appetites, and is to be read and judged only through love and + compassion. Let us pray for unction, which is the marrowfat of humor, and + for humility, which is the badge of manhood. + </p> + <p> + As the voice of the American has retreated from his chest to his throat + and nasal passages, so there is danger that his contribution to literature + will soon cease to imply any blood or viscera, or healthful carnality, or + depth of human and manly affection, and will be the fruit entirely of our + toploftical brilliancy and cleverness. + </p> + <p> + What I complain of is just as true of the essayists and the critics as of + the novelists. The prevailing tone here also is born of a feeling of + immense superiority. How our lofty young men, for instance, look down upon + Carlyle, and administer their masterly rebukes to him! But see how Carlyle + treats Burns, or Scott, or Johnson, or Novalis, or any of his heroes. Ay, + there's the rub; he makes heroes of them, which is not a trick of small + natures. He can say of Johnson that he was "moonstruck," but it is from no + lofty height of fancied superiority, but he uses the word as a naturalist + uses a term to describe an object he loves. + </p> + <p> + What we want, and perhaps have got more of than I am ready to admit, is a + race of writers who affiliate with their subjects, and enter into them + through their blood, their sexuality and manliness, instead of standing + apart and criticising them and writing about them through mere + intellectual cleverness and "smartness." + </p> + <p> + VII + </p> + <p> + There is a feeling in heroic poetry, or in a burst of eloquence, that I + sometimes catch in quite different fields. I caught it this morning, for + instance, when I saw the belated trains go by, and knew how they had been + battling with storm, darkness, and distance, and had triumphed. They were + due at my place in the night, but did not pass till after eight o'clock in + the morning. Two trains coupled together,—the fast mail and the + express,—making an immense line of coaches hauled by two engines. + They had come from the West, and were all covered with snow and ice, like + soldiers with the dust of battle upon them. They had massed their forces, + and were now moving with augmented speed, and with a resolution that was + epic and grand. Talk about the railroad dispelling the romance from the + landscape; if it does, it brings the heroic element in. The moving train + is a proud spectacle, especially on stormy and tempestuous nights. When I + look out and see its light, steady and unflickering as the planets, and + hear the roar of its advancing tread, or its sound diminishing in the + distance, I am comforted and made stout of heart. O night, where is thy + stay! O space, where is thy victory! Or to see the fast mail pass in the + morning is as good as a page of Homer. It quickens one's pulse for all + day. It is the Ajax of trains. I hear its defiant, warning whistle, hear + it thunder over the bridges, and its sharp, rushing ring among the rocks, + and in the winter mornings see its glancing, meteoric lights, or in summer + its white form bursting through the silence and the shadows, its plume of + smoke lying flat upon its roofs and stretching far behind,—a sight + better than a battle. It is something of the same feeling one has in + witnessing any wild, free careering in storms, and in floods in nature; or + in beholding the charge of an army; or in listening to an eloquent man, or + to a hundred instruments of music in full blast,—it is triumph, + victory. What is eloquence but mass in motion,—a flood, a cataract, + an express train, a cavalry charge? We are literally carried away, swept + from our feet, and recover our senses again as best we can. + </p> + <p> + I experienced the same emotion when I saw them go by with the sunken + steamer. The procession moved slowly and solemnly. It was like a funeral + cortege,—a long line of grim floats and barges and boxes, with their + bowed and solemn derricks, the pall-bearers; and underneath in her watery + grave, where she had been for six months, the sunken steamer, partially + lifted and borne along. Next day the procession went back again, and the + spectacle was still more eloquent. The steamer had been taken to the flats + above and raised till her walking-beam was out of water; her bell also was + exposed and cleaned and rung, and the wreckers' Herculean labor seemed + nearly over. But that night the winds and the storms held high carnival. + It looked like preconcerted action on the part of tide, tempest, and rain + to defeat these wreckers, for the elements all pulled together and pulled + till cables and hawser snapped like threads. Back the procession started, + anchors were dragged or lost, immense new cables were quickly taken ashore + and fastened to trees; but no use: trees were upturned, the cables + stretched till they grew small and sang like harp-strings, then parted; + back, back against the desperate efforts of the men, till within a few + feet of her old grave, when there was a great commotion among the craft, + floats were overturned, enormous chains parted, colossal timbers were + snapped like pipestems, and, with a sound that filled all the air, the + steamer plunged to the bottom again in seventy feet of water. + </p> + <p> + VIII + </p> + <p> + I am glad to observe that all the poetry of the midsummer harvesting has + not gone out with the scythe and the whetstone. The line of mowers was a + pretty sight, if one did not sympathize too deeply with the human backs + turned up there to the sun, and the sound of the whetstone, coming up from + the meadows in the dewy morning, was pleasant music. But I find the sound + of the mowing-machine and the patent reaper is even more in tune with the + voices of Nature at this season. The characteristic sounds of midsummer + are the sharp, whirring crescendo of the cicada or harvest fly, and the + rasping, stridulous notes of the nocturnal insects. The mowing-machine + repeats and imitates these sounds. 'T is like the hum of a locust or the + shuffling of a mighty grasshopper. More than that, the grass and the grain + at this season have become hard. The timothy stalk is like a file; the rye + straw is glazed with flint; the grasshoppers snap sharply as they fly up + in front of you; the bird-songs have ceased; the ground crackles under + foot; the eye of day is brassy and merciless; and in harmony with all + these things is the rattle of the mower and the hay-tedder. + </p> + <p> + IX + </p> + <p> + 'T is an evidence of how directly we are related to Nature, that we more + or less sympathize with the weather, and take on the color of the day. + Goethe said he worked easiest on a high barometer. One is like a chimney + that draws well some days and won't draw at all on others, and the secret + is mainly in the condition of the atmosphere. Anything positive and + decided with the weather is a good omen. A pouring rain may be more + auspicious than a sleeping sunshine. When the stove draws well, the fogs + and fumes will leave your mind. I find there is great virtue in the bare + ground, and have been much put out at times by those white angelic days we + have in winter, such as Whittier has so well described in these lines:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Around the glistening wonder bent + The blue walls of the firmament; + No cloud above, no earth below, + A universe of sky and snow." +</pre> + <p> + On such days my spirit gets snow-blind; all things take on the same color, + or no color; my thought loses its perspective; the inner world is a blank + like the outer, and all my great ideals are wrapped in the same monotonous + and expressionless commonplace. The blackest of black days are better. + </p> + <p> + Why does snow so kill the landscape and blot out our interest in it? Not + merely because it is cold, and the symbol of death,—for I imagine as + many inches of apple blossoms would have about the same effect,—but + because it expresses nothing. White is a negative; a perfect blank. The + eye was made for color, and for the earthy tints, and, when these are + denied it, the mind is very apt to sympathize and to suffer also. + </p> + <p> + Then when the sap begins to mount in the trees, and the spring languor + comes, does not one grow restless indoors? The sun puts out the fire, the + people say, and the spring sun certainly makes one's intellectual light + grow dim. Why should not a man sympathize with the seasons and the moods + and phases of Nature? He is an apple upon this tree, or rather he is a + babe at this breast, and what his great mother feels affects him also. + </p> + <p> + X + </p> + <p> + I have frequently been surprised, in late fall and early winter, to see + how unequal or irregular was the encroachment of the frost upon the earth. + If there is suddenly a great fall in the mercury, the frost lays siege to + the soil and effects a lodgment here and there, and extends its conquests + gradually. At one place in the field you can easily run your staff through + into the soft ground, when a few rods farther on it will be as hard as a + rock. A little covering of dry grass or leaves is a great protection. The + moist places hold out long, and the spring runs never freeze. You find the + frost has gone several inches into the plowed ground, but on going to the + woods, and poking away the leaves and debris under the hemlocks and + cedars, you find there is no frost at all. The Earth freezes her ears and + toes and naked places first, and her body last. + </p> + <p> + If heat were visible, or if we should represent it say by smoke, then the + December landscape would present a curious spectacle. We should see the + smoke lying low over the meadows, thickest in the hollows and moist + places, and where the turf is oldest and densest. It would cling to the + fences and ravines. Under every evergreen tree we should see the vapor + rising and filling the branches, while the woods of pine and hemlock would + be blue with it long after it had disappeared from the open country. It + would rise from the tops of the trees, and be carried this way and that + with the wind. The valleys of the great rivers, like the Hudson, would + overflow with it. Large bodies of water become regular magazines in which + heat is stored during the summer, and they give it out again during the + fall and early winter. The early frosts keep well back from the Hudson, + skulking behind the ridges, and hardly come over in sight at any point. + But they grow bold as the season advances, till the river's fires, too, I + are put out and Winter covers it with his snows. + </p> + <p> + XI + </p> + <p> + One of the strong and original strokes of Nature was when she made the + loon. It is always refreshing to contemplate a creature so positive and + characteristic. He is the great diver and flyer under water. The loon is + the genius loci of the wild northern lakes, as solitary as they are. Some + birds represent the majesty of nature, like the eagles; others its + ferocity, like the hawks; others its cunning, like the crow; others its + sweetness and melody, like the song-birds. The loon represents its + wildness and solitariness. It is cousin to the beaver. It has the feathers + of a bird and the fur of an animal, and the heart of both. It is as quick + and cunning as it is bold and resolute. It dives with such marvelous + quickness that the shot of the gunner get there just in time "to cut + across a circle of descending tail feathers and a couple of little jets of + water flung upward by the web feet of the loon." When disabled so that it + can neither dive nor fly, it is said to face its foe, look him in the face + with its clear, piercing eye, and fight resolutely till death. The gunners + say there is something in its wailing, piteous cry, when dying, almost + human in its agony. The loon is, in the strictest sense, an aquatic fowl. + It can barely walk upon the land, and one species at least cannot take + flight from the shore. But in the water its feet are more than feet, and + its wings more than wings. It plunges into this denser air and flies with + incredible speed. Its head and beak form a sharp point to its tapering + neck. Its wings are far in front and its legs equally far in the rear, and + its course through the crystal depths is like the speed of an arrow. In + the northern lakes it has been taken forty feet under water upon hooks + baited for the great lake trout. I had never seen one till last fall, when + one appeared on the river in front of my house. I knew instantly it was + the loon. Who could not tell a loon a half mile or more away, though he + had never seen one before? The river was like glass, and every movement of + the bird as it sported about broke the surface into ripples, that revealed + it far and wide. Presently a boat shot out from shore, and went ripping up + the surface toward the loon. The creature at once seemed to divine the + intentions of the boatman, and sidled off obliquely, keeping a sharp + lookout as if to make sure it was pursued. A steamer came down and passed + between them, and when the way was again clear, the loon was still + swimming on the surface. Presently it disappeared under the water, and the + boatman pulled sharp and hard. In a few moments the bird reappeared some + rods farther on, as if to make an observation. Seeing it was being + pursued, and no mistake, it dived quickly, and, when it came up again, had + gone many times as far as the boat had in the same space of time. Then it + dived again, and distanced its pursuer so easily that he gave over the + chase and rested upon his oars. But the bird made a final plunge, and, + when it emerged upon the surface again, it was over a mile away. Its + course must have been, and doubtless was, an actual flight under water, + and half as fast as the crow flies in the air. + </p> + <p> + The loon would have delighted the old poets. Its wild, demoniac laughter + awakens the echoes on the solitary lakes, and its ferity and hardiness are + kindred to those robust spirits. + </p> + <p> + XII + </p> + <p> + One notable difference between man and the four-footed animals which has + often occurred to me is in the eye, and the greater perfection, or rather + supremacy, of the sense of sight in the human species. All the animals—the + dog, the fox, the wolf, the deer, the cow, the horse—depend mainly + upon the senses of hearing and smell. Almost their entire powers of + discrimination are confined to these two senses. The dog picks his master + out of the crowd by smell, and the cow her calf out of the herd. Sight is + only partial recognition. The question can only be settled beyond all + doubt by the aid of the nose. The fox, alert and cunning as he is, will + pass within a few yards of the hunter and not know him from a stump. A + squirrel will run across your lap, and a marmot between your feet, if you + are motionless. When a herd of cattle see a strange object, they are not + satisfied till each one has sniffed it; and the horse is cured of his + fright at the robe, or the meal-bag, or other object, as soon as he can be + induced to smell it. There is a great deal of speculation in the eye of an + animal, but very little science. Then you cannot catch an animal's eye; he + looks at you, but not into your eye. The dog directs his gaze toward your + face, but, for aught you can tell, it centres upon your mouth or nose. The + same with your horse or cow. Their eye is vague and indefinite. + </p> + <p> + Not so with the birds. The bird has the human eye in its clearness, its + power, and its supremacy over the other senses. How acute their sense of + smell may be is uncertain; their hearing is sharp enough, but their vision + is the most remarkable. A crow or a hawk, or any of the larger birds, will + not mistake you for a stump or a rock, stand you never so still amid the + bushes. But they cannot separate you from your horse or team. A hawk reads + a man on horseback as one animal, and reads it as a horse. None of the + sharp-scented animals could be thus deceived. + </p> + <p> + The bird has man's brain also in its size. The brain of a song-bird is + even much larger in proportion than that of the greatest human monarch, + and its life is correspondingly intense and high-strung. But the bird's + eye is superficial. It is on the outside of his head. It is round, that it + may take in a full circle at a glance. + </p> + <p> + All the quadrupeds emphasize their direct forward gaze by a corresponding + movement of the ears, as if to supplement and aid one sense with another. + But man's eye seldom needs the confirmation of his ear, while it is so + set, and his head so poised, that his look is forcible and pointed without + being thus seconded. + </p> + <p> + XIII + </p> + <p> + I once saw a cow that had lost her cud. How forlorn and desolate and sick + at heart that cow looked! No more rumination, no more of that second and + finer mastication, no more of that sweet and juicy reverie under the + spreading trees, or in the stall. Then the farmer took an elder and + scraped the bark and put something with it, and made the cow a cud, and, + after due waiting, the experiment took, a response came back, and the + mysterious machinery was once more in motion, and the cow was herself + again. + </p> + <p> + Have you, O poet, or essayist, or story-writer, never lost your cud, and + wandered about days and weeks without being able to start a single thought + or an image that tasted good,—your literary appetite dull or all + gone, and the conviction daily growing that it was all over with you in + that direction? A little elder-bark, something fresh and bitter from the + woods, is about the best thing you can take. + </p> + <p> + XIV + </p> + <p> + Notwithstanding what I have elsewhere said about the desolation of snow, + when one looks closely it is little more than a thin veil after all, and + takes and repeats the form of whatever it covers. Every path through the + fields is just as plain as before. On every hand the ground sends tokens, + and the curves and slopes are not of the snow, but of the earth beneath. + In like manner the rankest vegetation hides the ground less than we think. + Looking across a wide valley in the month of July, I have noted that the + fields, except the meadows, had a ruddy tinge, and that corn, which near + at hand seemed to completely envelop the soil, at that distance gave only + a slight shade of green. The color of the ground everywhere predominated, + and I doubt not that, if we could see the earth from a point sufficiently + removed, as from the moon, its ruddy hue, like that of Mars, would alone + be visible. + </p> + <p> + What is a man but a miniature earth, with many disguises in the way of + manners, possessions, dissemblances? Yet through all—through all the + work of his hands and all the thoughts of his mind—how surely the + ground quality of him, the fundamental hue, whether it be this or that, + makes itself felt and is alone important! + </p> + <p> + XV + </p> + <p> + Men follow their noses, it is said. I have wondered why the Greek did not + follow his nose in architecture,—did not copy those arches that + spring from it as from a pier, and support his brow,—but always and + everywhere used the post and the lintel. There was something in that face + that has never reappeared in the human countenance. I am thinking + especially of that straight, strong profile. Is it really godlike, or is + this impression the result of association? But any suggestion or + reminiscence of it in the modern face at once gives one the idea of + strength. It is a face strong in the loins, or it suggests a high, elastic + instep. It is the face of order and proportion. Those arches are the + symbols of law and self-control. The point of greatest interest is the + union of the nose with the brow,—that strong, high embankment; it + makes the bridge from the ideal to the real sure and easy. All the Greek's + ideas passed readily into form. In the modern face the arches are more or + less crushed, and the nose is severed from the brow,—hence the + abstract and the analytic; hence the preponderance of the speculative + intellect over creative power. + </p> + <p> + XVI + </p> + <p> + I have thought that the boy is the only true lover of Nature, and that we, + who make such a dead set at studying and admiring her, come very wide of + the mark. "The nonchalance of a boy who is sure of his dinner," says our + Emerson, "is the healthy attitude of humanity." The boy is a part of + Nature; he is as indifferent, as careless, as vagrant as she. He browses, + he digs, he hunts, he climbs, he halloes, he feeds on roots and greens and + mast. He uses things roughly and without sentiment. The coolness with + which boys will drown dogs or cats, or hang them to trees, or murder young + birds, or torture frogs or squirrels, is like Nature's own mercilessness. + </p> + <p> + Certain it is that we often get some of the best touches of nature from + children. Childhood is a world by itself, and we listen to children when + they frankly speak out of it with a strange interest. There is such a + freedom from responsibility and from worldly wisdom,—it is heavenly + wisdom. There is no sentiment in children, because there is no ruin; + nothing has gone to decay about them yet,—not a leaf or a twig. + Until he is well into his teens, and sometimes later, a boy is like a + bean-pod before the fruit has developed,—indefinite, succulent, rich + in possibilities which are only vaguely outlined. He is a pericarp merely. + How rudimental are all his ideas! I knew a boy who began his school + composition on swallows by saying there were two kinds of swallows,—chimney + swallows and swallows. + </p> + <p> + Girls come to themselves sooner; are indeed, from the first, more definite + and "translatable." + </p> + <p> + XVII + </p> + <p> + Who will write the natural history of the boy? One of the first points to + be taken account of is his clannishness. The boys of one neighborhood are + always pitted against those of an adjoining neighborhood, or of one end of + the town against those of the other end. A bridge, a river, a railroad + track, are always boundaries of hostile or semi-hostile tribes. The boys + that go up the road from the country school hoot derisively at those that + go down the road, and not infrequently add the insult of stones; and the + down-roaders return the hooting and the missiles with interest. + </p> + <p> + Often there is open war, and the boys meet and have regular battles. A few + years since, the boys of two rival towns on opposite sides of the Ohio + River became so belligerent that the authorities had to interfere. + Whenever an Ohio boy was caught on the West Virginia side of the river, he + was unmercifully beaten; and when a West Virginia boy was discovered on + the Ohio side, he was pounced upon in the same manner. One day a vast + number of boys, about one hundred and fifty on a side, met by appointment + upon the ice and engaged in a pitched battle. Every conceivable missile + was used, including pistols. The battle, says the local paper, raged with + fury for about two hours. One boy received a wound behind the ear, from + the effects of which he died the next morning. More recently the boys of a + large manufacturing town of New Jersey were divided into two hostile clans + that came into frequent collision. One Saturday both sides mustered their + forces, and a regular fight ensued, one boy here also losing his life from + the encounter. + </p> + <p> + Every village and settlement is at times the scene of these youthful + collisions When a new boy appears in the village, or at the country + school, how the other boys crowd around him and take his measure, or pick + at him and insult him to try his mettle! + </p> + <p> + I knew a boy, twelve or thirteen years old, who was sent to help a drover + with some cattle as far as a certain village ten miles from his home. + After the place was reached, and while the boy was eating his cracker and + candies, he strolled about the village, and fell in with some other boys + playing upon a bridge. In a short time a large number of children of all + sizes had collected upon the bridge. The new-comer was presently + challenged by the boys of his own age to jump with them. This he readily + did, and cleared their farthest mark. Then he gave them a sample of his + stone-throwing, and at this pastime he also far surpassed his competitors. + Before long, the feeling of the crowd began to set against him, showing + itself first in the smaller fry, who began half playfully to throw pebbles + and lumps of dry earth at him. Then they would run up slyly and strike him + with sticks. Presently the large ones began to tease him in like manner, + till the contagion of hostility spread, and the whole pack was arrayed + against the strange boy. He kept them at bay for a few moments with his + stick, till, the feeling mounting higher and higher, he broke through + their ranks, and fled precipitately toward home, with the throng of little + and big at his heels. Gradually the girls and smaller boys dropped behind, + till at the end of the first fifty rods only two boys of about his own + size, with wrath and determination in their faces, kept up the pursuit. + But to these he added the final insult of beating them at running also, + and reached, much blown, a point beyond which they refused to follow. + </p> + <p> + The world the boy lives in is separate and distinct from the world the man + lives in. It is a world inhabited only by boys. No events are important or + of any moment save those affecting boys. How they ignore the presence of + their elders on the street, shouting out their invitations, their + appointments, their pass-words from our midst, as from the veriest + solitude! They have peculiar calls, whistles, signals, by which they + communicate with each other at long distances, like birds or wild + creatures. And there is as genuine a wildness about these notes and calls + as about those of a fox or a coon. + </p> + <p> + The boy is a savage, a barbarian, in his taste,—devouring roots, + leaves, bark, unripe fruit; and in the kind of music or discord he + delights in,—of harmony he has no perception. He has his fashions + that spread from city to city. In one of our large cities the rage at one + time was an old tin can with a string attached, out of which they tortured + the most savage and ear-splitting discords. The police were obliged to + interfere and suppress the nuisance. On another occasion, at Christmas, + they all came forth with tin horns, and nearly drove the town distracted + with the hideous uproar. + </p> + <p> + Another savage trait of the boy is his untruthfulness. Corner him, and the + chances are ten to one he will lie his way out. Conscience is a plant of + slow growth in the boy. If caught in one lie, he invents another. I know a + boy who was in the habit of eating apples in school. His teacher finally + caught him in the act, and, without removing his eye from him, called him + to the middle of the floor. + </p> + <p> + "I saw you this time," said the teacher. + </p> + <p> + "Saw me what?" said the boy innocently. + </p> + <p> + "Bite that apple," replied the teacher. + </p> + <p> + "No, sir," said the rascal. + </p> + <p> + "Open your mouth;" and from its depths the teacher, with his thumb and + finger, took out the piece of apple. + </p> + <p> + "Did n't know it was there," said the boy, unabashed. + </p> + <p> + Nearly all the moral sentiment and graces are late in maturing in the boy. + He has no proper self-respect till past his majority. Of course there are + exceptions, but they are mostly windfalls. The good boys die young. We + lament the wickedness and thoughtlessness of the young vagabonds at the + same time that we know it is mainly the acridity and bitterness of the + unripe fruit that we are lamenting. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III A BIRD MEDLEY + </h2> + <p> + People who have not made friends with the birds do not know how much they + miss. Especially to one living in the country, of strong local attachments + and an observing turn of mind, does an acquaintance with the birds form a + close and invaluable tie. The only time I saw Thomas Carlyle, I remember + his relating, apropos of this subject, that in his earlier days he was + sent on a journey to a distant town on some business that gave him much + bother and vexation, and that on his way back home, forlorn and dejected, + he suddenly heard the larks singing all about him,—soaring and + singing, just as they did about his father's fields, and it comforted him + and cheered him up amazingly. + </p> + <p> + Most lovers of the birds can doubtless recall similar experiences from + their own lives. Nothing wonts me to a new place more than the birds. I + go, for instance, to take up my abode in the country,—to plant + myself upon unfamiliar ground. I know nobody, and nobody knows me. The + roads, the fields, the hills, the streams, the woods, are all strange. I + look wistfully upon them, but they know me not. They give back nothing to + my yearning gaze. But there, on every hand, are the long-familiar birds,—the + same ones I left behind me, the same ones I knew in my youth,—robins, + sparrows, swallows, bobolinks, crows, hawks, high-holes, meadowlarks, all + there before me, and ready to renew and perpetuate the old associations. + Before my house is begun, theirs is completed; before I have taken root at + all, they are thoroughly established. I do not yet know what kind of + apples my apple-trees bear, but there, in the cavity of a decayed limb, + the bluebirds are building a nest, and yonder, on that branch, the social + sparrow is busy with hairs and straws. The robins have tasted the quality + of my cherries, and the cedar-birds have known every red cedar on the + place these many years. While my house is yet surrounded by its + scaffoldings, the phoebe-bird has built her exquisite mossy nest on a + projecting stone beneath the eaves, a robin has filled a niche in the wall + with mud and dry grass, the chimney swallows are going out and in the + chimney, and a pair of house wrens are at home in a snug cavity over the + door, and, during an April snowstorm, a number of hermit thrushes have + taken shelter in my unfinished chambers. Indeed, I am in the midst of + friends before I fairly know it. The place is not so new as I had thought. + It is already old; the birds have supplied the memories of many decades of + years. + </p> + <p> + There is something almost pathetic in the fact that the birds remain + forever the same. You grow old, your friends die or move to distant lands, + events sweep on, and all things are changed. Yet there in your garden or + orchard are the birds of your boyhood, the same notes, the same calls, + and, to all intents and purposes, the identical birds endowed with + perennial youth. The swallows, that built so far out of your reach beneath + the eaves of your father's barn, the same ones now squeak and chatter + beneath the eaves of your barn. The warblers and shy wood-birds you + pursued with such glee ever so many summers ago, and whose names you + taught to some beloved youth who now, perchance, sleeps amid his native + hills, no marks of time or change cling to them; and when you walk out to + the strange woods, there they are, mocking you with their ever-renewed and + joyous youth. The call of the high-holes, the whistle of the quail, the + strong piercing note of the meadowlark, the drumming of the grouse,—how + these sounds ignore the years, and strike on the ear with the melody of + that springtime when the world was young, and life was all holiday and + romance! + </p> + <p> + During any unusual tension of the feelings or emotions, how the note or + song of a single bird will sink into the memory, and become inseparably + associated with your grief or joy! Shall I ever again be able to hear the + song of the oriole without being pierced through and through? Can it ever + be other than a dirge for the dead to me? Day after day, and week after + week, this bird whistled and warbled in a mulberry by the door, while + sorrow, like a pall, darkened my day. So loud and persistent was the + singer that his note teased and worried my excited ear. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Hearken to yon pine warbler, + Singing aloft in the tree! + Hearest thou, O traveler! + What he singeth to me? + + "Not unless God made sharp thine ear + With sorrow such as mine, + Out of that delicate lay couldst thou + Its heavy tale divine." +</pre> + <p> + It is the opinion of some naturalists that birds never die what is called + a natural death, but come to their end by some murderous or accidental + means; yet I have found sparrows and vireos in the fields and woods dead + or dying, that bore no marks of violence; and I remember that once in my + childhood a redbird fell down in the yard exhausted, and was brought in by + the girl; its bright scarlet image is indelibly stamped upon my + recollection. It is not known that birds have any distempers like the + domestic fowls, but I saw a social sparrow one day quite disabled by some + curious malady that suggested a disease that sometimes attacks poultry; + one eye was nearly put out by a scrofulous-looking sore, and on the last + joint of one wing there was a large tumorous or fungous growth that + crippled the bird completely. On another occasion I picked up one that + appeared well, but could not keep its centre of gravity when in flight, + and so fell to the ground. + </p> + <p> + One reason why dead birds and animals are so rarely found is, that on the + approach of death their instinct prompts them to creep away in some hole + or under some cover, where they will be least liable to fall a prey to + their natural enemies. It is doubtful if any of the game-birds, like the + pigeon and grouse, ever die of old age, or the semi-game-birds, like the + bobolink, or the "century living" crow; but in what other form can death + overtake the hummingbird, or even the swift and the barn swallow? Such are + true birds of the air; they may be occasionally lost at sea during their + migrations, but, so far as I know, they are not preyed upon by any other + species. + </p> + <p> + The valley of the Hudson, I find, forms a great natural highway for the + birds, as do doubtless the Connecticut, the Susquehanna, the Delaware, and + all other large water-courses running north and south. The birds love an + easy way, and in the valleys of the rivers they find a road already graded + for them; and they abound more in such places throughout the season than + they do farther inland. The swarms of robins that come to us in early + spring are a delight to behold. In one of his poems Emerson speaks of + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "April's bird, + Blue-coated, flying before from tree to tree;" +</pre> + <p> + but April's bird with me is the robin, brisk, vociferous, musical, dotting + every field, and larking it in every grove; he is as easily atop at this + season as the bobolink is a month or two later. The tints of April are + ruddy and brown,—the new furrow and the leafless trees,—and + these are the tints of its dominant bird. + </p> + <p> + From my dining-room window I look, or did look, out upon a long stretch of + smooth meadow, and as pretty a spring sight as I ever wish to behold was + this field, sprinkled all over with robins, their red breasts turned + toward the morning sun, or their pert forms sharply outlined against + lingering patches of snow. Every morning for weeks I had those robins for + breakfast; but what they had I never could find out. + </p> + <p> + After the leaves are out, and gayer colors come into fashion, the robin + takes a back seat. He goes to housekeeping in the old apple-tree, or, what + he likes better, the cherry-tree. A pair reared their domestic altar (of + mud and dry grass) in one of the latter trees, where I saw much of them. + The cock took it upon himself to keep the tree free of all other robins + during cherry time, and its branches were the scene of some lively tussles + every hour in the day. The innocent visitor would scarcely alight before + the jealous cock was upon him; but while he was thrusting the intruder out + at one side, a second would be coming in on the other. He managed, + however, to protect his cherries very well, but had so little time to eat + the fruit himself that we got fully our share. + </p> + <p> + I have frequently seen the robin courting, and have always been astonished + and amused at the utter coldness and indifference of the female. The + females of every species of bird, however, I believe, have this in common,—they + are absolutely free from coquetry, or any airs and wiles whatever. In most + cases, Nature has given the song and the plumage to the other sex, and all + the embellishing and acting is done by the male bird. + </p> + <p> + I am always at home when I see the passenger pigeon. Few spectacles please + me more than to see clouds of these birds sweeping across the sky, and few + sounds are more agreeable to my ear than their lively piping and calling + in the spring woods. They come in such multitudes, they people the whole + air; they cover townships, and make the solitary places gay as with a + festival. The naked woods are suddenly blue as with fluttering ribbons and + scarfs, and vocal as with the voices of children. Their arrival is always + unexpected. We know April will bring the robins and May the bobolinks, but + we do not know that either they or any other month will bring the + passenger pigeon. Sometimes years elapse and scarcely a flock is seen. + Then, of a sudden, some March or April they come pouring over the horizon + from the south or southwest, and for a few days the land is alive with + them. + </p> + <p> + The whole race seems to be collected in a few vast swarms or assemblages. + Indeed, I have sometimes thought there was only one such in the United + States, and that it moved in squads, and regiments, and brigades, and + divisions, like a giant army. The scouting and foraging squads are not + unusual, and every few years we see larger bodies of them, but rarely + indeed do we witness the spectacle of the whole vast tribe in motion. + Sometimes we hear of them in Virginia, or Kentucky and Tennessee; then in + Ohio or Pennsylvania; then in New York; then in Canada or Michigan or + Missouri. They are followed from point to point, and from State to State, + by human sharks, who catch and shoot them for market. + </p> + <p> + A year ago last April, the pigeons flew for two or three days up and down + the Hudson. In long bowing lines, or else in dense masses, they moved + across the sky. It was not the whole army, but I should think at least one + corps of it; I had not seen such a flight of pigeons since my boyhood. I + went up to the top of the house, the better to behold the winged + procession. The day seemed memorable and poetic in which such sights + occurred. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + [Footnote: This proved to be the last flight of the pigeons + in the valley of the Hudson. The whole tribe has now (1895) + been nearly exterminated by pot-hunters. The few that still + remain appear to be scattered through the Northern States + in small, loose flocks.] +</pre> + <p> + While I was looking at the pigeons, a flock of wild geese went by, + harrowing the sky northward. The geese strike a deeper chord than the + pigeons. Level and straight they go as fate to its mark. I cannot tell + what emotions these migrating birds awaken in me,—the geese + especially. One seldom sees more than a flock or two in a season, and what + a spring token it is! The great bodies are in motion. It is like the + passage of a victorious army. No longer inch by inch does spring come, but + these geese advance the standard across zones at one pull. How my desire + goes with them; how something in me, wild and migratory, plumes itself and + follows fast! + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Steering north, with raucous cry, + Through tracts and provinces of sky, + Every night alighting down + In new landscapes of romance, + Where darkling feed the clamorous clans + By lonely lakes to men unknown." +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Dwelling upon these sights, I am reminded that the seeing of spring +come, not only upon the great wings of the geese and the lesser wings +of the pigeons and birds, but in the many more subtle and indirect +signs and mediums, is also a part of the compensation of living in +the country. I enjoy not less what may be called the negative side of +spring,—those dark, dank, dissolving days, + yellow sposh and mud and water everywhere,—yet who can stay long +indoors? The humidity is soft and satisfying to the smell, and to the +face and hands, and, for the first time for months, there is the fresh +odor of the earth. The air is full of the notes and calls of the first +birds. The domestic fowls refuse their accustomed food and wander far +from the barn. Is it something winter has left, or spring has dropped, +that they pick up? And what is it that holds me so long standing in the +yard or in the fields? Something besides the ice and snow melts and runs +away with the spring floods. +</pre> + <p> + The little sparrows and purple finches are so punctual in announcing + spring, that some seasons one wonders how they know without looking in the + almanac, for surely there are no signs of spring out of doors. Yet they + will strike up as cheerily amid the driving snow as if they had just been + told that to-morrow is the first day of March. About the same time I + notice the potatoes in the cellar show signs of sprouting. They, too, find + out so quickly when spring is near. Spring comes by two routes,—in + the air and underground, and often gets here by the latter course first. + She undermines Winter when outwardly his front is nearly as bold as ever. + I have known the trees to bud long before, by outward appearances, one + would expect them to. The frost was gone from the ground before the snow + was gone from the surface. + </p> + <p> + But Winter hath his birds also; some of them such tiny bodies that one + wonders how they withstand the giant cold,—but they do. Birds live + on highly concentrated food,—the fine seeds of weeds and grasses, + and the eggs and larvae of insects. Such food must be very stimulating and + heating. A gizzard full of ants, for instance, what spiced and seasoned + extract is equal to that? Think what virtue there must be in an ounce of + gnats or mosquitoes, or in the fine mysterious food the chickadee and the + brown creeper gather in the winter woods! It is doubtful if these birds + ever freeze when fuel enough can be had to keep their little furnaces + going. And, as they get their food entirely from the limbs and trunks of + trees, like the woodpeckers, their supply is seldom interfered with by the + snow. The worst annoyance must be the enameling of ice our winter woods + sometimes get. + </p> + <p> + Indeed, the food question seems to be the only serious one with the birds. + Give them plenty to eat, and no doubt the majority of them would face our + winters. I believe all the woodpeckers are winter birds, except the + high-hole or yellow-hammer, and he obtains the greater part of his + subsistence from the ground, and is not a woodpecker at all in his habits + of feeding. Were it not that it has recourse to budding, the ruffed grouse + would be obliged to migrate. The quail—a bird, no doubt, equally + hardy, but whose food is at the mercy of the snow—is frequently cut + off by our severe winters when it ventures to brave them, which is not + often. Where plenty of the berries of the red cedar can be had, the + cedar-bird will pass the winter in New York. The old ornithologists say + the bluebird migrates to Bermuda; but in the winter of 1874-75, severe as + it was, a pair of them wintered with me eighty miles north of New York + city. They seem to have been decided in their choice by the attractions of + my rustic porch and the fruit of a sugar-berry tree (celtis—a kind + of tree-lotus) that stood in front of it. They lodged in the porch and + took their meals in the tree. Indeed, they became regular lotus-eaters. + Punctually at dusk they were in their places on a large laurel root in the + top of the porch, whence, however, they were frequently routed by an + indignant broom that was jealous of the neatness of the porch floor. But + the pair would not take any hints of this kind, and did not give up their + quarters in the porch or their lotus berries till spring. + </p> + <p> + Many times during the winter the sugar-berry tree was visited by a flock + of cedar-birds that also wintered in the vicinity. At such times it was + amusing to witness the pretty wrath of the bluebirds, scolding and + threatening the intruders, and begrudging them every berry they ate. The + bluebird cannot utter a harsh or unpleasing note. Indeed, he seems to have + but one language, one speech, for both love and war, and the expression of + his indignation is nearly as musical as his song. The male frequently made + hostile demonstrations toward the cedar-birds, but did not openly attack + them, and, with his mate, appeared to experience great relief when the + poachers had gone. + </p> + <p> + I had other company in my solitude also, among the rest a distinguished + arrival from the far north, the pine grosbeak, a bird rarely seen in these + parts, except now and then a single specimen. But in the winter of 1875, + heralding the extreme cold weather, and no doubt in consequence of it, + there was a large incursion of them into this State and New England. They + attracted the notice of the country people everywhere. I first saw them + early in December about the head of the Delaware. I was walking along a + cleared ridge with my gun, just at sundown, when I beheld two strange + birds sitting in a small maple. On bringing one of them down, I found it + was a bird I had never before seen; in color and shape like the purple + finch, but quite as large again in size. From its heavy beak, I at once + recognized it as belonging to the family of grosbeaks. A few days later I + saw large numbers of them in the woods, on the ground, and in the trees. + And still later, and on till February, they were very numerous on the + Hudson, coming all about my house,—more familiar even than the + little snowbird, hopping beneath the windows, and looking up at me + apparently with as much curiosity as I looked down upon them. They fed on + the buds of the sugar maples and upon frozen apples in the orchard. They + were mostly young birds and females, colored very much like the common + sparrow, with now and then visible the dull carmine-colored head and neck + of an old male. + </p> + <p> + Other northern visitors that tarried with me the same winter were the tree + or Canada sparrow and the redpoll, the former a bird larger than the + social sparrow or hair-bird, but otherwise much resembling it, and + distinguishable by a dark spot in the middle of its breast; the latter a + bird the size and shape of the common goldfinch, with the same manner of + flight and nearly the same note or cry, but darker than the winter plumage + of the goldfinch, and with a red crown and a tinge of red on the breast. + Little bands of these two species lurked about the barnyard all winter, + picking up the hayseed, the sparrow sometimes venturing in on the haymow + when the supply outside was short. I felt grateful to them for their + company. They gave a sort of ornithological air to every errand I had to + the barn. + </p> + <p> + Though a number of birds face our winters, and by various shifts worry + through till spring, some of them permanent residents, and some of them + visitors from the far north, yet there is but one genuine snow bird, + nursling of the snow, and that is the snow bunting, a bird that seems + proper to this season, heralding the coming storm, sweeping by on bold and + rapid wing, and calling and chirping as cheerily as the songsters of May. + In its plumage it reflects the winter landscape,—an expanse of white + surmounted or streaked with gray and brown; a field of snow with a line of + woods or a tinge of stubble. It fits into the scene, and does not appear + to lead a beggarly and disconsolate life, like most of our winter + residents. During the ice-harvesting on the river, I see them flitting + about among the gangs of men, or floating on the cakes of ice, picking and + scratching amid the droppings of the horses. They love the stack and + hay-barn in the distant field, where the farmer fodders his cattle upon + the snow, and every red-root, ragweed, or pigweed left standing in the + fall adds to their winter stores. + </p> + <p> + Though this bird, and one or two others, like the chickadee and nuthatch, + are more or less complacent and cheerful during the winter, yet no bird + can look our winters in the face and sing, as do so many of the English + birds. Several species in Great Britain, their biographers tell us, sing + the winter through, except during the severest frosts; but with us, as far + south as Virginia, and, for aught I know, much farther, the birds are + tuneless at this season. The owls, even, do not hoot, nor the hawks + scream. + </p> + <p> + Among the birds that tarry briefly with us in the spring on their way to + Canada and beyond, there is none I behold with so much pleasure as the + white-crowned sparrow. I have an eye out for him all through April and the + first week in May. He is the rarest and most beautiful of the sparrow + kind. He is crowned, as some hero or victor in the games. He is usually in + company with his congener, the white-throated sparrow, but seldom more + than in the proportion of one to twenty of the latter. Contrasted with + this bird, he looks like its more fortunate brother, upon whom some + special distinction has been conferred, and who is, from the egg, of finer + make and quality. His sparrow color of ashen gray and brown is very clear + and bright, and his form graceful. His whole expression, however, + culminates in a singular manner in his crown. The various tints of the + bird are brought to a focus here and intensified, the lighter ones + becoming white, and the deeper ones nearly black. There is the suggestion + of a crest, also, from a habit the bird has of slightly elevating this + part of its plumage, as if to make more conspicuous its pretty markings. + They are great scratchers, and will often remain several minutes + scratching in one place, like a hen. Yet, unlike the hen and like all + hoppers, they scratch with both feet at once, which is by no means the + best way to scratch. + </p> + <p> + The white-throats often sing during their sojourning both in fall and + spring; but only on one occasion have I ever heard any part of the song of + the white-crowned, and that proceeded from what I took to be a young male, + one October morning, just as the sun was rising. It was pitched very low, + like a half-forgotten air, but it was very sweet. It was the song of the + vesper sparrow and the white-throat in one. In his breeding haunts he must + be a superior songster, but he is very chary of his music while on his + travels. + </p> + <p> + The sparrows are all meek and lowly birds. They are of the grass, the + fences, the low bushes, the weedy wayside places. Nature has denied them + all brilliant tints, but she has given them sweet and musical voices. + Theirs are the quaint and simple lullaby songs of childhood. The + white-throat has a timid, tremulous strain, that issues from the low + bushes or from behind the fence, where its cradle is hid. The song sparrow + modulates its simple ditty as softly as the lining of its own nest. The + vesper sparrow has only peace and gentleness in its strain. + </p> + <p> + What pretty nests, too, the sparrows build! Can anything be more exquisite + than a sparrow's nest under a grassy or mossy bank? What care the bird has + taken not to disturb one straw or spear of grass, or thread of moss! You + cannot approach it and put your hand into it without violating the place + more or less, and yet the little architect has wrought day after day and + left no marks. There has been an excavation, and yet no grain of earth + appears to have been moved. If the nest had slowly and silently grown like + the grass and the moss, it could not have been more nicely adjusted to its + place and surroundings. There is absolutely nothing to tell the eye it is + there. Generally a few spears of dry grass fall down from the turf above + and form a slight screen before it. How commonly and coarsely it begins, + blending with the debris that lies about, and how it refines and comes + into form as it approaches the centre, which is modeled so perfectly and + lined so softly! Then, when the full complement of eggs is laid, and + incubation has fairly begun, what a sweet, pleasing little mystery the + silent old bank holds! + </p> + <p> + The song sparrow, whose nest I have been describing, displays a more + marked individuality in its song than any bird with which I am acquainted. + Birds of the same species generally all sing alike, but I have observed + numerous song sparrows with songs peculiarly their own. Last season, the + whole summer through, one sang about my grounds like this: <i>swee-e-t, + swee-e-t, swee-e-t, bitter.</i> Day after day, from May to September, I + heard this strain, which I thought a simple but very profound summing-up + of life, and wondered how the little bird had learned it so quickly. The + present season, I heard another with a song equally original, but not so + easily worded. Among a large troop of them in April, my attention was + attracted to one that was a master songster,—some Shelley or + Tennyson among his kind. The strain was remarkably prolonged, intricate, + and animated, and far surpassed anything I ever before heard from that + source. + </p> + <p> + But the most noticeable instance of departure from the standard song of a + species I ever knew of was in the case of a wood thrush. The bird sang, as + did the sparrow, the whole season through, at the foot of my lot near the + river. The song began correctly and ended correctly; but interjected into + it about midway was a loud, piercing, artificial note, at utter variance + with the rest of the strain. When my ear first caught this singular note, + I started out, not a little puzzled, to make, as I supposed, a new + acquaintance, but had not gone far when I discovered whence it proceeded. + Brass amid gold, or pebbles amid pearls, are not more out of place than + was this discordant scream or cry in the melodious strain of the wood + thrush. It pained and startled the ear. It seemed as if the instrument of + the bird was not under control, or else that one note was sadly out of + tune, and, when its turn came, instead of giving forth one of those sounds + that are indeed like pearls, it shocked the ear with a piercing discord. + Yet the singer appeared entirely unconscious of the defect; or had he + grown used to it, or had his friends persuaded him that it was a variation + to be coveted? Sometimes, after the brood had hatched and the bird's pride + was at its full, he would make a little triumphal tour of the locality, + coming from under the hill quite up to the house, and flaunting his + cracked instrument in the face of whoever would listen. He did not return + again the next season; or, if he did, the malformation of his song was + gone. + </p> + <p> + I have noticed that the bobolink does not sing the same in different + localities. In New Jersey it has one song; on the Hudson, a slight + variation of the same; and on the high grass-lands of the interior of the + State, quite a different strain,—clearer, more distinctly + articulated, and running off with more sparkle and liltingness. It reminds + one of the clearer mountain air and the translucent spring-water of those + localities. I never could make out what the bobolink says in New Jersey, + but in certain districts in this State his enunciation is quite distinct. + Sometimes he begins with the word <i>gegue, gegue.</i> Then again, more + fully, <i>be true to me, Clarsy, be true to me, Clarsy, Clarsy,</i> thence + full tilt into his inimitable song, interspersed in which the words <i>kick + your slipper, kick your slipper,</i> and temperance, temperance (the last + with a peculiar nasal resonance), are plainly heard. At its best, it is a + remarkable performance, a unique performance, as it contains not the + slightest hint or suggestion, either in tone or manner or effect, of any + other bird-song to be heard. The bobolink has no mate or parallel in any + part of the world. He stands alone. There is no closely allied species. He + is not a lark, nor a finch, nor a warbler, nor a thrush, nor a starling + (though classed with the starlings by late naturalists). He is an + exception to many well-known rules. He is the only ground-bird known to me + of marked and conspicuous plumage. He is the only black and white + field-bird we have east of the Mississippi, and, what is still more odd, + he is black beneath and white above,—the reverse of the fact in all + other cases. Preëminently a bird of the meadow during the breeding season, + and associated with clover and daisies and buttercups as no other bird is, + he yet has the look of an interloper or a newcomer, and not of one to the + manner born. + </p> + <p> + The bobolink has an unusually full throat, which may help account for his + great power of song. No bird has yet been found that could imitate him, or + even repeat or suggest a single note, as if his song were the product of a + new set of organs. There is a vibration about it, and a rapid running over + the keys, that is the despair of other songsters. It is said that the + mockingbird is dumb in the presence of the bobolink. My neighbor has an + English skylark that was hatched and reared in captivity. The bird is a + most persistent and vociferous songster, and fully as successful a mimic + as the mockingbird. It pours out a strain that is a regular mosaic of + nearly all the bird-notes to be heard, its own proper lark song forming a + kind of bordering for the whole. The notes of the phoebe-bird, the purple + finch, the swallow, the yellowbird, the kingbird, the robin, and others, + are rendered with perfect distinctness and accuracy, but not a word of the + bobolink's, though the lark must have heard its song every day for four + successive summers. It was the one conspicuous note in the fields around + that the lark made no attempt to plagiarize. He could not steal the + bobolink's thunder. + </p> + <p> + The lark is a more marvelous songster than the bobolink only on account of + his soaring flight and the sustained copiousness of his song. His note is + rasping and harsh, in point of melody, when compared with the bobolink's. + When caged and near at hand, the lark's song is positively disagreeable, + it is so loud and full of sharp, aspirated sounds. But high in air above + the broad downs, poured out without interruption for many minutes + together, it is very agreeable. + </p> + <p> + The bird among us that is usually called a lark, namely, the meadowlark, + but which our later classifiers say is no lark at all, has nearly the same + quality of voice as the English skylark,—loud, piercing, z-z-ing; + and during the mating season it frequently indulges while on the wing in a + brief song that is quite lark-like. It is also a bird of the stubble, and + one of the last to retreat on the approach of winter. + </p> + <p> + The habits of many of our birds are slowly undergoing a change. Their + migrations are less marked. With the settlement and cultivation of the + country, the means of subsistence of nearly every species are vastly + increased. Insects are more numerous, and seeds of weeds and grasses more + abundant. They become more and more domestic, like the English birds. The + swallows have nearly all left their original abodes—hollow trees, + and cliffs, and rocks—for human habitations and their environments. + Where did the barn swallow nest before the country was settled? The + chimney swallow nested in hollow trees, and, perhaps, occasionally resorts + thither yet. But the chimney, notwithstanding the smoke, seems to suit his + taste best. In the spring, before they have paired, I think these swallows + sometimes pass the night in the woods, but not if an old, disused chimney + is handy. + </p> + <p> + One evening in early May, my attention was arrested by a band of them + containing several hundreds, perhaps a thousand, circling about near a + large, tall, disused chimney in a secluded place in the country. They were + very lively, and chippering, and diving in a most extraordinary manner. + They formed a broad continuous circle many rods in diameter. Gradually the + circle contracted and neared the chimney. Presently some of the birds as + they came round began to dive toward it, and the chippering was more + animated than ever. Then a few ventured in; in a moment more, the air at + the mouth of the chimney was black with the stream of descending swallows. + When the passage began to get crowded, the circle lifted and the rest of + the birds continued their flight, giving those inside time to dispose of + themselves. Then the influx began again, and was kept up till the crowd + became too great, when it cleared as before. Thus by installments, or in + layers, the swallows were packed into the chimney until the last one was + stowed away. Passing by the place a few days afterward, I saw a board + reaching from the roof of the building to the top of the chimney, and + imagined some curious person or some predaceous boy had been up to take a + peep inside, and see how so many swallows could dispose of themselves in + such a space. It would have been an interesting spectacle to see them + emerge from the chimney in the morning. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV APRIL + </h2> + <p> + If we represent the winter of our northern climate by a rugged snow-clad + mountain, and summer by a broad fertile plain, then the intermediate belt, + the hilly and breezy uplands, will stand for spring, with March reaching + well up into the region of the snows, and April lapping well down upon the + greening fields and unloosened currents, not beyond the limits of winter's + sallying storms, but well within the vernal zone,—within the reach + of the warm breath and subtle, quickening influences of the plain below. + At its best, April is the tenderest of tender salads made crisp by ice or + snow water. Its type is the first spear of grass. The senses—sight, + hearing, smell—are as hungry for its delicate and almost spiritual + tokens as the cattle are for the first bite of its fields. How it touches + one and makes him both glad and sad! The voices of the arriving birds, the + migrating fowls, the clouds of pigeons sweeping across the sky or filling + the woods, the elfin horn of the first honey-bee venturing abroad in the + middle of the day, the clear piping of the little frogs in the marshes at + sundown, the campfire in the sugar-bush, the smoke seen afar rising over + the trees, the tinge of green that comes so suddenly on the sunny knolls + and slopes, the full translucent streams, the waxing and warming sun,—how + these things and others like them are noted by the eager eye and ear! + April is my natal month, and I am born again into new delight and new + surprises at each return of it. Its name has an indescribable charm to me. + Its two syllables are like the calls of the first birds,—like that + of the phoebe-bird, or of the meadowlark. Its very snows are fertilizing, + and are called the poor man's manure. + </p> + <p> + Then its odors! I am thrilled by its fresh and indescribable odors,—the + perfume of the bursting sod, of the quickened roots and rootlets, of the + mould under the leaves, of the fresh furrows. No other month has odors + like it. The west wind the other day came fraught with a perfume that was + to the sense of smell what a wild and delicate strain of music is to the + ear. It was almost transcendental. I walked across the hill with my nose + in the air taking it in. It lasted for two days. I imagined it came from + the willows of a distant swamp, whose catkins were affording the bees + their first pollen: or did it come from much farther,—from beyond + the horizon, the accumulated breath of innumerable farms and budding + forests? The main characteristic of these April odors is their uncloying + freshness. They are not sweet, they are oftener bitter, they are + penetrating and lyrical. I know well the odors of May and June, of the + world of meadows and orchards bursting into bloom, but they are not so + ineffable and immaterial and so stimulating to the sense as the incense of + April. + </p> + <p> + The season of which I speak does not correspond with the April of the + almanac in all sections of our vast geography. It answers to March in + Virginia and Maryland, while in parts of New York and New England it laps + well over into May. It begins when the partridge drums, when the hyla + pipes, when the shad start up the rivers, when the grass greens in the + spring runs, and it ends when the leaves are unfolding and the last + snowflake dissolves in midair. It may be the first of May before the first + swallow appears, before the whip-poor-will is heard, before the wood + thrush sings; but it is April as long as there is snow upon the mountains, + no matter what the almanac may say. Our April is, in fact, a kind of + Alpine summer, full of such contrasts and touches of wild, delicate beauty + as no other season affords. The deluded citizen fancies there is nothing + enjoyable in the country till June, and so misses the freshest, tenderest + part. It is as if one should miss strawberries and begin his fruit-eating + with melons and peaches. These last are good,—supremely so, they are + melting and luscious,—but nothing so thrills and penetrates the + taste, and wakes up and teases the papillae of the tongue, as the + uncloying strawberry. What midsummer sweetness half so distracting as its + brisk sub-acid flavor, and what splendor of full-leaved June can stir the + blood like the best of leafless April? + </p> + <p> + One characteristic April feature, and one that delights me very much, is + the perfect emerald of the spring runs while the fields are yet brown and + sere,—strips and patches of the most vivid velvet green on the + slopes and in the valleys. How the eye grazes there, and is filled and + refreshed! I had forgotten what a marked feature this was until I recently + rode in an open wagon for three days through a mountainous, pastoral + country, remarkable for its fine springs. Those delicious green patches + are yet in my eye. The fountains flowed with May. Where no springs + occurred, there were hints and suggestions of springs about the fields and + by the roadside in the freshened grass,—sometimes overflowing a + space in the form of an actual fountain. The water did not quite get to + the surface in such places, but sent its influence. + </p> + <p> + The fields of wheat and rye, too, how they stand out of the April + landscape,—great green squares on a field of brown or gray! + </p> + <p> + Among April sounds there is none more welcome or suggestive to me than the + voice of the little frogs piping in the marshes. No bird-note can surpass + it as a spring token; and as it is not mentioned, to my knowledge, by the + poets and writers of other lands, I am ready to believe it is + characteristic of our season alone. You may be sure April has really come + when this little amphibian creeps out of the mud and inflates its throat. + We talk of the bird inflating its throat, but you should see this tiny + minstrel inflate <i>its</i> throat, which becomes like a large bubble, and + suggests a drummer-boy with his drum slung very high. In this drum, or by + the aid of it, the sound is produced. Generally the note is very feeble at + first, as if the frost was not yet all out of the creature's throat, and + only one voice will be heard, some prophet bolder than all the rest, or + upon whom the quickening ray of spring has first fallen. And it often + happens that he is stoned for his pains by the yet unpacified element, and + is compelled literally to "shut up" beneath a fall of snow or a heavy + frost. Soon, however, he lifts up his voice again with more confidence, + and is joined by others and still others, till in due time, say toward the + last of the month, there is a shrill musical uproar, as the sun is + setting, in every marsh and bog in the land. It is a plaintive sound, and + I have heard people from the city speak of it as lonesome and depressing, + but to the lover of the country it is a pure spring melody. The little + piper will sometimes climb a bulrush, to which he clings like a sailor to + a mast, and send forth his shrill call. There is a Southern species, heard + when you have reached the Potomac, whose note is far more harsh and + crackling. To stand on the verge of a swamp vocal with these, pains and + stuns the ear. The call of the Northern species is far more tender and + musical. [Footnote: The Southern species is called the green hyla. I have + since heard them in my neighborhood on the Hudson.] + </p> + <p> + Then is there anything like a perfect April morning? One hardly knows what + the sentiment of it is, but it is something very delicious. It is youth + and hope. It is a new earth and a new sky. How the air transmits sounds, + and what an awakening, prophetic character all sounds have! The distant + barking of a dog, or the lowing of a cow, or the crowing of a cock, seems + from out the heart of Nature, and to be a call to come forth. The great + sun appears to have been reburnished, and there is something in his first + glance above the eastern hills, and the way his eye-beams dart right and + left and smite the rugged mountains into gold, that quickens the pulse and + inspires the heart. + </p> + <p> + Across the fields in the early morning I hear some of the rare April + birds,—the chewink and the brown thrasher. The robin, the bluebird, + the song sparrow, the phoebe-bird, come in March; but these two + ground-birds are seldom heard till toward the last of April. The + ground-birds are all tree-singers or air-singers; they must have an + elevated stage to speak from. Our long-tailed thrush, or thrasher, like + its congeners the catbird and the mockingbird, delights in a high branch + of some solitary tree, whence it will pour out its rich and intricate + warble for an hour together. This bird is the great American chipper. + There is no other bird that I know of that can chip with such emphasis and + military decision as this yellow-eyed songster. It is like the click of a + giant gunlock. Why is the thrasher so stealthy? It always seems to be + going about on tiptoe. I never knew it to steal anything, and yet it + skulks and hides like a fugitive from justice. One never sees it flying + aloft in the air and traversing the world openly, like most birds, but it + darts along fences and through bushes as if pursued by a guilty + conscience. Only when the musical fit is upon it does it come up into full + view, and invite the world to hear and behold. + </p> + <p> + The chewink is a shy bird also, but not stealthy. It is very inquisitive, + and sets up a great scratching among the leaves, apparently to attract + your attention. The male is perhaps the most conspicuously marked of all + the ground-birds except the bobolink, being black above, bay on the sides, + and white beneath. The bay is in compliment to the leaves he is forever + scratching among,—they have rustled against his breast and sides so + long that these parts have taken their color; but whence come the white + and the black? The bird seems to be aware that his color betrays him, for + there are few birds in the woods so careful about keeping themselves + screened from view. When in song, its favorite perch is the top of some + high bush near to cover. On being disturbed at such times, it pitches down + into the brush and is instantly lost to view. + </p> + <p> + This is the bird that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Wilson about, greatly + exciting the latter's curiosity. Wilson was just then upon the threshold + of his career as an ornithologist, and had made a drawing of the Canada + jay which he sent to the President. It was a new bird, and in reply + Jefferson called his attention to a "curious bird" which was everywhere to + be heard, but scarcely ever to be seen. He had for twenty years interested + the young sportsmen of his neighborhood to shoot one for him, but without + success. "It is in all the forests, from spring to fall," he says in his + letter, "and never but on the tops of the tallest trees, from which it + perpetually serenades us with some of the sweetest notes, and as clear as + those of the nightingale. I have followed it for miles, without ever but + once getting a good view of it. It is of the size and make of the + mockingbird, lightly thrush-colored on the back, and a grayish white on + the breast and belly. Mr. Randolph, my son-in-law, was in possession of + one which had been shot by a neighbor," etc. Randolph pronounced it a + flycatcher, which was a good way wide of the mark. Jefferson must have + seen only the female, after all his tramp, from his description of the + color; but he was doubtless following his own great thoughts more than the + bird, else he would have had an earlier view. The bird was not a new one, + but was well known then as the ground-robin. The President put Wilson on + the wrong scent by his erroneous description, and it was a long time + before the latter got at the truth of the case. But Jefferson's letter is + a good sample of those which specialists often receive from intelligent + persons who have seen or heard something in their line very curious or + entirely new, and who set the man of science agog by a description of the + supposed novelty,—a description that generally fits the facts of the + case about as well as your coat fits the chair-back. Strange and curious + things in the air, and in the water, and in the earth beneath, are seen + every day except by those who are looking for them, namely, the + naturalists. When Wilson or Audubon gets his eye on the unknown bird, the + illusion vanishes, and your phenomenon turns out to be one of the + commonplaces of the fields or woods. + </p> + <p> + A prominent April bird, that one does not have to go to the woods or away + from his own door to see and hear, is the hardy and ever-welcome + meadowlark. What a twang there is about this bird, and what vigor! It + smacks of the soil. It is the winged embodiment of the spirit of our + spring meadows. What emphasis in its <i>"z-d-t, z-d-t"</i> and what + character in its long, piercing note! Its straight, tapering, sharp beak + is typical of its voice. Its note goes like a shaft from a crossbow; it is + a little too sharp and piercing when near at hand, but, heard in the + proper perspective, it is eminently melodious and pleasing. It is one of + the major notes of the fields at this season. In fact, it easily dominates + all others. <i>"Spring o' the year! spring o' the year!"</i> it says, with + a long-drawn breath, a little plaintive, but not complaining or + melancholy. At times it indulges in something much more intricate and + lark-like while hovering on the wing in midair, but a song is beyond the + compass of its instrument, and the attempt usually ends in a breakdown. A + clear, sweet, strong, high-keyed note, uttered from some knoll or rock, or + stake in the fence, is its proper vocal performance. It has the build and + walk and flight of the quail and the grouse. It gets up before you in much + the same manner, and falls an easy prey to the crack shot. Its yellow + breast, surmounted by a black crescent, it need not be ashamed to turn to + the morning sun, while its coat of mottled gray is in perfect keeping with + the stubble amid which it walks. The two lateral white quills in its tail + seem strictly in character. These quills spring from a dash of scorn and + defiance in the bird's make-up. By the aid of these, it can almost emit a + flash as it struts about the fields and jerks out its sharp notes. They + give a rayed, a definite and piquant expression to its movements. This + bird is not properly a lark, but a starling, say the ornithologists, + though it is lark-like in its habits, being a walker and entirely a + ground-bird. Its color also allies it to the true lark. I believe there is + no bird in the English or European fields that answers to this hardy + pedestrian of our meadows. He is a true American, and his note one of our + characteristic April sounds. + </p> + <p> + Another marked April note, proceeding sometimes from the meadows, but more + frequently from the rough pastures and borders of the woods, is the call + of the high-hole, or golden-shafted woodpecker. It is quite as strong as + that of the meadowlark, but not so long-drawn and piercing. It is a + succession of short notes rapidly uttered, as if the bird said <i>"if-if-if-if-if-if-if."</i> + The notes of the ordinary downy and hairy woodpeckers suggest, in some + way, the sound of a steel punch; but that of the high-hole is much softer, + and strikes on the ear with real springtime melody. The high-hole is not + so much a wood-pecker as he is a ground-pecker. He subsists largely on + ants and crickets, and does not appear till they are to be found. + </p> + <p> + In Solomon's description of spring, the voice of the turtle is prominent, + but our turtle, or mourning dove, though it arrives in April, can hardly + be said to contribute noticeably to the open-air sounds. Its call is so + vague, and soft, and mournful,—in fact, so remote and diffused,—that + few persons ever hear it at all. + </p> + <p> + Such songsters as the cow blackbird are noticeable at this season, though + they take a back seat a little later. It utters a peculiarly liquid April + sound. Indeed, one would think its crop was full of water, its notes so + bubble up and regurgitate, and are delivered with such an apparent + stomachic contraction. This bird is the only feathered polygamist we have. + The females are greatly in excess of the males, and the latter are usually + attended by three or four of the former. As soon as the other birds begin + to build, they are on the <i>qui vive,</i> prowling about like gypsies, + not to steal the young of others, but to steal their eggs into other + birds' nests, and so shirk the labor and responsibility of hatching and + rearing their own young. As these birds do not mate, and as therefore + there can be little or no rivalry or competition between the males, one + wonders—in view of Darwin's teaching—why one sex should have + brighter and richer plumage than the other, which is the fact. The males + are easily distinguished from the dull and faded females by their deep + glossy-black coats. + </p> + <p> + The April of English literature corresponds nearly to our May. In Great + Britain, the swallow and the cuckoo usually arrive by the middle of April; + with us, their appearance is a week or two later. Our April, at its best, + is a bright, laughing face under a hood of snow, like the English March, + but presenting sharper contrasts, a greater mixture of smiles and tears + and icy looks than are known to our ancestral climate. Indeed, Winter + sometimes retraces his steps in this month, and unburdens himself of the + snows that the previous cold has kept back; but we are always sure of a + number of radiant, equable days,—days that go before the bud, when + the sun embraces the earth with fervor and determination. How his beams + pour into the woods till the mould under the leaves is warm and emits an + odor! The waters glint and sparkle, the birds gather in groups, and even + those unused to singing find a voice. On the streets of the cities, what a + flutter, what bright looks and gay colors! I recall one preëminent day of + this kind last April. I made a note of it in my note-book. The earth + seemed suddenly to emerge from a wilderness of clouds and chilliness into + one of these blue sunlit spaces. How the voyagers rejoiced! Invalids came + forth, old men sauntered down the street, stocks went up, and the + political outlook brightened. + </p> + <p> + Such days bring out the last of the hibernating animals. The woodchuck + unrolls and creeps out of his den to see if his clover has started yet. + The torpidity leaves the snakes and the turtles, and they come forth and + bask in the sun. There is nothing so small, nothing so great, that it does + not respond to these celestial spring days, and give the pendulum of life + a fresh start. + </p> + <p> + April is also the month of the new furrow. As soon as the frost is gone + and the ground settled, the plow is started upon the hill, and at each + bout I see its brightened mould-board flash in the sun. Where the last + remnants of the snowdrift lingered yesterday the plow breaks the sod + to-day. Where the drift was deepest the grass is pressed flat, and there + is a deposit of sand and earth blown from the fields to windward. Line + upon line the turf is reversed, until there stands out of the neutral + landscape a ruddy square visible for miles, or until the breasts of the + broad hills glow like the breasts of the robins. + </p> + <p> + Then who would not have a garden in April? to rake together the rubbish + and burn it up, to turn over the renewed soil, to scatter the rich + compost, to plant the first seed, or bury the first tuber! It is not the + seed that is planted, any more than it is I that is planted; it is not the + dry stalks and weeds that are burned up, any more than it is my gloom and + regrets that are consumed. An April smoke makes a clean harvest. + </p> + <p> + I think April is the best month to be born in. One is just in time, so to + speak, to catch the first train, which is made up in this month. My April + chickens always turn out best. They get an early start; they have rugged + constitutions. Late chickens cannot stand the heavy dews, or withstand the + predaceous hawks. In April all nature starts with you. You have not come + out of your hibernaculum too early or too late; the time is ripe, and, if + you do not keep pace with the rest, why, the fault is not in the season. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V SPRING POEMS + </h2> + <p> + There is no month oftener on the tongues of the poets than April. It is + the initiative month; it opens the door of the seasons; the interest and + expectations of the untried, the untasted, lurk in it, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "From you have I been absent in the spring," +</pre> + <p> + says Shakespeare in one of his sonnets,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, + Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, + That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him." +</pre> + <p> + The following poem, from Tennyson's "In Memoriam," might be headed + "April," and serve as descriptive of parts of our season:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Now fades the last long streak of snow, + Now bourgeons every maze of quick + About the flowering squares, and thick + By ashen roots the violets blow. + + "Now rings the woodland loud and long, + The distance takes a lovelier hue, + And drowned in yonder living blue + The lark becomes a sightless song. + + "Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, + The flocks are whiter down the vale, + And milkier every milky sail + On winding stream or distant sea; + + "Where now the sea-mew pipes, or dives + In yonder greening gleam, and fly + The happy birds, that change their sky + To build and brood; that live their lives + + "From land to land; and in my breast + Spring wakens too; and my regret + Becomes an April violet, + And buds and blossoms like the rest." +</pre> + <p> + In the same poem the poet asks:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Can trouble live with April days?" +</pre> + <p> + Yet they are not all jubilant chords that this season awakens. + Occasionally there is an undertone of vague longing and sadness, akin to + that which one experiences in autumn. Hope for a moment assumes the + attitude of memory and stands with reverted look. The haze, that in spring + as well as in fall sometimes descends and envelops all things, has in it + in some way the sentiment of music, of melody, and awakens pensive + thoughts. Elizabeth Akers, in her "April," has recognized and fully + expressed this feeling. I give the first and last stanzas:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The strange, sweet days are here again, + The happy-mournful days; + The songs which trembled on our lips + Are half complaint, half praise. + + "Swing, robin, on the budded sprays, + And sing your blithest tune;— + Help us across these homesick days + Into the joy of June!" +</pre> + <p> + This poet has also given a touch of spring in her "March," which, however, + should be written "April" in the New England climate:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The brown buds thicken on the trees, + Unbound, the free streams sing, + As March leads forth across the leas + The wild and windy spring. + + "Where in the fields the melted snow + Leaves hollows warm and wet, + Ere many days will sweetly blow + The first blue violet." +</pre> + <p> + But on the whole the poets have not been eminently successful in depicting + spring. The humid season, with its tender, melting blue sky, its fresh, + earthy smells, its new furrow, its few simple signs and awakenings here + and there, and its strange feeling of unrest,—how difficult to put + its charms into words! None of the so-called pastoral poets have succeeded + in doing it. That is the best part of spring which escapes a direct and + matter-of-fact description of her. There is more of spring in a line or + two of Chaucer and Spenser than in the elaborate portraits of her by + Thomson or Pope, because the former had spring in their hearts, and the + latter only in their inkhorns. Nearly all Shakespeare's songs are spring + songs,—full of the banter, the frolic, and the love-making of the + early season. What an unloosed current, too, of joy and fresh new life and + appetite in Burns! + </p> + <p> + In spring everything has such a margin! there are such spaces of silence! + The influences are at work underground. Our delight is in a few things. + The drying road is enough; a single wild flower, the note of the first + bird, the partridge drumming in the April woods, the restless herds, the + sheep steering for the uplands, the cow lowing in the highway or hiding + her calf in the bushes, the first fires, the smoke going up through the + shining atmosphere, from the burning of rubbish in gardens and old fields,—each + of these simple things fills the breast with yearning and delight, for + they are tokens of the spring. The best spring poems have this singleness + and sparseness. Listen to Solomon: "For lo, the winter is past, the rain + is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing + of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land." In + Wordsworth are some things that breathe the air of spring. These lines, + written in early spring, afford a good specimen:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "I heard a thousand blended notes, + While in a grove I sate reclined, + In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts + Bring sad thoughts to the mind." + + "To her fair works did Nature link + The human soul that through me ran; + And much it grieved my heart to think + What man has made of man. + + "Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, + The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; + And 't is my faith that every flower + Enjoys the air it breathes. + + "The birds around me hopped and played, + Their thoughts I cannot measure: + But the least motion which they made + It seemed a thrill of pleasure." +</pre> + <p> + Or these from another poem, written in his usual study, "Out-of-Doors," + and addressed to his sister:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "It is the first mild day of March, + Each minute sweeter than before; + The redbreast sings from the tall larch + That stands beside the door. + + "There is a blessing in the air, + Which seems a sense of joy to yield + To the bare trees, and mountains bare, + And grass in the green field. + + . . . . . . . . . + + "Love, now a universal birth, + From heart to heart is stealing, + From earth to man, from man to earth; + It is the hour of feeling. + + "One moment now may give us more + Than years of toiling reason: + Our minds shall drink at every pore + The spirit of the season." +</pre> + <p> + It is the simplicity of such lines, like the naked branches of the trees + or the unclothed fields, and the spring-like depth of feeling and + suggestion they hold, that make them so appropriate to this season. + </p> + <p> + At this season I often find myself repeating these lines of his also:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "My heart leaps up, when I behold + A rainbow in the sky; + So was it, when my life began; + So is it, now I am a man; + So be it, when I shall grow old, + Or let me die!" +</pre> + <p> + Though there are so few good poems especially commemorative of the spring, + there have no doubt been spring poets,—poets with such newness and + fullness of life, and such quickening power, that the world is re-created, + as it were, beneath their touch. Of course this is in a measure so with + all real poets. But the difference I would indicate may exist between + poets of the same or nearly the same magnitude. Thus, in this light + Tennyson is an autumnal poet, mellow and dead-ripe, and was so from the + first; while Wordsworth has much more of the spring in him, is nearer the + bone of things and to primitive conditions. + </p> + <p> + Among the old poems, one which seems to me to have much of the charm of + springtime upon it is the story of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius. The + songs, gambols, and wooings of the early birds are not more welcome and + suggestive. How graceful and airy, and yet what a tender, profound, human + significance it contains! But the great vernal poem, doubly so in that it + is the expression of the springtime of the race, the boyhood of man as + well, is the Iliad of Homer. What faith, what simple wonder, what + unconscious strength, what beautiful savagery, what magnanimous enmity,—a + very paradise of war! + </p> + <p> + Though so young a people, there is not much of the feeling of spring in + any of our books. The muse of our poets is wise rather than joyous. There + is no excess or extravagance or unruliness in her. There are spring sounds + and tokens in Emerson's "May-Day:"— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "April cold with dropping rain + Willows and lilacs brings again, + The whistle of returning birds, + And trumpet-lowing of the herds. + The scarlet maple-keys betray + What potent blood hath modest May, + What fiery force the earth renews, + The wealth of forms, the flush of hues; + What joy in rosy waves outpoured + Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord." +</pre> + <p> + But this is not spring in the blood. Among the works of our young and + rising poets, I am not certain but that Mr. Gilder's "New Day" is entitled + to rank as a spring poem in the sense in which I am speaking. It is full + of gayety and daring, and full of the reckless abandon of the male bird + when he is winning his mate. It is full also of the tantalizing + suggestiveness, the half-lights and shades, of April and May. + </p> + <p> + Of prose poets who have the charm of the springtime upon them, the best + recent example I know of is Björnson, the Norwegian romancist. What + especially makes his books spring-like is their freshness and sweet good + faith. There is also a reticence and an unwrought suggestiveness about + them that is like the promise of buds and early flowers. Of Turgenieff, + the Russian, much the same thing might be said. His stories are simple and + elementary, and have none of the elaborate hair-splitting and forced + hot-house character of the current English or American novel. They spring + from stronger, more healthful and manly conditions, and have a force in + them that is like a rising, incoming tide. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI OUR RURAL DIVINITY + </h2> + <p> + I wonder that Wilson Flagg did not include the cow among his "Picturesque + Animals," for that is where she belongs. She has not the classic beauty of + the horse, but in picture-making qualities she is far ahead of him. Her + shaggy, loose-jointed body; her irregular, sketchy outlines, like those of + the landscape,—the hollows and ridges, the slopes and prominences; + her tossing horns, her bushy tail, tier swinging gait, her tranquil, + ruminating habits,—all tend to make her an object upon which the + artist eye loves to dwell. The artists are forever putting her into + pictures, too. In rural landscape scenes she is an important feature. + Behold her grazing in the pastures and on the hillsides, or along banks of + streams, or ruminating under wide-spreading trees, or standing belly-deep + in the creek or pond, or lying upon the smooth places in the quiet summer + afternoon, the day's grazing done, and waiting to be summoned home to be + milked; and again in the twilight lying upon the level summit of the hill, + or where the sward is thickest and softest; or in winter a herd of them + filing along toward the spring to drink, or being "foddered" from the + stack in the field upon the new snow,—surely the cow is a + picturesque animal, and all her goings and comings are pleasant to behold. + </p> + <p> + I looked into Hamerton's clever book on the domestic animals also, + expecting to find my divinity duly celebrated, but he passes her by and + contemplates the bovine qualities only as they appear in the ox and the + bull. + </p> + <p> + Neither have the poets made much of the cow, but have rather dwelt upon + the steer, or the ox yoked to the plow. I recall this touch from Emerson:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The heifer that lows in the upland farm, + Far heard, lows not thine ear to charm." +</pre> + <p> + But the ear is charmed, nevertheless, especially if it be not too near, + and the air be still and dense, or hollow, as the farmer says. And again, + if it be springtime and she task that powerful bellows of hers to its + utmost capacity, how round the sound is, and how far it goes over the + hills! + </p> + <p> + The cow has at least four tones or lows. First, there is her alarmed or + distressed low when deprived of her calf, or when separated from her + mates,—her low of affection. Then there is her call of hunger, a + petition for food, sometimes full of impatience, or her answer to the + farmer's call, full of eagerness. Then there is that peculiar frenzied + bawl she utters on smelling blood, which causes every member of the herd + to lift its head and hasten to the spot,—the native cry of the clan. + When she is gored or in great danger she bawls also, but that is + different. And lastly, there is the long, sonorous volley she lets off on + the hills or in the yard, or along the highway, and which seems to be + expressive of a kind of unrest and vague longing,—the longing of the + imprisoned Io for her lost identity. She sends her voice forth so that + every god on Mount Olympus can hear her plaint. She makes this sound in + the morning, especially in the spring, as she goes forth to graze. + </p> + <p> + One of our rural poets, Myron Benton, whose verse often has the flavor of + sweet cream, has written some lines called "Rumination," in which the cow + is the principal figure, and with which I am permitted to adorn my theme. + The poet first gives his attention to a little brook that "breaks its + shallow gossip" at his feet and "drowns the oriole's voice:"— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "But moveth not that wise and ancient cow, + Who chews her juicy cud so languid now + Beneath her favorite elm, whose drooping bough + Lulls all but inward vision fast asleep: + But still, her tireless tail a pendulum sweep + Mysterious clock-work guides, and some hid pulley + Her drowsy cud, each moment, raises duly. + + "Of this great, wondrous world she has seen more + Than you, my little brook, and cropped its store + Of succulent grass on many a mead and lawn; + And strayed to distant uplands in the dawn. + And she has had some dark experience + Of graceless man's ingratitude; and hence + Her ways have not been ways of pleasantness, + Nor all her paths of peace. But her distress + And grief she has lived past; your giddy round + Disturbs her not, for she is learned profound + In deep brahminical philosophy. + She chews the cud of sweetest revery + Above your worldly prattle, brooklet merry, + Oblivious of all things sublunary." +</pre> + <p> + The cow figures in Grecian mythology, and in the Oriental literature is + treated as a sacred animal. "The clouds are cows and the rain milk." I + remember what Herodotus says of the Egyptians' worship of heifers and + steers; and in the traditions of the Celtic nations the cow is regarded as + a divinity. In Norse mythology the milk of the cow Andhumbla afforded + nourishment to the Frost giants, and it was she that licked into being and + into shape a god, the father of Odin. If anything could lick a god into + shape, certainly the cow could do it. You may see her perform this office + for young Taurus any spring. She licks him out of the fogs and + bewilderments and uncertainties in which he finds himself on first landing + upon these shores, and up onto his feet in an incredibly short time. + Indeed, that potent tongue of hers can almost make the dead alive any day, + and the creative lick of the old Scandinavian mother cow is only a + large-lettered rendering of the commonest facts. + </p> + <p> + The horse belongs to the fiery god Mars. He favors war, and is one of its + oldest, most available, and most formidable engines. The steed is clothed + with thunder, and smells the battle from afar; but the cattle upon a + thousand hills denote that peace and plenty bear sway in the land. The + neighing of the horse is a call to battle; but the lowing of old + Brockleface in the valley brings the golden age again. The savage tribes + are never without the horse; the Scythians are all mounted; but the cow + would tame and humanize them. When the Indians will cultivate the cow, I + shall think their civilization fairly begun. Recently, when the horses + were sick with the epizoötic, and the oxen came to the city and helped to + do their work, what an Arcadian air again filled the streets! But the dear + old oxen,—how awkward and distressed they looked! Juno wept in the + face of every one of them. The horse is a true citizen, and is entirely at + home in the paved streets; but the ox,—what a complete embodiment of + all rustic and rural things! Slow, deliberate, thick-skinned, powerful, + hulky, ruminating, fragrant-breathed, when he came to town the spirit and + suggestion of all Georgics and Bucolics came with him. O citizen, was it + only a plodding, unsightly brute that went by? Was there no chord in your + bosom, long silent, that sweetly vibrated at the sight of that patient, + Herculean couple? Did you smell no hay or cropped herbage, see no summer + pastures with circles of cool shade, hear no voice of herds among the + hills? They were very likely the only horses your grandfather ever had. + Not much trouble to harness and unharness them. Not much vanity on the + road in those days. They did all the work on the early pioneer farm. They + were the gods whose rude strength first broke the soil. They could live + where the moose and the deer could. If there was no clover or timothy to + be had, then the twigs of the basswood and birch would do. Before there + were yet fields given up to grass, they found ample pasturage in the + woods. Their wide-spreading horns gleamed in the duskiness, and their + paths and the paths of the cows became the future roads and highways, or + even the streets of great cities. + </p> + <p> + All the descendants of Odin show a bovine trace, and cherish and cultivate + the cow. In Norway she is a great feature. Professor Boyesen describes + what he calls the <i>saeter</i>, the spring migration of the dairy and + dairymaids, with all the appurtenances of butter and cheese making, from + the valleys to the distant plains upon the mountains, where the grass + keeps fresh and tender till fall. It is the great event of the year in all + the rural districts. Nearly the whole family go with the cattle and remain + with them. At evening the cows are summoned home with a long horn, called + the <i>loor,</i> in the hands of the milkmaid. The whole herd comes + winding down the mountain-side toward the <i>saeter</i> in obedience to + the mellow blast. + </p> + <p> + What were those old Vikings but thick-hided bulls that delighted in + nothing so much as goring each other? And has not the charge of beefiness + been brought much nearer home to us than that? But about all the northern + races there is something that is kindred to cattle in the best sense,—something + in their art and literature that is essentially pastoral, sweet-breathed, + continent, dispassionate, ruminating, wide-eyed, soft-voiced,—a + charm of kine, the virtue of brutes. + </p> + <p> + The cow belongs more especially to the northern peoples, to the region of + the good, green grass. She is the true <i>grazing</i> animal. That broad, + smooth, always dewy nose of hers is just the suggestion of greensward. She + caresses the grass; she sweeps off the ends of the leaves; she reaps it + with the soft sickle of her tongue. She crops close, but she does not + bruise or devour the turf like the horse. She is the sward's best friend, + and will make it thick and smooth as a carpet. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The turfy mountains where live the nibbling sheep" +</pre> + <p> + are not for her. Her muzzle is too blunt; then she does not <i>bite</i> as + do the sheep; she has no upper teeth; she <i>crops.</i> But on the lower + slopes, and margins, and rich bottoms, she is at home. Where the daisy and + the buttercup and clover bloom, and where corn will grow, is her proper + domain. The agriculture of no country can long thrive without her. Not + only a large part of the real, but much of the potential, wealth of the + land is wrapped up in her. + </p> + <p> + Then the cow has given us some good words and hints. How could we get + along without the parable of the cow that gave a good pail of milk and + then kicked it over? One could hardly keep house without it. Or the + parable of the cream and the skimmed milk, or of the buttered bread? We + know, too, through her aid, what the horns of the dilemma mean, and what + comfort there is in the juicy cud of reverie. + </p> + <p> + I have said the cow has not been of much service to the poets, and yet I + remember that Jean Ingelow could hardly have managed her "High Tide" + without "Whitefoot" and "Lightfoot" and "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha! calling;" or + Trowbridge his "Evening at the Farm," in which the real call of the + American farm-boy of "Co', boss! Co', boss! Co', Co'," makes a very + musical refrain. + </p> + <p> + Tennyson's charming "Milking Song" is another flower of poesy that has + sprung up in my divinity's footsteps. + </p> + <p> + What a variety of individualities a herd of cows presents when you have + come to know them all, not only in form and color, but in manners and + disposition! Some are timid and awkward, and the butt of the whole herd. + Some remind you of deer. Some have an expression in the face like certain + persons you have known. A petted and well-fed cow has a benevolent and + gracious look; an ill-used and poorly fed one, a pitiful and forlorn look. + Some cows have a masculine or ox expression; others are extremely + feminine. The latter are the ones for milk. Some cows will kick like a + horse; some jump fences like deer. Every herd has its ringleader, its + unruly spirit,—one that plans all the mischief, and leads the rest + through the fences into the grain or into the orchard. This one is usually + quite different from the master spirit, the "boss of the yard." The latter + is generally the most peaceful and law-abiding cow in the lot, and the + least bullying and quarrelsome. But she is not to be trifled with; her + will is law; the whole herd give way before her, those that have crossed + horns with her and those that have not, but yielded their allegiance + without crossing. I remember such a one among my father's milkers when I + was a boy,—a slender-horned, deep-shouldered, large-uddered, + dewlapped old cow that we always put first in the long stable, so she + could not have a cow on each side of her to forage upon; for the master is + yielded to no less in the stanchions than in the yard. She always had the + first place anywhere. She had her choice of standing-room in the + milking-yard, and when she wanted to lie down there or in the fields the + best and softest spot was hers. When the herd were foddered from the stack + or barn, or fed with pumpkins in the fall, she was always first served. + Her demeanor was quiet but impressive. She never bullied or gored her + mates, but literally ruled them with the breath of her nostrils. If any + new-comer or ambitious younger cow, however, chafed under her supremacy, + she was ever ready to make good her claims. And with what spirit she would + fight when openly challenged! She was a whirlwind of pluck and valor; and + not after one defeat or two defeats would she yield the championship. The + boss cow, when overcome, seems to brood over her disgrace, and day after + day will meet her rival in fierce combat. + </p> + <p> + A friend of mine, a pastoral philosopher, whom I have consulted in regard + to the master cow, thinks it is seldom the case that one rules all the + herd, if it number many, but that there is often one that will rule nearly + all. "Curiously enough," he says, "a case like this will often occur: No. + 1 will whip No. 2; No. 2 whips No. 3; and No. 3 whips No. 1; so around in + a circle. This is not a mistake; it is often the case. I remember," he + continued, "we once had feeding out of a large bin in the centre of the + yard six cows who mastered right through in succession from No. 1 to No. + 6; <i>but</i> No. 6 <i>paid off the score by whipping No. 1.</i> I often + watched them when they were all trying to feed out of the box, and of + course trying, dog-in-the-manger fashion, each to prevent any other she + could. They would often get in the order to do it very systematically, + since they could keep rotating about the box till the chain happened to + get broken somewhere, when there would be confusion. Their mastership, you + know, like that between nations, is constantly changing. There are always + Napoleons who hold their own through many vicissitudes; but the ordinary + cow is continually liable to lose her foothold. Some cow she has always + despised, and has often sent tossing across the yard at her horns' ends, + some pleasant morning will return the compliment and pay off old scores." + </p> + <p> + But my own observation has been that, in herds in which there have been no + important changes for several years, the question of might gets pretty + well settled, and some one cow becomes the acknowledged ruler. + </p> + <p> + The bully of the yard is never the master, but usually a second or third + rate pusher that never loses an opportunity to hook those beneath her, or + to gore the masters if she can get them in a tight place. If such a one + can get loose in the stable, she is quite certain to do mischief. She + delights to pause in the open bars and turn and keep those behind her at + bay till she sees a pair of threatening horns pressing toward her, when + she quickly passes on. As one cow masters all, so there is one cow that is + mastered by all. These are the two extremes of the herd, the head and the + tail. Between them are all grades of authority, with none so poor but hath + some poorer to do her reverence. + </p> + <p> + The cow has evidently come down to us from a wild or semi-wild state; + perhaps is a descendant of those wild, shaggy cattle of which a small band + is still preserved in some nobleman's park in Scotland. Cuvier seems to + have been of this opinion. One of the ways in which her wild instincts + still crop out is the disposition she shows in spring to hide her calf,—a + common practice among the wild herds. Her wild nature would be likely to + come to the surface at this crisis if ever; and I have known cows that + practiced great secrecy in dropping their calves. As their time + approached, they grew restless, a wild and excited look was upon them; and + if left free, they generally set out for the woods, or for some other + secluded spot. After the calf is several hours old, and has got upon its + feet and had its first meal, the dam by some sign commands it to lie down + and remain quiet while she goes forth to feed. If the calf is approached + at such time, it plays "possum," pretends to be dead or asleep, till, on + finding this ruse does not succeed, it mounts to its feet, bleats loudly + and fiercely, and charges desperately upon the intruder. But it recovers + from this wild scare in a little while, and never shows signs of it again. + </p> + <p> + The habit of the cow, also, in eating the placenta, looks to me like a + vestige of her former wild instincts,—the instinct to remove + everything that would give the wild beasts a clew or a scent, and so + attract them to her helpless young. + </p> + <p> + How wise and sagacious the cows become that run upon the street, or pick + their living along the highway! The mystery of gates and bars is at last + solved to them. They ponder over them by night, they lurk about them by + day, till they acquire a new sense,—till they become <i>en rapport</i> + with them and know when they are open and unguarded. The garden gate, if + it open into the highway at any point, is never out of the mind of these + roadsters, or out of their calculations. They calculate upon the chances + of its being left open a certain number of times in the season; and if it + be but once, and only for five minutes, your cabbage and sweet corn + suffer. What villager, or countryman either, has not been awakened at + night by the squeaking and crunching of those piratical jaws under the + window, or in the direction of the vegetable patch? I have had the cows, + after they had eaten up my garden, break into the stable where my own + milcher was tied, and gore her and devour her meal. Yes, life presents but + one absorbing problem to the street cow, and that is how to get into your + garden. She catches glimpses of it over the fence or through the pickets, + and her imagination or her epigastrium is inflamed. When the spot is + surrounded by a high board fence, I think I have seen her peeping at the + cabbages through a knothole. At last she learns to open the gate. It is a + great triumph of bovine wit. She does it with her horn or her nose, or may + be with her ever-ready tongue. I doubt if she has ever yet penetrated the + mystery of the newer patent fastenings; but the old-fashioned thumb-latch + she can see through, give her time enough. + </p> + <p> + A large, lank, muley or polled cow used to annoy me in this way when I was + a dweller in a certain pastoral city. I more than half suspected she was + turned in by some one; so one day I watched. Presently I heard the + gate-latch rattle; the gate swung open, and in walked the old buffalo. On + seeing me she turned and ran like a horse. I then fastened the gate on the + inside and watched again. After long waiting the old cow came quickly + round the corner and approached the gate. She lifted the latch with her + nose. Then, as the gate did not move, she lifted it again and again. Then + she gently nudged it. Then, the obtuse gate not taking the hint, she + butted it gently, then harder and still harder, till it rattled again. At + this juncture I emerged from my hiding-place, when the old villain + scampered off with great precipitation. She knew she was trespassing, and + she had learned that there were usually some swift penalties attached to + this pastime. + </p> + <p> + I have owned but three cows and loved but one. That was the first one, + Chloe, a bright red, curly-pated, golden-skinned Devonshire cow, that an + ocean steamer landed for me upon the banks of the Potomac one bright May + Day many clover summers ago. She came from the north, from the pastoral + regions of the Catskills, to graze upon the broad commons of the national + capital. I was then the fortunate and happy lessee of an old place with an + acre of ground attached, almost within the shadow of the dome of the + Capitol. Behind a high but aged and decrepit board fence I indulged my + rural and unclerical tastes. I could look up from my homely tasks and cast + a potato almost in the midst of that cataract of marble steps that flows + out of the north wing of the patriotic pile. Ah! when that creaking and + sagging back gate closed behind me in the evening, I was happy; and when + it opened for my egress thence in the morning, I was not happy. Inside + that gate was a miniature farm, redolent of homely, primitive life, a + tumble-down house and stables and implements of agriculture and + horticulture, broods of chickens, and growing pumpkins, and a thousand + antidotes to the weariness of an artificial life. Outside of it were the + marble and iron palaces, the paved and blistering streets, and the high, + vacant mahogany desk of a government clerk. In that ancient inclosure I + took an earth bath twice a day. I planted myself as deep in the soil as I + could, to restore the normal tone and freshness of my system, impaired by + the above-mentioned government mahogany. I have found there is nothing + like the earth to draw the various social distempers out of one. The blue + devils take flight at once if they see you mean to bury them and make + compost of them. Emerson intimates that the scholar had better not try to + have two gardens; but I could never spend an hour hoeing up dock and + red-root and twitch-grass without in some way getting rid of many weeds + and fungi, unwholesome growths, that a petty indoor life is forever + fostering in my moral and intellectual nature. + </p> + <p> + But the finishing touch was not given till Chloe came. She was the jewel + for which this homely setting waited. My agriculture had some object then. + The old gate never opened with such alacrity as when she paused before it. + How we waited for her coming! Should I send Drewer, the colored patriarch, + for her? No; the master of the house himself should receive Juno at the + capital. + </p> + <p> + "One cask for you," said the clerk, referring to the steamer bill of + lading. + </p> + <p> + "Then I hope it's a cask of milk," I said. "I expected a cow." + </p> + <p> + "One cask, it says here." + </p> + <p> + "Well, let's see it; I'll warrant it has horns and is tied by a rope;" + which proved to be the case, for there stood the only object that bore my + name, chewing its cud, on the forward deck. How she liked the voyage I + could not find out; but she seemed to relish so much the feeling of solid + ground beneath her feet once more, that she led me a lively step all the + way home. She cut capers in front of the White House, and tried twice to + wind me up in the rope as we passed the Treasury. She kicked up her heels + on the broad avenue, and became very coltish as she came under the walls + of the Capitol. But that night the long-vacant stall in the old stable was + filled, and the next morning the coffee had met with a change of heart. I + had to go out twice with the lantern and survey my treasure before I went + to bed. Did she not come from the delectable mountains, and did I not have + a sort of filial regard for her as toward my foster-mother? + </p> + <p> + This was during the Arcadian age at the capital, before the easy-going + Southern ways had gone out and the prim new Northern ways had come in, and + when the domestic animals were treated with distinguished consideration + and granted the freedom of the city. There was a charm of cattle in the + street and upon the commons; goats cropped your rosebushes through the + pickets, and nooned upon your front porch; and pigs dreamed Arcadian + dreams under your garden fence, or languidly frescoed it with pigments + from the nearest pool. It was a time of peace; it was the poor man's + golden age. Your cow, your goat, your pig, led vagrant, wandering lives, + and picked up a subsistence wherever they could, like the bees, which was + almost everywhere. Your cow went forth in the morning and came home + fraught with milk at night, and you never troubled yourself where she went + or how far she roamed. + </p> + <p> + Chloe took very naturally to this kind of life. At first I had to go with + her a few times and pilot her to the nearest commons, and then I left her + to her own wit, which never failed her. What adventures she had, what + acquaintances she made, how far she wandered, I never knew. I never came + across her in my walks or rambles. Indeed, on several occasions I thought + I would look her up and see her feeding in national pastures, but I never + could find her. There were plenty of cows, but they were all strangers. + But punctually, between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, her white + horns would be seen tossing above the gate and her impatient low be heard. + Sometimes, when I turned her forth in the morning, she would pause and + apparently consider which way she would go. Should she go toward Kendall + Green to-day, or follow the Tiber, or over by the Big Spring, or out + around Lincoln Hospital? She seldom reached a conclusion till she had + stretched forth her neck and blown a blast on her trumpet that awoke the + echoes in the very lantern on the dome of the Capitol. Then, after one or + two licks, she would disappear around the corner. Later in the season, + when the grass was parched or poor on the commons, and the corn and + cabbage tempting in the garden, Chloe was loath to depart in the morning, + and her deliberations were longer than ever, and very often I had to aid + her in coming to a decision. + </p> + <p> + For two summers she was a wellspring of pleasure and profit in my farm of + one acre, when, in an evil moment, I resolved to part with her and try + another. In an evil moment I say, for from that time my luck in cattle + left me. The goddess never forgave me the execution of that rash and cruel + resolve. + </p> + <p> + The day is indelibly stamped on my memory when I exposed my Chloe for sale + in the public market-place. It was in November, a bright, dreamy, Indian + summer day. A sadness oppressed me, not unmixed with guilt and remorse. An + old Irish woman came to the market also with her pets to sell, a sow and + five pigs, and took up a position next me. We condoled with each other; we + bewailed the fate of our darlings together; we berated in chorus the + white-aproned but blood-stained fraternity who prowled about us. When she + went away for a moment I minded the pigs, and when I strolled about she + minded my cow. How shy the innocent beast was of those carnal marketmen! + How she would shrink away from them! When they put out a hand to feel her + condition she would "scrooch" down her back, or bend this way or that, as + if the hand were a branding-iron. So long as I stood by her head she felt + safe—deluded creature!—and chewed the cud of sweet content; + but the moment I left her side she seemed filled with apprehension, and + followed me with her eyes, lowing softly and entreatingly till I returned. + </p> + <p> + At last the money was counted out for her, and her rope surrendered to the + hand of another. How that last look of alarm and incredulity, which I + caught as I turned for a parting glance, went to my heart! + </p> + <p> + Her stall was soon filled, or partly filled, and this time with a native,—a + specimen of what may be called the cornstalk breed of Virginia; a slender, + furtive, long-geared heifer just verging on cowhood, that in spite of my + best efforts would wear a pinched and hungry look. She evidently inherited + a humped back. It was a family trait, and evidence of the purity of her + blood. For the native blooded cow of Virginia, from shivering over half + rations of cornstalks in the open air during those bleak and windy + winters, and roaming over those parched fields in summer, has come to have + some marked features. For one thing, her pedal extremities seem + lengthened; for another, her udder does not impede her traveling; for a + third, her backbone inclines strongly to the curve; then, she despiseth + hay. This last is a sure test. Offer a thorough-bred Virginia cow hay, and + she will laugh in your face; but rattle the husks or shucks, and she knows + you to be her friend. + </p> + <p> + The new-comer even declined corn-meal at first. She eyed it furtively, + then sniffed it suspiciously, but finally discovered that it bore some + relation to her native "shucks," when she fell to eagerly. + </p> + <p> + I cherish the memory of this cow, however, as the most affectionate brute + I ever knew. Being deprived of her calf, she transferred her affections to + her master, and would fain have made a calf of him, lowing in the most + piteous and inconsolable manner when he was out of her sight, hardly + forgetting her grief long enough to eat her meal, and entirely neglecting + her beloved husks. Often in the middle of the night she would set up that + sonorous lamentation, and continue it till sleep was chased from every eye + in the household. This generally had the effect of bringing the object of + her affection before her, but in a mood anything but filial or comforting. + Still, at such times a kick seemed a comfort to her, and she would gladly + have kissed the rod that was the instrument of my midnight wrath. + </p> + <p> + But her tender star was destined soon to a fatal eclipse. Being tied with + too long a rope on one occasion during my temporary absence, she got her + head into the meal-barrel, and stopped not till she had devoured nearly + half a bushel of dry meal. The singularly placid and benevolent look that + beamed from the meal-besmeared face when I discovered her was something to + be remembered. For the first time, also, her spinal column came near + assuming a horizontal line. But the grist proved too much for her frail + mill, and her demise took place on the third day, not of course without + some attempt to relieve her on my part. I gave her, as is usual in such + emergencies, everything I "could think of," and everything my neighbors + could think of, besides some fearful prescriptions which I obtained from a + German veterinary surgeon, but to no purpose. I imagined her poor maw + distended and inflamed with the baking sodden mass which no physic could + penetrate or enliven. + </p> + <p> + Thus ended my second venture in live-stock. My third, which followed sharp + upon the heels of this disaster, was scarcely more of a success. This time + I led to the altar a buffalo cow, as they call the "muley" down South,—a + large, spotted, creamy-skinned cow, with a fine udder, that I persuaded a + Jew drover to part with for ninety dollars. "Pag like a dish rack (rag)," + said he, pointing to her udder after she had been milked. "You vill come + pack and gif me the udder ten tollar" (for he had demanded an even + hundred), he continued, "after you have had her a gouple of days." True, I + felt like returning to him after a "gouple of days," but not to pay the + other ten dollars. The cow proved to be as blind as a bat, though capable + of counterfeiting the act of seeing to perfection. For did she not lift up + her head and follow with her eyes a dog that scaled the fence and ran + through the other end of the lot, and the next moment dash my hopes thus + raised by trying to walk over a locust-tree thirty feet high? And when I + set the bucket before her containing her first mess of meal, she missed it + by several inches, and her nose brought up against the ground. Was it a + kind of far-sightedness and near blindness? That was it, I think; she had + genius, but not talent; she could see the man in the moon, but was quite + oblivious to the man immediately in her front. Her eyes were telescopic + and required a long range. + </p> + <p> + As long as I kept her in the stall, or confined to the inclosure, this + strange eclipse of her sight was of little consequence. But when spring + came, and it was time for her to go forth and seek her livelihood in the + city's waste places, I was embarrassed. Into what remote corners or into + what <i>terra incognita</i> might she not wander! There was little doubt + but that she would drift around home in the course of the summer, or + perhaps as often as every week or two; but could she be trusted to find + her way back every night? Perhaps she could be taught. Perhaps her other + senses were acute enough to compensate in a measure for her defective + vision. So I gave her lessons in the topography of the country. I led her + forth to graze for a few hours each day and led her home again. Then I + left her to come home alone, which feat she accomplished very + encouragingly. She came feeling her way along, stepping very high, but + apparently a most diligent and interested sight-seer. But she was not sure + of the right house when she got to it, though she stared at it very hard. + </p> + <p> + Again I turned her forth, and again she came back, her telescopic eyes + apparently of some service to her. On the third day, there was a fierce + thunder-storm late in the afternoon, and old buffalo did not come home. It + had evidently scattered and bewildered what little wits she had. Being + barely able to navigate those streets on a calm day, what could she be + expected to do in a tempest? + </p> + <p> + After the storm had passed, and near sundown, I set out in quest of her, + but could get no clew. I heard that two cows had been struck by lightning + about a mile out on the commons. My conscience instantly told me that one + of them was mine. It would be a fit closing of the third act of this + pastoral drama. Thitherward I bent my steps, and there upon the smooth + plain I beheld the scorched and swollen forms of two cows slain by + thunderbolts, but neither of them had ever been mine. + </p> + <p> + The next day I continued the search, and the next, and the next. Finally I + hoisted an umbrella over my head, for the weather had become hot, and set + out deliberately and systematically to explore every foot of open common + on Capitol Hill. I tramped many miles, and found every man's cow but my + own,—some twelve or fifteen hundred, I should think. I saw many + vagrant boys and Irish and colored women, nearly all of whom had seen a + buffalo cow that very day that answered exactly to my description, but in + such diverse and widely separate places that I knew it was no cow of mine. + And it was astonishing how many times I was myself deceived; how many + rumps or heads, or line backs or white flanks, I saw peeping over knolls, + or from behind fences or other objects, that could belong to no cow but + mine! + </p> + <p> + Finally I gave up the search, concluded the cow had been stolen, and + advertised her, offering a reward. But days passed, and no tidings were + obtained. Hope began to burn pretty low,—was indeed on the point of + going out altogether,—when one afternoon, as I was strolling over + the commons (for in my walks I still hovered about the scenes of my lost + milcher), I saw the rump of a cow, over a grassy knoll, that looked + familiar. Coming nearer, the beast lifted up her head; and, behold! it was + she! only a few squares from home, where doubtless she had been most of + the time. I had overshot the mark in my search. I had ransacked the + far-off, and had neglected the near-at-hand, as we are so apt to do. But + she was ruined as a milcher, and her history thenceforward was brief and + touching! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII BEFORE GENIUS + </h2> + <p> + If there did not something else go to the making of literature besides + mere literary parts, even the best of them, how long ago the old bards and + the Biblical writers would have been superseded by the learned professors + and the gentlemanly versifiers of later times! Is there to-day a popular + poet, using the English language, who does not, in technical acquirements + and in the artificial adjuncts of poetry,—rhyme, metre, melody, and + especially sweet, dainty fancies,—surpass Europe's and Asia's + loftiest and oldest? Indeed, so marked is the success of the latter-day + poets in this respect, that any ordinary reader may well be puzzled, and + ask, if the shaggy antique masters are poets, what are the refined and + euphonious producers of our own day? + </p> + <p> + If we were to inquire what this something else is which is prerequisite to + any deep and lasting success in literature, we should undoubtedly find + that it is the man behind the book. It is the fashion of the day to + attribute all splendid results to genius and culture. But genius and + culture are not enough. "All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not + the science of honesty and goodness," says Montaigne. The quality of + simple manhood, and the universal human traits which form the bond of + union between man and man,—which form the basis of society, of the + family, of government, of friendship,—are quite overlooked; and the + credit is given to some special facility, or to brilliant and lucky hit. + Does any one doubt that the great poets and artists are made up mainly of + the most common universal human and heroic characteristics?—that in + them, though working to other ends, is all that construct the soldier, the + sailor, the farmer, the discoverer, the bringer-to-pass in any field, and + that their work is good and enduring in proportion as it is saturated and + fertilized by the qualities of these? Good human stock is the main + dependence. No great poet ever appeared except from a race of good + fighters, good eaters, good sleepers, good breeders. Literature dies with + the decay of the <i>un-</i>literary element. It is not in the spirit of + something far away in the clouds or under the moon, something ethereal, + visionary, and anti-mundane, that Angelo, Dante, and Shakespeare work, but + in the spirit of common Nature and of the homeliest facts; through these, + and not away from them, the path of the creator lies. + </p> + <p> + It is no doubt this tendency, always more or less marked in highly refined + and cultivated times, to forget or overlook the primary basic qualities, + and to parade and make much of verbal and technical acquirements, that led + Huxley to speak with such bitter scorn of the "sensual caterwauling of the + literary classes," for this is not the only country in which books are + produced that are a mere skin of elegant words blown up by copious + literary gas. + </p> + <p> + In imaginative works, especially, much depends upon the quality of mere + weight. A stern, material inertia is indispensable. It is like the + immobility and the power of resistance of a piece of ordnance, upon which + the force and efficacy of the projectile finally depend. In the most + daring flights of the master, there is still something which remains + indifferent and uncommitted, and which acts as reserve power, making the + man always superior to his work. He must always leave the impression that + if he wanted to pull harder or to fly higher he could easily do so. In + Homer there is much that is not directly available for Homer's purposes as + poet. This is his personality,—the real Homer,—which lies + deeper than his talents and skill, and which works through these by + indirections. This gives the authority; this is the unseen backer, which + makes every promise good. + </p> + <p> + What depths can a man sound but his own, or what heights explore? "We + carry within us," says Sir Thomas Browne, "the wonders we seek without + us." + </p> + <p> + Indeed, there is a strict moral or ethical dependence of the capacity to + conceive or to project great things upon the capacity to be or to do them. + It is as true as any law of hydraulics or of statics, that the workmanship + of a man can never rise above the level of his character. He can never + adequately say or do anything greater than he himself is. There is no such + thing, for instance, as deep insight into the mystery of Creation, without + integrity and simplicity of character. + </p> + <p> + In the highest mental results and conditions the whole being sympathizes. + The perception of a certain range of truth, such as is indicated by Plato, + Hegel, Swedenborg, and which is very far from what is called "religious" + or "moral," I should regard as the best testimonial that could be offered + of a man's probity and essential nobility of soul. Is it possible to + imagine a fickle, inconstant, or a sly, vain, mean person reading and + appreciating Emerson? Think of the real men of science, the great + geologists and astronomers, one opening up time, the other space! Shall + mere intellectual acumen be accredited with these immense results? What + noble pride, self-reliance, and continuity of character underlie Newton's + deductions! + </p> + <p> + Only those books are for the making of men into which a man has gone in + the making. Mere professional skill and sleight of hand, of themselves, + are to be apprized as lightly in letters as in war or in government, or in + any kind of leadership. Strong native qualities only avail in the long + run; and the more these dominate over the artificial endowments, sloughing + or dropping the latter in the final result, the more we are refreshed and + enlarged. Who has not, at some period of his life, been captivated by the + rhetoric and fine style of nearly all the popular authors of a certain + sort, but at last waked up to discover that behind these brilliant names + was no strong, loving man, but only a refined taste, a fertile invention, + or a special talent of one kind or another. + </p> + <p> + Think of the lather of the modern novel, and the fashion-plate men and + women that figure in it! What noble person has Dickens sketched, or has + any novelist since Scott? The utter poverty of almost every current + novelist, in any grand universal human traits in his own character, is + shown in nothing more clearly than in the <i>kind</i> of interest the + reader takes in his books. We are led along solely by the ingenuity of the + plot, and a silly desire to see how the affair came out. What must be the + effect, long continued, of this class of jugglers working upon the + sympathies and the imagination of a nation of gestating women? + </p> + <p> + How the best modern novel collapses before the homely but immense human + significance of Homer's celestial swineherd entertaining divine Ulysses, + or even the solitary watchman in Aeschylus' "Agamemnon," crouched, like a + night-dog, on the roofs of the Atreidae, waiting for the signal fires that + should announce the fall of sacred Ilion! + </p> + <p> + But one need not look long, even in contemporary British literature, to + find a man. In the author of "Characteristics" and "Sartor Resartus" we + surely encounter one of the true heroic cast. We are made aware that here + is something more than a <i>littérateur,</i> something more than genius. + Here is veracity, homely directness and sincerity, and strong primary + idiosyncrasies. Here the man enters into the estimate of the author. There + is no separating them, as there never is in great examples. A curious + perversity runs through all, but in no way vitiates the result. In both + his moral and intellectual nature, Carlyle seems made with a sort of stub + and twist, like the best gun-barrels. The knotty and corrugated character + of his sentences suits well the peculiar and intense activity of his mind. + What a transition from his terse and sharply articulated pages, brimming + with character and life, and a strange mixture of rage, humor, tenderness, + poetry, philosophy, to the cold disbelief and municipal splendor of + Macaulay! Nothing in Carlyle's contributions seems fortuitous. It all + flows from a good and sufficient cause in the character of the man. + </p> + <p> + Every great man is, in a certain way, an Atlas, with the weight of the + world upon him. And if one is to criticise at all, he may say that, if + Carlyle had not been quite so conscious of this weight, his work would + have been better done. Yet to whom do we owe more, even as Americans? + Anti-democratic in his opinions, he surely is not so in spirit, or in the + quality of his make. The nobility of labor and the essential nobility of + man were never so effectively preached before. The deadliest enemy of + democracy is not the warning or dissenting voice, but it is the spirit, + rife among us, which would engraft upon our hardy Western stock the sickly + and decayed standards of the expiring feudal world. + </p> + <p> + With two or three exceptions, there is little as yet in American + literature that shows much advance beyond the merely conventional and + scholastic,—little, I mean, in which one gets a whiff of the strong, + unbreathed air of mountain or prairie, or a taste of rude, new power that + is like the tonic of the sea. Thoreau occupies a niche by himself. Thoreau + was not a great personality, yet his writings have a strong characteristic + flavor. He is anti-scorbutic, like leeks and onions. He has reference, + also, to the highest truths. + </p> + <p> + It is very likely true that our most native and original characters do not + yet take to literature. It is, perhaps, too early in the day. Iron and + lime have to pass through the vegetable before they can reach the higher + organization of the animal, and maybe this Western nerve and heartiness + will yet emerge on the intellectual plane. Let us hope that it will indeed + be Western nerve and heartiness when it gets there, and not Eastern wit + and epigram! + </p> + <p> + In Abraham Lincoln we had a character of very marked and lofty type, the + most suggestive study or sketch of the future American man that has yet + appeared in our history. How broad, unconventional, and humane! How + democratic! how adhesive! No fine arabesque carvings, but strong, unhewn, + native traits, and deep lines of care, toil, and human sympathy. Lincoln's + Gettysburg speech is one of the most genuine and characteristic utterances + in our annals. It has the true antique simplicity and impressiveness. It + came straight from the man, and is as sure an index of character as the + living voice, or the physiognomy, or the personal presence. Indeed, it may + be said of Mr. Lincoln's entire course while at the head of the nation, + that no President, since the first, ever in his public acts allowed the + man so fully to appear, or showed so little disposition to retreat behind + the featureless political mask which seems to adhere to the idea of + gubernatorial dignity. + </p> + <p> + It would be hardly fair to cite Everett's speech on the same occasion as a + specimen of the opposite style, wherein ornate scholarship and the pride + of talents dominate. Yet a stern critic would be obliged to say that, as + an author, Everett allowed, for the most part, only the expurgated, + complimenting, drawing-room man to speak; and that, considering the need + of America to be kept virile and broad at all hazards, his contribution, + both as man and writer, falls immeasurably short of Abraham Lincoln's. + </p> + <p> + What a noble specimen of its kind, and how free from any verbal tricks or + admixture of literary sauce, is Thoreau's "Maine Woods"! And what a marked + specimen of the opposite style is a certain other book I could mention in + which these wild and grand scenes serve but as a medium to advertise the + author's fund of classic lore! + </p> + <p> + Can there be any doubt about the traits and outward signs of a noble + character, and is not the style of an author the manners of his soul? + </p> + <p> + Is there a lyceum lecturer in the country who is above manoeuvring for the + applause of his audience? or a writer who is willing to make himself of no + account for the sake of what he has to say? Even in the best there is + something of the air and manners of a performer on exhibition. The + newspaper, or magazine, or book is a sort of raised platform upon which + the advertiser advances before a gaping and expectant crowd. Truly, how + well he <i>handles</i> his subject! He turns it over, and around, and + inside out, and top-side down. He tosses it about; he twirls it; he takes + it apart and puts it together again, and knows well beforehand where the + applause will come in. Any reader, in taking up the antique authors, must + be struck by the contrast. + </p> + <p> + "In Aeschylus," says Landor, "there is no trickery, no trifling, no delay, + no exposition, no garrulity, no dogmatism, no declamation, no prosing,... + but the loud, clear challenge, the firm, unstealthy step, of an erect, + broad-breasted soldier." + </p> + <p> + On the whole, the old authors are better than the new. The real question + of literature is not simplified by culture or a multiplication of books, + as the conditions of life are always the same, and are not made one whit + easier by all the myriads of men and women who have lived upon the globe. + The standing want is never for more skill, but for newer, fresher power,—a + more plentiful supply of arterial blood. The discoverer, or the historian, + or the man of science, may begin where his predecessor left off, but the + poet or any artist must go back for a fresh start. With him it is always + the first day of creation, and he must begin at the stump or nowhere. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII BEFORE BEAUTY + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + Before genius is manliness, and before beauty is power. The Russian + novelist and poet, Turgenieff, scattered all through whose works you will + find unmistakable traits of greatness, makes one of his characters say, + speaking of beauty, "The old masters,—they never hunted after it; it + comes of itself into their compositions, God knows whence, from heaven or + elsewhere. The whole world belonged to them, but we are unable to clasp + its broad spaces; our arms are too short." + </p> + <p> + From the same depth of insight come these lines from "Leaves of Grass," + apropos of true poems:— + </p> + <p> + "They do not seek beauty—they are sought; Forever touching them, or + close upon them, follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick." + </p> + <p> + The Roman was perhaps the first to separate beauty from use, and to pursue + it as ornament merely. He built his grand edifice,—its piers, its + vaults, its walls of brick and concrete,—and then gave it a marble + envelope copied from the Greek architecture. The latter could be stripped + away, as in many cases it was by the hand of time, and leave the + essentials of the structure nearly complete. Not so with the Greek: he did + not seek the beautiful, he was beauty; his building had no ornament, it + was all structure; in its beauty was the flower of necessity, the charm of + inborn fitness and proportion. In other words, "his art was structure + refined into beautiful forms, not beautiful forms superimposed upon + structure," as with the Roman. And it is in Greek mythology, is it not, + that Beauty is represented as riding upon the back of a lion? as she + assuredly always does in their poetry and art,—rides upon power, or + terror, or savage fate; not only rides upon, but is wedded and + incorporated with it; hence the athletic desire and refreshment her coming + imparts. + </p> + <p> + This is the invariable order of nature. Beauty without a rank material + basis enfeebles. The world is not thus made; man is not thus begotten and + nourished. + </p> + <p> + It comes to me there is something implied or understood when we look upon + a beautiful object, that has quite as much to do with the impression made + upon the mind as anything in the object itself; perhaps more. There is + somehow an immense and undefined background of vast and unconscionable + energy, as of earthquakes, and ocean storms, and cleft mountains, across + which things of beauty play, and to which they constantly defer; and when + this background is wanting, as it is in much current poetry, beauty + sickens and dies, or at most has only a feeble existence. + </p> + <p> + Nature does nothing merely for beauty; beauty follows as the inevitable + result; and the final impression of health and finish which her works make + upon the mind is owing as much to those things which are not technically + called beautiful as to those which are. The former give identity to the + latter. The one is to the other what substance is to form, or bone to + flesh. The beauty of nature includes all that is called beautiful, as its + flower; and all that is not called beautiful, as its stalk and roots. + </p> + <p> + Indeed, when I go to the woods or the fields, or ascend to the hilltop, I + do not seem to be gazing upon beauty at all, but to be breathing it like + the air. I am not dazzled or astonished; I am in no hurry to look lest it + be gone. I would not have the litter and debris removed, or the banks + trimmed, or the ground painted. What I enjoy is commensurate with the + earth and sky itself. It clings to the rocks and trees; it is kindred to + the roughness and savagery; it rises from every tangle and chasm; it + perches on the dry oak-stubs with the hawks and buzzards; the crows shed + it from their wings and weave it into their nests of coarse sticks; the + fox barks it, the cattle low it, and every mountain path leads to its + haunts. I am not a spectator of, but a participator in it. It is not an + adornment; its roots strike to the centre of the earth. + </p> + <p> + All true beauty in nature or in art is like the iridescent hue of + mother-of-pearl, which is intrinsic and necessary, being the result of the + arrangement of the particles,—the flowering of the mechanism of the + shell; or like the beauty of health which comes out of and reaches back + again to the bones and the digestion. There is no grace like the grace of + strength. What sheer muscular gripe and power lie back of the firm, + delicate notes of the great violinist! "Wit," says Heine,—and the + same thing is true of beauty,—"isolated, is worthless. It is only + endurable when it rests on a solid basis." + </p> + <p> + In fact, beauty as a separate and distinct thing does not exist. Neither + can it be reached by any sorting or sifting or clarifying process. It is + an experience of the mind, and must be preceded by certain conditions, + just as light is an experience of the eye, and sound of the ear. + </p> + <p> + To attempt to manufacture beauty is as vain as to attempt to manufacture + truth; and to give it to us in poems or any form of art, without a lion of + some sort, a lion of truth or fitness or power, is to emasculate it and + destroy its volition. + </p> + <p> + But current poetry is, for the most part, an attempt to do this very + thing, to give us beauty without beauty's antecedents and foil. The poets + want to spare us the annoyance of the beast. Since beauty is the chief + attraction, why not have this part alone, pure and unadulterated,—why + not pluck the plumage from the bird, the flower from its stalk, the moss + from the rock, the shell from the shore, the honey-bag from the bee, and + thus have in brief what pleases us? Hence, with rare exceptions, one + feels, on opening the latest book of poems, like exclaiming, Well, here is + the beautiful at last divested of everything else,—of truth, of + power, of utility,—and one may add of beauty, too. It charms as + color, or flowers, or jewels, or perfume charms—and that is the end + of it. + </p> + <p> + It is ever present to the true artist, in his attempt to report nature, + that every object as it stands in the circuit of cause and effect has a + history which involves its surroundings, and that the depth of the + interest which it awakens in us is in proportion as its integrity in this + respect is preserved. In nature we are prepared for any opulence of color + or of vegetation, or freak of form, or display of any kind, because of the + preponderance of the common, ever-present feature of the earth. The foil + is always at hand. In like manner in the master poems we are never + surfeited with mere beauty. + </p> + <p> + Woe to any artist who disengages Beauty from the wide background of + rudeness, darkness, and strength,—and disengages her from absolute + nature! The mild and beneficent aspects of nature,—what gulfs and + abysses of power underlie them! The great shaggy, barbaric earth,—yet + the summing-up, the plenum, of all we know or can know of beauty! So the + orbic poems of the world have a foundation as of the earth itself, and are + beautiful because they are something else first. Homer chose for his + groundwork War, clinching, tearing, tugging war; in Dante, it is Hell; in + Milton, Satan and the Fall; in Shakespeare, it is the fierce Feudal world, + with its towering and kingly personalities; in Byron, it is Revolt and + diabolic passion. When we get to Tennyson, the lion is a good deal tamed, + but he is still there in the shape of the proud, haughty, and manly + Norman, and in many forms yet stimulates the mind. + </p> + <p> + The perception of cosmical beauty comes by a vital original process. It is + in some measure a creative act, and those works that rest upon it make + demands—perhaps extraordinary ones—upon the reader or the + beholder. We regard mere surface glitter, or mere verbal sweetness, in a + mood entirely passive, and with a pleasure entirely profitless. The beauty + of excellent stage scenery seems much more obvious and easy of + apprehension than the beauty of trees and hills themselves, inasmuch as + the act of association in the mind is much easier and cheaper than the act + of original perception. + </p> + <p> + Only the greatest works in any department afford any explanation of this + wonder we call nature, or aid the mind in arriving at correct notions + concerning it. To copy here and there a line or a trait is no explanation; + but to translate nature into another language—to bridge it to us, to + repeat in some sort the act of creation itself—is the crowning + triumph of poetic art. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + After the critic has enumerated all the stock qualities of the poet, as + taste, fancy, melody, it remains to be said that unless there is something + in him that is <i>living identity,</i> something analogous to the growing, + pushing, reproducing forces of nature, all the rest in the end pass for + but little. + </p> + <p> + This is perhaps what the German critic, Lessing, really means by <i>action,</i> + for true poems are more like deeds, expressive of something behind, more + like acts of heroism or devotion, or like personal character, than like + thoughts or intellections. + </p> + <p> + All the master poets have in their work an interior, chemical, + assimilative property, a sort of gastric juice which dissolves thought and + form, and holds in vital fusion religions, times, races, and the theory of + their own construction, naming up with electric and defiant power,—power + without any admixture of resisting form, as in a living organism. + </p> + <p> + There are in nature two types or forms, the cell and the crystal. One + means the organic, the other the inorganic; one means growth, development, + life; the other means reaction, solidification, rest. The hint and model + of all creative works is the cell; critical, reflective, and philosophical + works are nearer akin to the crystal; while there is much good literature + that is neither the one nor the other distinctively, but which in a + measure touches and includes both. But crystallic beauty or cut and + polished gems of thought, the result of the reflex rather than the direct + action of the mind, we do not expect to find in the best poems, though + they may be most prized by specially intellectual persons. In the immortal + poems the solids are very few, or do not appear at all as solids,—as + lime and iron,—any more than they do in organic nature, in the flesh + of the peach or the apple. The main thing in every living organism is the + vital fluids: seven tenths of man is water; and seven tenths of + Shakespeare is passion, emotion,—fluid humanity. Out of this arise + his forms, as Venus arose out of the sea, and as man is daily built up out + of the liquids of the body. We cannot taste, much less assimilate, a solid + until it becomes a liquid; and your great idea, your sermon or moral, lies + upon your poem a dead, cumbrous mass unless there is adequate heat and + solvent, emotional power. Herein I think Wordsworth's "Excursion" fails as + a poem. It has too much solid matter. It is an over-freighted bark that + does not ride the waves buoyantly and lifelike; far less so than + Tennyson's "In Memoriam," which is just as truly a philosophical poem as + the "Excursion." (Wordsworth is the fresher poet; his poems seem really to + have been written in the open air, and to have been brought directly under + the oxygenating influence of outdoor nature; while in Tennyson this + influence seems tempered or farther removed.) + </p> + <p> + The physical cosmos itself is not a thought, but an act. Natural objects + do not affect us like well-wrought specimens or finished handicraft, which + have nothing to follow, but as living, procreating energy. Nature is + perpetual transition. Everything passes and presses on; there is no pause, + no completion, no explanation. To produce and multiply endlessly, without + ever reaching the last possibility of excellence, and without committing + herself to any end, is the law of Nature. + </p> + <p> + These considerations bring us very near the essential difference between + prose and poetry, or rather between the poetic and the didactic treatment + of a subject. The essence of creative art is always the same; namely, + interior movement and fusion; while the method of the didactic or prosaic + treatment is fixity, limitation. The latter must formulate and define; but + the principle of the former is to flow, to suffuse, to mount, to escape. + We can conceive of life only as something constantly <i>becoming.</i> It + plays forever on the verge. It is never <i>in loco,</i> but always <i>in + transitu.</i> Arrest the wind, and it is no longer the wind; close your + hands upon the light, and behold, it is gone. + </p> + <p> + The antithesis of art in method is science, as Coleridge has intimated. As + the latter aims at the particular, so the former aims at the universal. + One would have truth of detail, the other truth of <i>ensemble.</i> The + method of science may be symbolized by the straight line, that of art by + the curve. The results of science, relatively to its aim, must be parts + and pieces; while art must give the whole in every act; not quantitively + of course, but qualitively,—by the integrity of the spirit in which + it works. + </p> + <p> + The Greek mind will always be the type of the artist mind, mainly because + of its practical bent, its healthful objectivity. The Greek never looked + inward, but outward. Criticism and speculation were foreign to him. His + head shows a very marked predominance of the motive and perceptive powers + over the reflective. The expression of the face is never what we call + intellectual or thoughtful, but commanding. His gods are not philosophers, + but delight in deeds, justice, rulership. + </p> + <p> + Among the differences between the modern and the classical aesthetic mind + is the greater precision and definiteness of the latter. The modern genius + is Gothic, and demands in art a certain vagueness and spirituality like + that of music, refusing to be grasped and formulated. Hence for us (and + this is undoubtedly an improvement) there must always be something about a + poem, or any work of art, besides the evident intellect or plot of it, or + what is on its surface, or what it tells. This something is the Invisible, + the Undefined, almost Unexpressed, and is perhaps the best part of any + work of art, as it is of a noble personality. To amuse, to exhibit + culture, to formulate the aesthetic, or even to excite the emotions, is by + no means all,—is not even the deepest part. Beside these, and + inclosing all, is the general impalpable effect, like good air, or the + subtle presence of good spirits, wordless but more potent far than words. + As, in the superbest person, it is not merely what he says or knows or + shows, or even how he behaves, but the silent qualities, like gravitation, + that insensibly but resistlessly hold us; so in a good poem, or in any + other expression of art. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX EMERSON + </h2> + <p> + Wherein the race has so far lost and gained, in being transplanted from + Europe to the New England soil and climate, is well illustrated by the + writings of Emerson. There is greater refinement and sublimation of + thought, greater clearness and sharpness of outline, greater audacity of + statement, but, on the other hand, there is a loss of bulk, of unction, of + adipose tissue, and shall we say of power? + </p> + <p> + Emerson is undoubtedly a master on the New England scale,—such a + master as the land and race are capable of producing. He stands out clear + and undeniable. The national type, as illustrated by that section of the + country, is the purest and strongest in him of any yet. He can never + suffer eclipse. Compared with the English or German master, he is + undoubtedly deficient in viscera, in moral and intellectual stomach; but, + on the other hand, he is of a fibre and quality hard to match in any age + or land. From first to last he strikes one as something extremely pure and + compact, like a nut or an egg. Great matters and tendencies lie folded in + him, or rather are summarized in his pages. He writes short but pregnant + chapters on great themes, as in his "English Traits," a book like rich + preserves put up pound for pound, a pound of Emerson to every pound of + John Bull. His chapter on Swedenborg in "Representative Men" is a good + sample of his power to abbreviate and restate with added force. His mind + acts like a sun-lens in gathering the cold pale beams of that luminary to + a focus which warms and stimulates the reader in a surprising manner. The + gist of the whole matter is here; and how much weariness and dullness and + plodding is left out! + </p> + <p> + In fact, Emerson is an essence, a condensation; more so, perhaps, than any + other man who has appeared in literature. Nowhere else is there such a + preponderance of pure statement, of the very attar of thought, over the + bulkier, circumstantial, qualifying, or secondary elements. He gives us + net results. He is like those strong artificial fertilizers. A pinch of + him is equivalent to a page or two of Johnson, and he is pitched many + degrees higher as an essayist than even Bacon. He has had an immediate + stimulating effect upon all the best minds of the country; how deep or + lasting this influence will be remains to be seen. + </p> + <p> + This point and brevity has its convenience and value especially in certain + fields of literature. I by no means would wish to water Emerson; yet it + will not do to lose sight of the fact that mass and inertia are + indispensable to the creator. Considering him as poet alone, I have no + doubt of his irremediable deficiency here. You cannot have broad, massive + effect, deep light and shade, or a torrent of power, with such extreme + refinement and condensation. The superphosphates cannot take the place of + the coarser, bulkier fertilizers. Especially in poetry do we require pure + thought to be well diluted with the human, emotional qualities. In the + writing most precious to the race, how little is definition and + intellectual formula, and how much is impulse, emotion, will, character, + blood, chyle! We must have liquids and gases and solvents. We perhaps get + more of them in Carlyle. Emerson's page has more serene astral beauty than + Carlyle's, but not that intense blast-furnace heat that melts down the + most obdurate facts and characters into something plastic and poetical. + Emerson's ideal is always the scholar, the man of books and ready wit; + Carlyle's hero is a riding or striding ruler, or a master worker in some + active field. + </p> + <p> + The antique mind no doubt affords the true type of health and wholeness in + this respect. The Greek could see, and feel, and paint, and carve, and + speak nothing but emotional man. In nature he saw nothing but personality,—nothing + but human or superhuman qualities; to him the elements all took the human + shape. Of that vague, spiritual, abstract something which we call Nature + he had no conception. He had no sentiment, properly speaking, but impulse + and will-power. And the master minds of the world, in proportion to their + strength, their spinal strength, have approximated to this type. Dante, + Angelo, Shakespeare, Byron, Goethe, saw mainly man, and him not abstractly + but concretely. And this is the charm of Burns and the glory of Scott. + Carlyle has written the best histories and biographies of modern times, + because he sees man with such fierce and steadfast eyes. Emerson sees him + also, but he is not interested in him as a man, but mainly as a spirit, as + a demigod, or as a wit or a philosopher. + </p> + <p> + Emerson's quality has changed a good deal in his later writings. His corn + is no longer in the milk; it has grown hard, and we that read have grown + hard, too. He has now ceased to be an expansive, revolutionary force, but + he has not ceased to be a writer of extraordinary gripe and unexpected + resources of statement. His startling piece of advice, "Hitch your wagon + to a star," is typical of the man, as combining the most unlike and widely + separate qualities. Because not less marked than his idealism and + mysticism is his shrewd common sense, his practical bent, his + definiteness,—in fact, the sharp New England mould in which he is + cast. He is the master Yankee, the centennial flower of that thrifty and + peculiar stock. More especially in his later writings and speakings do we + see the native New England traits,—the alertness, eagerness, + inquisitiveness, thrift, dryness, archness, caution, the nervous energy as + distinguished from the old English unction and vascular force. How he + husbands himself,—what prudence, what economy, always spending up, + as he says, and not down! How alert, how attentive; what an inquisitor; + always ready with some test question, with some fact or idea to match or + to verify, ever on the lookout for some choice bit of adventure or + information, or some anecdote that has pith and point! No tyro basks and + takes his ease in his presence, but is instantly put on trial and must + answer or be disgraced. He strikes at an idea like a falcon at a bird. His + great fear seems to be lest there be some fact or point worth knowing that + will escape him. He is a close-browed miser of the scholar's gains. He + turns all values into intellectual coin. Every book or person or + experience is an investment that will or will not warrant a good return in + ideas. He goes to the Radical Club, or to the literary gathering, and + listens with the closest attention to every word that is said, in hope + that something will be said, some word dropped, that has the ring of the + true metal. Apparently he does not permit himself a moment's indifference + or inattention. His own pride is always to have the ready change, to speak + the exact and proper word, to give to every occasion the dignity of wise + speech. You are bartered with for your best. There is no profit in life + but in the interchange of ideas, and the chief success is to have a head + well filled with them. Hard cash at that; no paper promises satisfy him; + he loves the clink and glint of the real coin. + </p> + <p> + His earlier writings were more flowing and suggestive, and had reference + to larger problems; but now everything has got weighed and stamped and + converted into the medium of wise and scholarly conversation. It is of + great value; these later essays are so many bags of genuine coin, which it + has taken a lifetime to hoard; not all gold, but all good, and the fruit + of wise industry and economy. + </p> + <p> + I know of no other writing that yields the reader so many strongly stamped + medallion-like sayings and distinctions. There is a perpetual refining and + recoining of the current wisdom of life and conversation. It is the old + gold or silver or copper, but how bright and new it looks in his pages! + Emerson loves facts, things, objects, as the workman his tools. He makes + everything serve. The stress of expression is so great that he bends the + most obdurate element to his purpose; as the bird, under her keen + necessity, weaves the most contrary and diverse materials into her nest. + He seems to like best material that is a little refractory; it makes his + page more piquant and stimulating. Within certain limits he loves + roughness, but not at the expense of harmony. He has wonderful hardiness + and push. Where else in literature is there a mind, moving in so rare a + medium, that gives one such a sense of tangible resistance and force? It + is a principle in mechanics that velocity is twice as great as mass: + double your speed and you double your heat, though you halve your weight. + In like manner this body we are considering is not the largest, but its + speed is great, and the intensity of its impact with objects and + experience is almost without parallel. Everything about a man like Emerson + is important. I find his phrenology and physiognomy more than ordinarily + typical and suggestive. Look at his picture there,—large, strong + features on a small face and head,—no blank spaces; all given up to + expression; a high predaceous nose, a sinewy brow, a massive, benevolent + chin. In most men there is more face than feature, but here is a vast deal + more feature than face, and a corresponding alertness and emphasis of + character. Indeed, the man is made after this fashion. He is all type; his + expression is transcendent. His mind has the hand's pronounced anatomy,—its + cords and sinews and multiform articulations and processes, its opposing + and coordinating power. If his brain is small, its texture is fine and its + convolutions are deep. There have been broader and more catholic natures, + but few so towering and audacious in expression and so rich in + characteristic traits. Every scrap and shred of him is important and + related. Like the strongly aromatic herbs and simples,—sage, mint, + wintergreen, sassafras,—the least part carries the flavor of the + whole. Is there one indifferent or equivocal or unsympathizing drop of + blood in him? Where he is at all, he is entirely,—nothing + extemporaneous; his most casual word seems to have lain in pickle a long + time, and is saturated through and through with the Emersonian brine. + Indeed, so pungent and penetrating is his quality that even his quotations + seem more than half his own. + </p> + <p> + He is a man who occupies every inch of his rightful territory; he is there + in proper person to the farthest bound. Not every man is himself and his + best self at all times and to his finger points. Many great characters, + perhaps the greatest, have more or less neutral or waste ground. You must + penetrate a distance before you reach the real quick. Or there is a good + wide margin of the commonplace which is sure to put them on good terms + with the mass of their fellow-citizens. And one would think Emerson could + afford to relax a little; that he had earned the right to a dull page or + two now and then. The second best or third best word sometimes would make + us appreciate his first best all the more. Even his god-father Plato nods + occasionally, but Emerson's good breeding will not for a moment permit + such a slight to the reader. + </p> + <p> + Emerson's peculiar quality is very subtle, but very sharp and firm and + unmistakable. It is not analogous to the commoner, slower-going elements, + as heat, air, fire, water, but is nearer akin to that elusive but potent + something we call electricity. It is abrupt, freaky, unexpected, and + always communicates a little wholesome shock. It darts this way and that, + and connects the far and the near in every line. There is always a leaping + thread of light, and there is always a kind of answering peal or + percussion. With what quickness and suddenness extremes are brought + together! The reader is never prepared for what is to come next; the spark + will most likely leap from some source or fact least thought of. His page + seldom glows and burns, but there is a never-ceasing crackling and + discharge of moral and intellectual force into the mind. + </p> + <p> + His chief weapon, and one that he never lays down, is identical with that + of the great wits, namely, surprise. The point of his remark or idea is + always sprung upon the reader, never quietly laid before him. He has a + mortal dread of tameness and flatness, and would make the very water we + drink bite the tongue. + </p> + <p> + He has been from the first a speaker and lecturer, and his style has been + largely modeled according to the demand of those sharp, heady New England + audiences for ceaseless intellectual friction and chafing. Hence every + sentence is braided hard, and more or less knotted, and, though of silk, + makes the mind tingle. He startles by overstatement, by understatement, by + paradox, by antithesis, and by synthesis. Into every sentence enters the + unexpected,—the congruous leaping from the incongruous, the high + coming down, the low springing up, likeness or relation suddenly coming + into view where before was only difference or antagonism. How he delights + to bring the reader up with a short turn, to impale him on a knotty point, + to explode one of his verbal bombshells under his very nose! Yet there is + no trickery or rhetorical legerdemain. His heroic fibre always saves him. + </p> + <p> + The language in which Taine describes Bacon applies with even more force + to Emerson:— + </p> + <p> + "Bacon," he says, "is a producer of conceptions and of sentences. The + matter being explored, he says to us: 'Such it is; touch it not on that + side; it must be approached from the other.' Nothing more; no proof, no + effort to convince; he affirms, and nothing more; he has thought in the + manner of artists and poets, and he speaks after the manner of prophets + and seers. 'Cogita et visa,'—this title of one of his books might be + the title of all. His process is that of the creators; it is intuition, + not reasoning.... There is nothing more hazardous, more like fantasy, than + this mode of thought when it is not checked by natural and good strong + common sense. This common sense, which is a kind of natural divination, + the stable equilibrium of an intellect always gravitating to the true, + like the needle to the north pole, Bacon possesses in the highest degree. + He has a preëminently practical, even an utilitarian mind." + </p> + <p> + It is significant, and is indeed the hidden seed or root out of which + comes the explanation of much, if not the main part, of his life and + writings, that Emerson comes of a long line of clergymen; that the blood + in his veins has been teaching, and preaching, and thinking, and growing + austere, these many generations. One wonders that it is still so bounding + and strong, so red with iron and quick with oxygen. But in him seems to be + illustrated one of those rare cases in the genealogy of families where the + best is carried forward each time, and steadily recruited and intensified. + It does not seem possible for any man to become just what Emerson is from + the stump, though perhaps great men have been the fruit of one generation; + but there is a quality in him, an aroma of fine manners, a propriety, a + chivalry in the blood, that dates back, and has been refined and + transmitted many times. Power is born with a man, and is always first + hand, but culture, genius, noble instincts, gentle manners, or the easy + capacity for these things, may be, and to a greater or a lesser extent + are, the contribution of the past. Emerson's culture is radical and + ante-natal, and never fails him. The virtues of all those New England + ministers and all those tomes of sermons are in this casket. One fears + sometimes that he has been too much clarified, or that there is not enough + savage grace or original viciousness and grit in him to save him. How he + hates the roysterers, and all the rank, turbulent, human passions, and is + chilled by the thought that perhaps after all Shakespeare led a vulgar + life! + </p> + <p> + When Tyndall was here, he showed us how the dark, coarse, invisible heat + rays could be strained out of the spectrum; or, in other words, that every + solar beam was weighted with a vast, nether, invisible side, which made it + a lever of tremendous power in organic nature. After some such analogy, + one sees how the highest order of power in the intellectual world draws + upon and is nourished by those rude, primitive, barbaric human qualities + that our culture and pietism tend to cut off and strain out. Our culture + has its eye on the other end of the spectrum, where the fine violet and + indigo rays are; but all the lifting, rounding, fructifying powers of the + system are in the coarse, dark rays—the black devil—at the + base. The angel of light is yoked with the demon of darkness, and the pair + create and sustain the world. + </p> + <p> + In rare souls like Emerson, the fruit of extreme culture, it is inevitable + that at least some of the heat rays should be lost, and we miss them + especially when we contrast him with the elder masters. The elder masters + did not seem to get rid of the coarse or vulgar in human life, but royally + accepted it, and struck their roots into it, and drew from it sustenance + and power: but there is an ever-present suspicion that Emerson prefers the + saints to the sinners; prefers the prophets and seers to Homer, + Shakespeare, and Dante. Indeed, it is to be distinctly stated and + emphasized, that Emerson is essentially a priest, and that the key to all + he has said and written is to be found in the fact that his point of view + is not that of the acceptor, the creator,—Shakespeare's point of + view,—but that of the refiner and selector, the priest's point of + view. He described his own state rather than that of mankind when he said, + "The human mind stands ever in perplexity, demanding intellect, demanding + sanctity, impatient equally of each without the other." + </p> + <p> + Much surprise has been expressed in literary circles in this country that + Emerson has not followed up his first off-hand indorsement of Walt Whitman + with fuller and more deliberate approval of that poet, but has rather + taken the opposite tack. But the wonder is that he should have been + carried off his feet at all in the manner he was; and it must have been no + ordinary breeze that did it. Emerson shares with his contemporaries the + vast preponderance of the critical and discerning intellect over the + fervid, manly qualities and faith. His power of statement is enormous; his + scope of being is not enormous. The prayer he uttered many years ago for a + poet of the modern, one who could see in the gigantic materialism of the + times the carnival of the same deities we so much admire in Greece and + Rome, seems to many to have even been explicitly answered in Whitman; but + Emerson is balked by the cloud of materials, the din and dust of action, + and the moving armies, in which the god comes enveloped. + </p> + <p> + But Emerson has his difficulties with all the poets. Homer is too literal, + Milton too literary, and there is too much of the whooping savage in + Whitman. He seems to think the real poet is yet to appear; a poet on new + terms, the reconciler, the poet-priest,—one who shall unite the + whiteness and purity of the saint with the power and unction of the + sinner; one who shall bridge the chasm between Shakespeare and St. John. + For when our Emerson gets on his highest horse, which he does only on two + or three occasions, he finds Shakespeare only a half man, and that it + would take Plato and Manu and Moses and Jesus to complete him. + Shakespeare, he says, rested with the symbol, with the festal beauty of + the world, and did not take the final step, and explore the essence of + things, and ask, "Whence? What? and Whither?" He was not wise for himself; + he did not lead a beautiful, saintly life, but ate, and drank, and + reveled, and affiliated with all manner of persons, and quaffed the cup of + life with gusto and relish. The elect, spotless souls will always look + upon the heat and unconscious optimism of the great poet with deep regret. + But if man would not become emasculated, if human life is to continue, we + must cherish the coarse as well as the fine, the root as well as the top + and flower. The poet-priest in the Emersonian sense has never yet + appeared, and what reason have we to expect him? The poet means life, the + whole of life,—all your ethics and philosophies, and essences and + reason of things, in vital play and fusion, clothed with form and color, + and throbbing with passion: the priest means a part, a thought, a precept; + he means suppression, expurgation, death. To have gone farther than + Shakespeare would have been to cease to be a poet, and to become a mystic + or a seer. + </p> + <p> + Yet it would be absurd to say, as a leading British literary journal + recently did, that Emerson is not a poet. He is one kind of a poet. He has + written plenty of poems that are as melodious as the hum of a wild bee in + the air,—chords of wild aeolian music. + </p> + <p> + Undoubtedly his is, on the whole, a bloodless kind of poetry. It suggests + the pale gray matter of the cerebrum rather than flesh and blood. Mr. + William Rossetti has made a suggestive remark about him. He is not so + essentially a poet, says this critic, as he is a Druid that wanders among + the bards, and strikes the harp with even more than bardic stress. + </p> + <p> + Not in the poetry of any of his contemporaries is there such a burden of + the mystery of things, nor are there such round wind-harp tones, nor lines + so tense and resonant, and blown upon by a breeze from the highest heaven + of thought. In certain respects he has gone beyond any other. He has gone + beyond the symbol to the thing signified. He has emptied poetic forms of + their meaning and made poetry of that. He would fain cut the world up into + stars to shine in the intellectual firmament. He is more and he is less + than the best. + </p> + <p> + He stands among other poets like a pine-tree amid a forest of oak and + maple. He seems to belong to another race, and to other climes and + conditions. He is great in one direction, up; no dancing leaves, but rapt + needles; never abandonment, never a tossing and careering, never an + avalanche of emotion; the same in sun and snow, scattering his cones, and + with night and obscurity amid his branches. He is moral first and last, + and it is through his impassioned and poetic treatment of the moral law + that he gains such an ascendency over his reader. He says, as for other + things he makes poetry of them, but the moral law makes poetry of him. He + sees in the world only the ethical, but he sees it through the aesthetic + faculty. Hence his page has the double charm of the beautiful and the + good. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + One of the penalties Emerson pays for his sharp decision, his mental + pertinence and resistance, is the curtailment of his field of vision and + enjoyment. He is one of those men whom the gods drive with blinders on, so + that they see fiercely in only a few directions. Supreme lover as he is of + poetry,—Herrick's poetry,—yet from the whole domain of what + may be called emotional poetry, the poetry of fluid humanity, tallied by + music, he seems to be shut out. This may be seen by his reference to + Shelley in his last book, "Letters and Social Aims," and by his preference + of the metaphysical poet throughout his writings. Wordsworth's famous + "Ode" is, he says, the high-water mark of English literature. What he + seems to value most in Shakespeare is the marvelous wit, the pregnant + sayings. He finds no poet in France, and in his "English Traits" credits + Tennyson with little but melody and color. (In our last readings, do we + not surely come to feel the manly and robust fibre beneath Tennyson's + silken vestments?) He demands of poetry that it be a kind of spiritual + manna, and is at last forced to confess that there are no poets, and that + when such angels do appear, Homer and Milton will be tin pans. + </p> + <p> + One feels that this will not do, and that health, and wholeness, and the + well-being of man are more in the keeping of Shakespeare than in the hands + of Zoroaster or any of the saints. I doubt if that rarefied air will make + good red blood and plenty of it. + </p> + <p> + But Emerson makes his point plain, and is not indebted to any of his + teachers for it. It is the burden of all he writes upon the subject. The + long discourse that opens his last volume [footnote: <i>Letters and Social + Aims</i>] has numerous subheadings, as "Poetry," "Imagination," + "Creation," "Morals," and "Transcendency;" but it's all a plea for + transcendency. I am reminded of the story of an old Indian chief who was + invited to some great dinner where the first course was "succotash." When + the second course was ready the old Indian said he would have a little + more succotash, and when the third was ready he called for more succotash + and so with the fourth and fifth, and on to the end. In like manner + Emerson will have nothing but the "spiritual law" in poetry, and he has an + enormous appetite for that. Let him have it, but why should he be so sure + that mankind all want succotash? Mankind finally comes to care little for + what any poet has to <i>say,</i> but only for what he has to <i>sing.</i> + We want the pearl of thought dissolved in the wine of life. How much + better are sound bones and a good digestion in poetry than all the + philosophy and transcendentalism in the world! + </p> + <p> + What one comes at last to want is power, mastery; and, whether it be + mastery over the subtleties of the intellect, as in Emerson himself, or + over the passions and the springs of action, as in Shakespeare, or over + our terrors and the awful hobgoblins of hell and Satan, as in Dante, or + over vast masses and spaces of nature and the abysms of aboriginal man, as + in Walt Whitman, what matters it? Are we not refreshed by all? There is + one mastery in Burns, another in Byron, another in Rabelais, and in Victor + Hugo, and in Tennyson; and though the critic has his preferences, though + he affect one more than another, yet who shall say this one is a poet and + that one is not? "There may be any number of supremes," says the master, + and "one by no means contravenes another." Every gas is a vacuum to every + other gas, says Emerson, quoting the scientist; and every great poet + complements and leaves the world free to every other great poet. + </p> + <p> + Emerson's limitation or fixity is seen also in the fact that he has taken + no new step in his own direction, if indeed another step could be taken in + that direction and not step off. He is a prisoner on his peak. He cannot + get away from the old themes. His later essays are upon essentially the + same subjects as his first. He began by writing on nature, greatness, + manners, art, poetry, and he is still writing on them. He is a husbandman + who practices no rotation of crops, but submits to the exhaustive process + of taking about the same things from his soil year after year. Some + readers think they detect a falling off. It is evident there is not the + same spontaneity, and that the soil has to be more and more stirred and + encouraged, which is not at all to be wondered at. + </p> + <p> + But if Emerson has not advanced, he has not receded, at least in + conviction and will, which is always the great danger with our bold + prophets. The world in which he lives, the themes upon which he writes, + never become hackneyed to him. They are always fresh and new. He has + hardened, but time has not abated one jot or tittle his courage and hope,—no + cynicism and no relaxing of his hold, no decay of his faith, while the + nobleness of his tone, the chivalry of his utterance, is even more marked + than at first. Better a hundred-fold than his praise of fine manners is + the delicacy and courtesy and the grace of generous breeding displayed on + every page. Why does one grow impatient and vicious when Emerson writes of + fine manners and the punctilios of conventional life, and feel like + kicking into the street every divinity enshrined in the drawing-room? It + is a kind of insult to a man to speak the word in his presence. Purify the + parlors indeed by keeping out the Choctaws, the laughers! Let us go and + hold high carnival for a week, and split the ears of the groundlings with + our "contemptible squeals of joy." And when he makes a dead set at + praising eloquence, I find myself instantly on the side of the old + clergyman he tells of who prayed that he might never be eloquent; or when + he makes the test of a man an intellectual one, as his skill at repartee, + and praises the literary crack shot, and defines manliness to be + readiness, as he does in this last volume and in the preceding one, I am + filled with a perverse envy of all the confused and stammering heroes of + history. Is Washington faltering out a few broken and ungrammatical + sentences, in reply to the vote of thanks of the Virginia legislature, + less manly than the glib tongue in the court-room or in the club that can + hit the mark every time? The test of a wit or of a scholar is one thing; + the test of a man, I take it, is quite another. In this and some other + respects Emerson is well antidoted by Carlyle, who lays the stress on the + opposite qualities, and charges his hero to hold his tongue. But one + cheerfully forgives Emerson the way he puts his thumb-nail on the bores. + He speaks feelingly, and no doubt from as deep an experience as any man in + America. + </p> + <p> + I really hold Emerson in such high esteem that I think I can safely + indulge myself in a little more fault-finding with him. + </p> + <p> + I think it must be admitted that he is deficient in sympathy. This + accounts in a measure for his coolness, his self-possession, and that kind + of uncompromising rectitude or inflexibleness that marks his career, and + that he so lauds in his essays. No man is so little liable to be warped or + compromised in any way as the unsympathetic man. Emerson's ideal is the + man who stands firm, who is unmoved, who never laughs, or apologizes, or + deprecates, or makes concessions, or assents through good-nature, or goes + abroad; who is not afraid of giving offense; "who answers you without + supplication in his eye,"—in fact, who stands like a granite pillar + amid the slough of life. You may wrestle with this man, he says, or swim + with him, or lodge in the same chamber with him, or eat at the same table, + and yet he is a thousand miles off, and can at any moment finish with you. + He is a sheer precipice, is this man, and not to be trifled with. You + shrinking, quivering, acquiescing natures, avaunt! You sensitive plants, + you hesitating, indefinite creatures, you uncertain around the edges, you + non-resisting, and you heroes, whose courage is quick, but whose wit is + tardy, make way, and let the human crustacean pass. Emerson is moulded + upon this pattern. It is no mush and milk that you get at this table. "A + great man is coming to dine with me; I do not wish to please him; I wish + that he should wish to please me." On the lecture stand he might be of + wood, so far as he is responsive to the moods and feelings of his + auditors. They must come to him; he will not go to them: but they do not + always come. Latterly the people have felt insulted, the lecturer showed + them so little respect. Then, before a promiscuous gathering, and in + stirring and eventful times like ours, what anachronisms most of his + lectures are, even if we take the high ground that they are pearls before + swine! The swine may safely demand some apology of him who offers them + pearls instead of corn. + </p> + <p> + Emerson's fibre is too fine for large public uses. He is what he is, and + is to be accepted as such, only let us <i>know</i> what he is. He does not + speak to universal conditions, or to human nature in its broadest, + deepest, strongest phases. His thought is far above the great sea level of + humanity, where stand most of the world's masters. He is like one of those + marvelously clear mountain lakes whose water-line runs above all the salt + seas of the globe. He is very precious, taken at his real worth. Why find + fault with the isolation and the remoteness in view of the sky-like purity + and depth? + </p> + <p> + Still I must go on sounding and exploring him, reporting where I touch + bottom and where I do not. He reaps great advantage from his want of + sympathy. The world makes no inroads upon him through this channel. He is + not distracted by the throng or maybe the mob of emotions that find + entrance here. He shines like a star undimmed by current events. He speaks + as from out the interstellar spaces. 'T is vulgar sympathy makes mortals + of us all, and I think Emerson's poetry finally lacks just that human + coloring and tone, that flesh tint of the heart, which vulgar sympathy + with human life as such imparts. + </p> + <p> + But after we have made all possible deductions from Emerson, there remains + the fact that he is a living force, and, tried by home standards, a + master. Wherein does the secret of his power lie? He is the prophet and + philosopher of young men. The old man and the man of the world make little + of him, but of the youth who is ripe for him he takes almost an unfair + advantage. One secret of his charm I take to be the instant success with + which he transfers our interest in the romantic, the chivalrous, the + heroic, to the sphere of morals and the intellect. We are let into another + realm unlooked for, where daring and imagination also lead. The secret and + suppressed heart finds a champion. To the young man fed upon the penny + precepts and staple Johnsonianism of English literature, and upon what is + generally doled out in the schools and colleges, it is a surprise; it is a + revelation. A new world opens before him. The nebulae of his spirit are + resolved or shown to be irresolvable. The fixed stars of his inner + firmament are brought immeasurably near. He drops all other books. He will + gaze and wonder. From Locke or Johnson or Wayland to Emerson is like a + change from the school history to the Arabian Nights. There may be + extravagances and some jugglery, but for all that the lesson is a genuine + one, and to us of this generation immense. + </p> + <p> + Emerson is the knight-errant of the moral sentiment. He leads, in our time + and country, one illustrious division, at least, in the holy crusade of + the affections and the intuitions against the usurpations of tradition and + theological dogma. He marks the flower, the culmination, under American + conditions and in the finer air of the New World, of the reaction begun by + the German philosophers, and passed along by later French and English + thinkers, of man against circumstance, of spirit against form, of the + present against the past. What splendid affirmation, what inspiring + audacity, what glorious egoism, what generous brag, what sacred impiety! + There is an <i>eclat</i> about his words, and a brave challenging of + immense odds, that is like an army with banners. It stirs the blood like a + bugle-call: beauty, bravery, and a sacred cause,—the three things + that win with us always. The first essay is a forlorn hope. See what the + chances are: "The world exists for the education of each man.... He should + see that he can live all history in his own person. He must sit solidly at + home, and not suffer himself to be bullied by kings or empires, but know + that he is greater than all the geography and all the government of the + world; he must transfer the point of view from which history is commonly + read from Rome and Athens and London to himself, and not deny his + conviction that he is the court, and, if England or Egypt have anything to + say to him, he will try the case; if not, let them forever be silent." In + every essay that follows, there are the same great odds and the same + electric call to the youth to face them. It is, indeed, as much a world of + fable and romance that Emerson introduces us to as we get in Homer or + Herodotus. It is true, all true,—true as Arthur and his knights, or + Pilgrim's Progress, and I pity the man who has not tasted its + intoxication, or who can see nothing in it. + </p> + <p> + The intuitions are the bright band, without armor or shield, that slay the + mailed and bucklered giants of the understanding. Government, + institutions, religions, fall before the glance of the hero's eye. Art and + literature, Shakespeare, Angelo, Aeschylus, are humble suppliants before + you, the king. The commonest fact is idealized, and the whole relation of + man to the universe is thrown into a kind of gigantic perspective. It is + not much to say there is exaggeration; the very start makes Mohammed's + attitude toward the mountain tame. The mountain <i>shall</i> come to + Mohammed, and, in the eyes of all born readers of Emerson, the mountain + does come, and comes with alacrity. + </p> + <p> + Some shrewd judges apprehend that Emerson is not going to last; basing + their opinion upon the fact, already alluded to, that we outgrow him, or + pass through him as through an experience that we cannot repeat. He is but + a bridge to other things; he gets you over. He is an exceptional fact in + literature, say they, and does not represent lasting or universal + conditions. He is too fine for the rough wear and tear of ages. True, we + do not outgrow Dante, or Cervantes, or Bacon; and I doubt if the + Anglo-Saxon stock at least ever outgrows that king of romancers, Walter + Scott. These men and their like appeal to a larger audience, and in some + respects a more adult one, at least one more likely to be found in every + age and people. Their achievement was more from the common level of human + nature than are Emerson's astonishing paradoxes. Yet I believe his work + has the seal of immortality upon it as much as that of any of them. No + doubt he has a meaning to us now and in this country that will be lost to + succeeding time. His religious significance will not be so important to + the next generation. He is being or has been so completely absorbed by his + times, that readers and hearers hereafter will get him from a thousand + sources, or his contribution will become the common property of the race. + All the masters probably had some peculiar import or tie to their + contemporaries that we at a distance miss. It is thought by scholars that + we have lost the key, or one key, to Dante, and Chaucer, and Shakespeare,—the + key or the insight that people living under the same roof get of each + other. + </p> + <p> + But, aside from and over and above everything else, Emerson <i>appeals to + youth and to genius.</i> If you have these, you will understand him and + delight in him; if not, or neither of them, you will make little of him. + And I do not see why this should not be just as true any time hence as at + present. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + TO WALT WHITMAN + + "'I, thirty-six years old, in perfect health, begin, + Hoping to cease not till death.'" + CHANTS DEMOCRATIC. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "They say that thou art sick, art growing old, + Thou Poet of unconquerable health, + With youth far-stretching, through the golden wealth + Of autumn, to Death's frostful, friendly cold. + The never-blenching eyes, that did behold + Life's fair and foul, with measureless content, + And gaze ne'er sated, saddened as they bent + Over the dying soldier in the fold + Of thy large comrade love;—then broke the tear! + War-dream, field-vigil, the bequeathed kiss, + Have brought old age to thee; yet, Master, now, + Cease not thy song to us; lest we should miss + A death-chant of indomitable cheer, + Blown as a gale from God;—oh sing it thou!" + ARRAN LEIGH (England). +</pre> + <p> + I + </p> + <p> + Whoever has witnessed the flight of any of the great birds, as the eagle, + the condor, the sea-gulls, the proud hawks, has perhaps felt that the + poetic suggestion of the feathered tribes is not all confined to the sweet + and tiny songsters,—the thrushes, canaries, and mockingbirds of the + groves and orchards, or of the gilded cage in my lady's chamber. It is by + some such analogy that I would indicate the character of the poetry I am + about to discuss, compared with that of the more popular and melodious + singer,—the poetry of the strong wing and the daring flight. + </p> + <p> + Well and profoundly has a Danish critic said, in "For Ide og Virkelighed" + ("For the Idea and the Reality"), a Copenhagen magazine:— + </p> + <p> + "It may be candidly admitted that the American poet has not the elegance, + special melody, nor <i>recherché</i> aroma of the accepted poets of Europe + or his own country; but his compass and general harmony are infinitely + greater. The sweetness and spice, the poetic <i>ennui,</i> the tender + longings, the exquisite art-finish of those choice poets are mainly unseen + and unmet in him,—perhaps because he cannot achieve them, more + likely because he disdains them. But there is an electric <i>living soul</i> + in his poetry, far more fermenting and bracing. His wings do not glitter + in their movement from rich and varicolored plumage, nor are his notes + those of the accustomed song-birds; but his flight is the flight of the + eagle." + </p> + <p> + Yes, there is not only the delighting of the ear with the outpouring of + sweetest melody and its lessons, but there is the delighting of the eye + and soul through that soaring and circling in the vast empyrean of "a + strong bird on pinions free,"—lessons of freedom, power, grace, and + spiritual suggestion,—vast, unparalleled, <i>formless</i> lessons. + </p> + <p> + It is now upwards of twenty years since Walt Whitman printed (in 1855) his + first thin beginning volume of "Leaves of Grass;" and, holding him to the + test which he himself early proclaimed, namely, "that the proof of the + poet shall be sternly deferred till his country has absorb'd him as + affectionately as he has absorb'd it," he is yet on trial, yet makes his + appeal to an indifferent or to a scornful audience. That his complete + absorption, however, by his own country and by the world, is ultimately to + take place, is one of the beliefs that grows stronger and stronger within + me as time passes, and I suppose it is with a hope to help forward this + absorption that I write of him now. Only here and there has he yet + effected a lodgment, usually in the younger and more virile minds. But + considering the unparalleled audacity of his undertaking, and the absence + in most critics and readers of anything like full-grown and robust + aesthetic perception, the wonder really is not that he should have made + such slow progress, but that he should have gained any foothold at all. + The whole literary <i>technique</i> of the race for the last two hundred + years has been squarely against him, laying, as it does, the emphasis upon + form and scholarly endowments instead of upon aboriginal power and + manhood. + </p> + <p> + My own mastery of the poet, incomplete as it is, has doubtless been much + facilitated by contact—talks, meals, and jaunts—with him, + stretching through a decade of years, and by seeing how everything in his + <i>personnel</i> was resumed and carried forward in his literary + expression; in fact, how the one was a living commentary upon the other. + After the test of time, nothing goes home like the test of actual + intimacy; and to tell me that Whitman is not a large, fine, fresh, + magnetic personality, making you love him and want always to be with him, + were to tell me that my whole past life is a deception, and all the + impression of my perceptive faculties a fraud. I have studied him as I + have studied the birds, and have found that the nearer I got to him the + more I saw. Nothing about a first-class man can be overlooked; he is to be + studied in every feature,—in his physiology and phrenology, in the + shape of his head, in his brow, his eye, his glance, his nose, his ear + (the ear is as indicative in a man as in a horse), his voice. In Whitman + all these things are remarkably striking and suggestive. His face exhibits + a rare combination of harmony and sweetness with strength,—strength + like the vaults and piers of the Roman architecture. Sculptor never carved + a finer ear or a more imaginative brow. Then his heavy-lidded, absorbing + eye, his sympathetic voice, and the impression which he makes of starting + from the broad bases of the universal human traits. (If Whitman was grand + in his physical and perfect health, I think him far more so now (1877), + cheerfully mastering paralysis, penury, and old age.) You know, on seeing + the man and becoming familiar with his presence, that, if he achieve the + height at all, it will be from where every man stands, and not from some + special genius, or exceptional and adventitious point. He does not make + the impression of the scholar or artist or <i>littérateur,</i> but such as + you would imagine the antique heroes to make,—that of a + sweet-blooded, receptive, perfectly normal, catholic man, with, further + than that, a look about him that is best suggested by the word elemental + or cosmical. It was this, doubtless, that led Thoreau to write, after an + hour's interview, that he suggested "something a little more than human." + In fact, the main clew to Walt Whitman's life and personality, and the + expression of them in his poems, is to be found in about the largest + emotional element that has appeared anywhere. This, if not controlled by a + potent rational balance, would either have tossed him helplessly forever, + or wrecked him as disastrously as ever storm and gale drove ship to ruin. + These volcanic emotional fires appear everywhere in his books; and it is + really these, aroused to intense activity and unnatural strain during the + four years of the war and his persistent labors in the hospitals, that + have resulted in his illness and paralysis since. + </p> + <p> + It has been impossible, I say, to resist these personal impressions and + magnetisms, and impossible with me not to follow them up in the poems, in + doing which I found that his "Leaves of Grass" was really the <i>drama of + himself,</i> played upon various and successive stages of nature, history, + passion, experience, patriotism, and that he had not made, nor had he + intended to make, mere excellent "poems," tunes, statues, or statuettes, + in the ordinary sense. + </p> + <p> + Before the man's complete acceptance and assimilation by America, he may + have to be first passed down through the minds of critics and + commentators, and given to the people with some of his rank new quality + taken off,—a quality like that which adheres to objects in the open + air, and makes them either forbidding or attractive, as one's mood is + healthful and robust or feeble and languid. The processes are silently at + work. Already seen from a distance, and from other atmospheres and + surroundings, he assumes magnitude and orbic coherence; for in curious + contrast to the general denial of Whitman in this country (though he has + more lovers and admirers here than is generally believed) stands the + reception accorded him in Europe. The poets there, almost without + exception, recognize his transcendent quality, the men of science his + thorough scientific basis, the republicans his inborn democracy, and all + his towering picturesque personality and modernness. Professor Clifford + says he is more thoroughly in harmony with the spirit and letter of + advanced scientism than any other living poet. Professor Tyrrell and Mr. + Symonds find him eminently Greek, in the sense in which to be natural and + "self-regulated by the law of perfect health" is to be Greek. The French + "Revue des Deux Mondes" pronounces his war poems the most vivid, the most + humanly passionate, and the most modern, of all the verse of the + nineteenth century. Freiligrath translated him into German, and hailed him + as the founder of a new democratic and modern order of poetry, greater + than the old. But I do not propose to go over the whole list here; I only + wish to indicate that the absorption is well commenced abroad, and that + probably her poet will at last reach America by way of those far-off, + roundabout channels. The old mother will first masticate and moisten the + food which is still too tough for her offspring. + </p> + <p> + When I first fell in with "Leaves of Grass," I was taken by isolated + passages scattered here and there through the poems; these I seized upon, + and gave myself no concern about the rest. Single lines in it often went + to the bottom of the questions that were vexing me. The following, though + less here than when encountered in the frame of mind which the poet begets + in you, curiously settled and stratified a certain range of turbid, + fluctuating inquiry:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "There was never any more inception than there is now,— + Nor any more youth or age than there is now; + And will never be any more perfection than there is now, + Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now." +</pre> + <p> + These lines, also, early had an attraction for me I could not define, and + were of great service:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Pleasantly and well-suited I walk, + Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good, + The whole universe indicates that it is good, + The past and the present indicate that it is good." +</pre> + <p> + In the following episode, too, there was to me something far deeper than + the words or the story:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside; + I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the wood-pile; + Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak, + And went where he sat on a log, and led him in, and assured him, + And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and + bruis'd feet, + And gave him a room that entered from my own, and gave him some + coarse clean clothes; + And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness, + And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles: + He stayed with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd North; + (I had him sit next me at table—my firelock lean'd in the corner.)" +</pre> + <p> + But of the book as a whole I could form no adequate conception, and it was + not for many years, and after I had known the poet himself, as already + stated, that I saw in it a teeming, rushing globe well worthy my best days + and strength to surround and comprehend. + </p> + <p> + One thing that early took me in the poems was (as before alluded to) the + tremendous personal force back of them, and felt through them as the sun + through vapor; not merely intellectual grasp or push, but a warm, + breathing, towering, magnetic Presence that there was no escape from. + </p> + <p> + Another fact I was quick to perceive, namely, that this man had almost in + excess a quality in which every current poet was lacking,—I mean the + faculty of being in entire sympathy with actual nature, and the objects; + and shows of nature, and of rude, abysmal man; and appalling directness of + utterance therefrom, at first hand, without any intermediate agency or + modification. + </p> + <p> + The influence of books and works of art upon an author may be seen in all + respectable writers. If knowledge alone made literature, or culture + genius, there would be no dearth of these things among the moderns. But I + feel bound to say that there is something higher and deeper than the + influence or perusal of any or all books, or all other productions of + genius,—a quality of information which the masters can never impart, + and which all the libraries do not hold. This is the absorption by an + author, previous to becoming so, of the spirit of nature, through the + visible objects of the universe, and his affiliation with them + subjectively and objectively. Not more surely is the blood quickened and + purified by contact with the unbreathed air than is the spirit of man + vitalized and made strong by intercourse with the real things of the + earth. The calm, all-permitting, wordless spirit of nature,—yet so + eloquent to him who hath ears to hear! The sunrise, the heaving sea, the + woods and mountains, the storm and the whistling winds, the gentle summer + day, the winter sights and sounds, the night and the high dome of stars,—to + have really perused these, especially from childhood onward, till what + there is in them, so impossible to define, finds its full mate and echo in + the mind,—this only is the lore which breathes the breath of life + into all the rest. Without it, literary productions may have the superb + beauty of statues, but with it only can they have the beauty of life. + </p> + <p> + I was never troubled at all by what the critics called Whitman's want of + art, or his violation of art. I saw that he at once designedly swept away + all which the said critics have commonly meant by that term. The dominant + impression was of the living presence and voice. He would have no + curtains, he said, not the finest, between himself and his reader; and in + thus bringing me face to face with his subject I perceived he not only did + not escape conventional art, but I perceived an enlarged, enfranchised art + in this very abnegation of art. "When half-gods go, whole gods arrive." It + was obvious to me that the new style gained more than it lost, and that in + this fullest operatic launching forth of the voice, though it sounded + strange at first, and required the ear to get used to it, there might be + quite as much science, and a good deal more power, than in the tuneful but + constricted measures we were accustomed to. + </p> + <p> + To the eye the page of the new poet presented about the same contrast with + the page of the popular poets that trees and the free, unbidden growths of + nature do with a carefully clipped hedge; and to the spirit the contrast + was about the same. The hedge is the more studiedly and obviously + beautiful, but, ah! there is a kind of beauty and satisfaction in trees + that one would not care to lose. There are symmetry and proportion in the + sonnet, but to me there is something I would not exchange for them in the + wild swing and balance of many free and unrhymed passages in Shakespeare; + like the one, for instance, in which these lines occur:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, + And blown with restless violence round + About the pendent world." +</pre> + <p> + Here is the spontaneous grace and symmetry of a forest tree, or a soughing + mass of foliage. + </p> + <p> + And this passage from my poet I do not think could be improved by the + verse-maker's art:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded + heaven, + And I said to my Spirit, <i>When we become the enfolders of those orbs + and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be + fill'd and satisfied then?</i> + And my Spirit said, No, <i>we but level that lift, to pass and continue + beyond."</i> +</pre> + <p> + Such breaking with the routine poetic, and with the grammar of verse, was + of course a dangerous experiment, and threw the composer absolutely upon + his intrinsic merits, upon his innately poetic and rhythmic quality. He + must stand or fall by these alone, since he discarded all artificial, all + adventitious helps. If interior, spontaneous rhythm could not be relied + on, and the natural music and flexibility of language, then there was + nothing to shield the ear from the pitiless hail of words,—not one + softly padded verse anywhere. + </p> + <p> + All poets, except those of the very first order, owe immensely to the + form, the art, the stereotyped metres, and stock figures they find ready + to hand. The form is suggestive,—it invites and aids expression, and + lends itself readily, like fashion, to conceal, or extenuate, or eke out + poverty of thought and feeling in the verse. The poet can "cut and cover," + as the farmer says, in a way the prose-writer never can, nor one whose + form is essentially prose, like Whitman's. + </p> + <p> + I, too, love to see the forms worthily used, as they always are by the + master; and I have no expectation that they are going out of fashion right + away. A great deal of poetry that serves, and helps sweeten one's cup, + would be impossible without them,—would be nothing when separated + from them. It is for the ear, and for the sense of tune and of carefully + carved and modeled forms, and is not meant to arouse the soul with the + taste of power, and to start off on journeys for itself. But the great + inspired utterances, like the Bible,—what would they gain by being + cast in the moulds of metrical verse? In all that concerns art, viewed + from any high standpoint,—proportion, continence, self-control, + unfaltering adherence to natural standards, subordination of parts, + perfect adjustment of the means to the end, obedience to inward law, no + trifling, no levity, no straining after effect, impartially attending to + the back and loins as well as to the head, and even holding toward his + subject an attitude of perfect acceptance and equality,—principles + of art to which alone the great spirits are amenable,—in all these + respects, I say, this poet is as true as an orb in astronomy. + </p> + <p> + To his literary expression pitched on scales of such unprecedented breadth + and loftiness, the contrast of his personal life comes in with a foil of + curious homeliness and simplicity. Perhaps never before has the absolute + and average <i>commonness of humanity</i> been so steadily and + unaffectedly adhered to. I give here a glimpse of him in Washington on a + Navy Yard horse-car, toward the close of the war, one summer day at + sundown. The car is crowded and suffocatingly hot, with many passengers on + the rear platform, and among them a bearded, florid-faced man, elderly but + agile, resting against the dash, by the side of the young conductor, and + evidently his intimate friend. The man wears a broad-brim white hat. Among + the jam inside, near the door, a young Englishwoman, of the working class, + with two children, has had trouble all the way with the youngest, a + strong, fat, fretful, bright babe of fourteen or fifteen months, who bids + fair to worry the mother completely out, besides becoming a howling + nuisance to everybody. As the car tugs around Capitol Hill the young one + is more demoniac than ever, and the flushed and perspiring mother is just + ready to burst into tears with weariness and vexation. The car stops at + the top of the hill to let off most of the rear platform passengers, and + the white-hatted man reaches inside, and, gently but firmly disengaging + the babe from its stifling place in the mother's arms, takes it in his + own, and out in the air. The astonished and excited child, partly in fear, + partly in satisfaction at the change, stops its screaming, and, as the man + adjusts it more securely to his breast, plants its chubby hands against + him, and, pushing off as far as it can, gives a good long look squarely in + his face,—then, as if satisfied, snuggles down with its head on his + neck, and in less than a minute is sound and peacefully asleep without + another whimper, utterly fagged out. A square or so more and the + conductor, who has had an unusually hard and uninterrupted day's work, + gets off for his first meal and relief since morning. And now the + white-hatted man, holding the slumbering babe, also acts as conductor the + rest of the distance, keeping his eye on the passengers inside, who have + by this time thinned out greatly. He makes a very good conductor, too, + pulling the bell to stop or to go on as needed, and seems to enjoy the + occupation. The babe meanwhile rests its fat cheeks close on his neck and + gray beard, one of his arms vigilantly surrounding it, while the other + signals, from time to time, with the strap; and the flushed mother inside + has a good half hour to breathe, and to cool and recover herself. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + No poem of our day dates and locates itself as absolutely as "Leaves of + Grass;" but suppose it had been written three or four centuries ago, and + had located itself in mediaeval Europe, and was now first brought to + light, together with a history of Walt Whitman's simple and disinterested + life, can there be any doubt about the cackling that would at once break + out in the whole brood of critics over the golden egg that had been + uncovered? This reckon would be a favorite passage with all:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "You sea! I resign myself to you also—I guess what you mean; + I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers; + I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me; + We must have a turn together—I undress—hurry me out of sight of + the land; + Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse; + Dash me with amorous wet—I can repay you. + + "Sea of stretch'd ground-swells! + Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths! + Sea of the brine of life! sea of unshovel'd yet always ready graves! + Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea! + I am integral with you—I too am of one phase, and of all phases." +</pre> + <p> + This other passage would afford many a text for the moralists and + essayists:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarship, + and the like; + To me, all that those persons have arrived at sinks away from them, + except as it results to their Bodies and Souls, + So that often, to me, they appear gaunt and naked, + And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and mocks himself + or herself, + And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness, is full of + the rotten excrement of maggots; + And often, to me, those men and women pass unwittingly the true + realities of life, and go toward false realities, + And often, to me, they are alive after what custom has served + them, but nothing more, + And often, to me, they are sad, hasty, unwaked somnambules, + walking the dusk." +</pre> + <p> + Ah, Time, you enchantress! what tricks you play with us! The old is + already proved,—the past and the distant hold nothing but the + beautiful. + </p> + <p> + Or let us take another view. Suppose Walt Whitman had never existed, and + some bold essayist, like Mr. Higginson or Matthew Arnold, had projected + him in abstract, outlined him on a scholarly ideal background, formulated + and put in harmless critical periods the principles of art which he + illustrates, and which are the inevitable logic of his poems,—said + essayist would have won great applause. "Yes, indeed, that were a poet to + cherish; fill those shoes and you have a god." + </p> + <p> + How different a critic's account of Shakespeare from Shakespeare himself,—the + difference between the hewn or sawed timber and the living tree! A few + years ago we had here a lecturer from over seas, who gave to our + well-dressed audiences the high, moral, and intellectual statement of the + poet Burns. It was very fine, and people were greatly pleased, vastly more + so, I fear, than they were with Burns himself. Indeed, I could not help + wondering how many of those appreciative listeners had any original + satisfaction in the Scotch poet at first hand, or would have accepted him + had he been their neighbor and fellow-citizen. But as he filtered through + the scholarly mind in trickling drops, oh, he was so sweet! + </p> + <p> + Everybody stirred with satisfaction as the lecturer said: "When literature + becomes dozy, respectable, and goes in the smooth grooves of fashion, and + copies and copies again, something must be done; and to give life to that + dying literature a man must be found <i>not educated under its influence."</i> + I applauded with the rest, for it was a bold saying; but I could not help + thinking how that theory, brought home to ourselves and illustrated in a + living example, would have sent that nodding millinery and faultless + tailory flying downstairs, as at an alarm of fire. + </p> + <p> + One great service of Walt Whitman is that he exerts a tremendous influence + to bring the race up on this nether side,—to place the emotional, + the assimilative, the sympathetic, the spontaneous, intuitive man, the man + of the fluids and of the affections, flush with the intellectual man. That + we moderns have fallen behind here is unquestionable, and we in this + country more than the Old World peoples. All the works of Whitman, prose + and verse, are embosomed in a sea of emotional humanity, and they float + deeper than they show; there is far more in what they necessitate and + imply than in what they say. + </p> + <p> + It is not so much of fatty degeneration that we are in danger in America, + but of calcareous. The fluids, moral and physical, are evaporating; + surfaces are becoming encrusted, there is a deposit of flint in the veins + and arteries, outlines are abnormally sharp and hard, nothing is held in + solution, all is precipitated in well-defined ideas and opinions. + </p> + <p> + But when I think of the type of character planted and developed by my + poet, I think of a man or a woman rich above all things in the genial + human attributes, one "nine times folded" in an atmosphere of tenderest, + most considerate humanity,—an atmosphere warm with the breath of a + tropic heart, that makes your buds of affection and of genius start and + unfold like a south wind in May. Your intercourse with such a character is + not merely intellectual; it is deeper and better than that. Walter Scott + carried such a fund of sympathy and goodwill that even the animals found + fellowship with him, and the pigs understood his great heart. + </p> + <p> + It was the large endowment of Whitman, in his own character in this + respect, that made his services in the army hospitals during the war so + ministering and effective, and that renders his "Drum-Taps" the tenderest + and most deeply yearning and sorrowful expression of the human heart in + poetry that ever war called forth. Indeed, from my own point of view, + there is no false or dangerous tendency among us, in life or in letters, + that this poet does not offset and correct. Fret and chafe as much as we + will, we are bound to gravitate, more or less, toward this mountain, and + feel its bracing, rugged air. + </p> + <p> + Without a certain self-surrender there is no greatness possible in + literature, any more than in religion, or in anything else. It is always a + trait of the master that he is not afraid of being compromised by the + company he keeps. He is the central and main fact in any company. Nothing + so lowly but he will do it reverence; nothing so high but he can stand in + its presence. His theme is the river, and he the ample and willing + channel. Little natures love to disparage and take down; they do it in + self-defense; but the master gives you all, and more than your due. + Whitman does not stand aloof, superior, a priest or a critic: he abandons + himself to all the strong human currents; he enters into and affiliates + with every phase of life; he bestows himself royally upon whoever and + whatever will receive him. There is no competition between himself and his + subject; he is not afraid of over-praising, or making too much of the + commonest individual. What exalts others exalts him. + </p> + <p> + We have had great help in Emerson in certain ways,—first-class + service. He probes the conscience and the moral purpose as few men have + done, and gives much needed stimulus there. But, after him, the need is + all the more pressing for a broad, powerful, opulent, human personality to + absorb these ideals, and to make something more of them than fine sayings. + With Emerson alone we are rich in sunlight, but poor in rain and dew,—poor, + too, in soil, and in the moist, gestating earth principle. Emerson's + tendency is not to broaden and enrich, but to concentrate and refine. + </p> + <p> + Then, is there not an excessive modesty, without warrant in philosophy or + nature, dwindling us in this country, drying us up in the viscera? Is + there not a decay—a deliberate, strange abnegation and dread—of + sane sexuality, of maternity and paternity, among us, and in our literary + ideals and social types of men and women? For myself, I welcome any + evidence to the contrary, or any evidence that deeper and counteracting + agencies are at work, as unspeakably precious. I do not know where this + evidence is furnished in such ample measure as in the pages of Walt + Whitman. The great lesson of nature, I take it, is that a sane sensuality + must be preserved at all hazards, and this, it seems to me, is also the + great lesson of his writings. The point is fully settled in him that, + however they may have been held in abeyance or restricted to other + channels, there is still sap and fecundity, and depth of virgin soil in + the race, sufficient to produce a man of the largest mould and the most + audacious and unconquerable egotism, and on a plane the last to be reached + by these qualities; a man of antique stature, of Greek fibre and gripe, + with science and the modern added, without abating one jot or tittle of + his native force, adhesiveness, Americanism, and democracy. + </p> + <p> + As I have already hinted, Whitman has met with by far his amplest + acceptance and appreciation in Europe. There is good reason for this, + though it is not what has been generally claimed, namely, that the + cultivated classes of Europe are surfeited with respectability, half dead + with <i>ennui</i> and routine, and find an agreeable change in the daring + unconventionality of the new poet. For the fact is, it is not the old and + jaded minds of London, or Paris, or Dublin, or Copenhagen, that have + acknowledged him, but the fresh, eager, young minds. Nine tenths of his + admirers there are the sturdiest men in the fields of art, science, and + literature. + </p> + <p> + In many respects, as a race, we Americans have been pampered and spoiled; + we have been brought up on sweets. I suppose that, speaking literally, no + people under the sun consume so much confectionery, so much pastry and + cake, or indulge in so many gassy and sugared drinks. The soda-fountain, + with its syrups, has got into literature, and furnishes the popular + standard of poetry. The old heroic stamina of our ancestors, that craved + the bitter but nourishing home-brewed, has died out, and in its place + there is a sickly cadaverousness that must be pampered and cosseted. Among + educated people here there is a mania for the bleached, the + double-refined,—white houses, white china, white marble, and white + skins. We take the bone and sinew out of the flour in order to have white + bread, and are bolting our literature as fast as possible. + </p> + <p> + It is for these and kindred reasons that Walt Whitman is more read abroad + than in his own country. It is on the rank, human, and emotional side—sex, + magnetism, health, physique,—that he is so full. Then his + receptivity and assimilative powers are enormous, and he demands these in + his reader. In fact, his poems are physiological as much as they are + intellectual. They radiate from his entire being, and are charged to + repletion with that blended quality of mind and body—psychic and + physiologic—which the living form and presence send forth. Never + before in poetry has the body received such ennoblement. The great theme + is IDENTITY, and identity comes through the body; and all that pertains to + the body, the poet teaches, is entailed upon the spirit. In his rapt gaze, + the body and the soul are one, and what debases the one debases the other. + Hence he glorifies the body. Not more ardently and purely did the great + sculptors of antiquity carve it in the enduring marble than this poet has + celebrated it in his masculine and flowing lines. The bearing of his work + in this direction is invaluable. Well has it been said that the man or the + woman who has "Leaves of Grass" for a daily companion will be under the + constant, invisible influence of sanity, cleanliness, strength, and a + gradual severance from all that corrupts and makes morbid and mean. + </p> + <p> + In regard to the unity and construction of the poems, the reader sooner or + later discovers the true solution to be, that the dependence, cohesion, + and final reconciliation of the whole are in the Personality of the poet + himself. As in Shakespeare everything is strung upon the plot, the play, + and loses when separated from it, so in this poet every line and sentence + refers to and necessitates the Personality behind it, and derives its + chief significance therefrom. In other words, "Leaves of Grass" is + essentially a dramatic poem, a free representation of man in his relation + to the outward world,—the play, the interchanges between him and it, + apart from social and artificial considerations,—in which we discern + the central purpose or thought to be for every man and woman his or her + Individuality, and around that, Nationality. To show rather than to tell,—to + body forth as in a play how these arise and blend; how the man is + developed and recruited, his spirit's descent; how he walks through + materials absorbing and conquering them; how he confronts the immensities + of time and space; where are the true sources of his power, the soul's + real riches,—that which "adheres and goes forward and is not dropped + by death;" how he is all defined and published and made certain through + his body; the value of health and physique; the great solvent, Sympathy,—to + show the need of larger and fresher types in art and in life, and then how + the state is compacted, and how the democratic idea is ample and + composite, and cannot fail us,—to show all this, I say, not as in a + lecture or a critique, but suggestively and inferentially,—to work + it out freely and picturesquely, with endless variations, with person and + picture and parable and adventure, is the lesson and object of "Leaves of + Grass." From the first line, where the poet says, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "I loafe and invite my Soul," +</pre> + <p> + to the last, all is movement and fusion,—all is clothed in flesh and + blood. The scene changes, the curtain rises and falls, but the theme is + still Man,—his opportunities, his relations, his past, his future, + his sex, his pride in himself, his omnivorousness, his "great hands," his + yearning heart, his seething brain, the abysmal depths that underlie him + and open from him, all illustrated in the poet's own character,—he + the chief actor always. His personality directly facing you, and with its + eye steadily upon you, runs through every page, spans all the details, and + rounds and completes them, and compactly holds them. This gives the form + and the art conception, and gives homogeneousness. + </p> + <p> + When Tennyson sends out a poem, it is perfect, like an apple or a peach; + slowly wrought out and dismissed, it drops from his boughs holding a + conception or an idea that spheres it and makes it whole. It is completed, + distinct, and separate,—might be his, or might be any man's. It + carries his quality, but it is a thing of itself, and centres and depends + upon itself. Whether or not the world will hereafter consent, as in the + past, to call only beautiful creations of this sort <i>poems,</i> remains + to be seen. But this is certainly not what Walt Whitman does, or aims to + do, except in a few cases. He completes no poems apart and separate from + himself, and his pages abound in hints to that effect:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Let others finish specimens—I never finish specimens; + I shower them by exhaustless laws, as Nature does, fresh + and modern continually." +</pre> + <p> + His lines are pulsations, thrills, waves of force, indefinite dynamics, + formless, constantly emanating from the living centre, and they carry the + quality of the author's personal presence with them in a way that is + unprecedented in literature. + </p> + <p> + Occasionally there is a poem or a short piece that detaches itself, and + assumes something like ejaculatory and statuesque proportion, as "O + Captain, my Captain," "Pioneers," "Beat, Beat, Drums," and others in + "Drum-Taps;" but all the great poems, like "Walt Whitman," "Song of the + Open Road," "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "To Working Men," "Sleep-Chasings," + etc., are out-flamings, out-rushings, of the pent fires of the poet's + soul. The first-named poem, which is the seething, dazzling sun of his + subsequent poetic system, shoots in rapid succession waves of almost + consuming energy. It is indeed a central orb of fiercest light and heat, + swept by wild storms of emotion, but at the same time of sane and + beneficent potentiality. Neither in it nor in either of the others is + there the building-up of a fair verbal structure, a symmetrical piece of + mechanism, whose last stone is implied and necessitated in the first. + </p> + <p> + "The critic's great error," says Heine, "lies in asking, 'What ought the + artist to do?' It would be far more correct to ask, 'What does the artist + intend?'" + </p> + <p> + It is probably partly because his field is so large, his demands so + exacting, his method so new (necessarily so), and from the whole standard + of the poems being what I may call an astronomical one, that the critics + complain so generally of want of form in him. And the critics are right + enough, as far as their objection goes. There is no deliberate form here, + any more than there is in the forces of nature. Shall we say, then, that + nothing but the void exists? The void is filled by a Presence. There is a + controlling, directing, overarching will in every page, every verse, that + there is no escape from. Design and purpose, natural selection, growth, + culmination, are just as pronounced as in any poet. + </p> + <p> + There is a want of form in the unfinished statue, because it is struggling + into form; it is nothing without form; but there is no want of form in the + elemental laws and effusions,—in fire, or water, or rain, or dew, or + the smell of the shore or the plunging waves. And may there not be the + analogue of this in literature,—a potent, quickening, exhilarating + quality in words, apart from and without any consideration of constructive + form? Under the influence of the expansive, creative force that plays upon + me from these pages, like sunlight or gravitation, the question of form + never comes up, because I do not for one moment escape the eye, the source + from which the power and action emanate. + </p> + <p> + I know that Walt Whitman has written many passages with reference far more + to their position, interpretation, and scanning ages hence, than for + current reading. Much of his material is too near us; it needs time. Seen + through the vista of long years, perhaps centuries, it will assume quite + different hues. Perhaps those long lists of trades, tools, and occupations + would not be so repellent if we could read them, as we read Homer's + catalogue of the ships, through the retrospect of ages. They are justified + in the poem aside from their historic value, because they are alive and + full of action,—panoramas of the whole mechanical and industrial + life of America, north, east, south, west,—bits of scenery, + bird's-eye views, glimpses of moving figures, caught as by a flash, + characteristic touches indoors and out, all passing in quick succession + before you. They have in the fullest measure what Lessing demands in + poetry,—the quality of ebbing and flowing action, as distinct from + the dead water of description; they are thoroughly dramatic, fused, + pliant, and obedient to the poet's will. No glamour is thrown over them, + no wash of sentiment; and if they have not the charm of novelty and + distance, why, that is an accident that bars them in a measure to us, but + not to the future. Very frequently in these lists or enumerations of + objects, actions, shows, there are sure to occur lines of perfect + description:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Where the heifers browse—where geese nip their food with short + jerks; + Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome + prairie; + Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles + far and near; + Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon; + Where the katydid works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree + over the well." + + "Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown + apprentices, + The swing of their axes on the square-hew'd log, shaping it toward + the shape of a mast, + The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, + The butter-color'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, + The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes." + + "Always these compact lands—lands tied at the hips with the belt + stringing the huge oval lakes." + + "Far breath'd land! Arctic braced! Mexican breez'd!—the diverse! + the compact!" +</pre> + <p> + Tried by the standards of the perfect statuesque poems, these pages will + indeed seem strange enough; but viewed as a part of the poetic compend of + America, the swift gathering-in, from her wide-spreading, multitudinous, + material life, of traits and points and suggestions that belong here and + are characteristic, they have their value. The poet casts his great seine + into events and doings and material progress, and these are some of the + fish, not all beautiful by any means, but all terribly alive, and all + native to these waters. + </p> + <p> + In the "Carol of Occupations" occur, too, those formidable inventories of + the more heavy and coarsegrained trades and tools that few if any readers + have been able to stand before, and that have given the scoffers and + caricaturists their favorite weapons. If you detach a page of these and + ask, "Is it poetry? have the 'hog-hook,' the 'killing-hammer,' 'the + cutter's cleaver,' 'the packer's maul,' met with a change of heart, and + been converted into celestial cutlery?" I answer, No, they are as barren + of poetry as a desert is of grass; but in their place in the poem, and in + the collection, they serve as masses of shade or neutral color in + pictures, or in nature, or in character,—a negative service, but + still indispensable. The point, the moral of the poem, is really backed up + and driven home by this list. The poet is determined there shall be no + mistake about it. He will not put in the dainty and pretty things merely,—he + will put in the coarse and common things also, and he swells the list till + even his robust muse begins to look uneasy. Remember, too, that Whitman + declaredly writes the lyrics of America, of the masses, of democracy, and + of the practical labor of mechanics, boatmen, and farmers:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The sum of all known reverence I add up in you, whoever you are; + All doctrines, all politics and civilization, exude from you; + All sculpture and monuments, and anything inscribed anywhere, are + tallied in you; + The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records + reach, is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same: + If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they + all be? + The most renown'd poems would be ashes, orations and plays would + be vacuums. + + "All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it; + (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of + the arches and cornices?) + + "All music is what awakens from you when you are reminded by the + instruments; + It is not the violins and the cornets—it is not the oboe, nor + the beating drums—nor the score of the baritone singer singing + his sweet romanza—nor that of the men's chorus, nor that of + the women's chorus, + It is nearer and farther than they." +</pre> + <p> + Out of this same spirit of reverence for man and all that pertains + essentially to him, and the steady ignoring of conventional and social + distinctions and prohibitions, and on the same plane as the universal + brotherhood of the poems, come those passages in "Leaves of Grass" that + have caused so much abuse and fury,—the allusions to sexual acts and + organs,—the momentary contemplation of man as the perpetuator of his + species. Many good judges, who have followed Whitman thus far, stop here + and refuse their concurrence. But if the poet has failed in this part, he + has failed in the rest. It is of a piece with the whole. He has felt in + his way the same necessity as that which makes the anatomist or the + physiologist not pass by, or neglect, or falsify, the loins of his typical + personage. All the passages and allusions that come under this head have a + scientific coldness and purity, but differ from science, as poetry always + must differ, in being alive and sympathetic, instead of dead and analytic. + There is nothing of the forbidden here, none of those sweet morsels that + we love to roll under the tongue, such as are found in Byron and + Shakespeare, and even in austere Dante. If the fact is not lifted up and + redeemed by the solemn and far-reaching laws of maternity and paternity, + through which the poet alone contemplates it, then it is irredeemable, and + one side of our nature is intrinsically vulgar and mean. + </p> + <p> + Again: Out of all the full-grown, first-class poems, no matter what their + plot or theme, emerges a sample of Man, each after its kind, its period, + its nationality, its antecedents. The vast and cumbrous Hindu epics + contribute their special types of both man and woman, impossible except + from far-off Asia and Asian antiquity. Out of Homer, after all his + gorgeous action and events, the distinct personal identity, the heroic and + warlike chieftain of Hellas only permanently remains. In the same way, + when the fire and fervor of Shakespeare's plots and passions subside, the + special feudal personality, as lord or gentleman, still towers in undying + vitality. Even the Sacred Writings themselves, considered as the first + great poems, leave on record, out of all the rest, the portraiture of a + characteristic Oriental Man. Far different from these (and yet, as he + says, "the same old countenance pensively looking forth," and "the same + red running blood"), "Leaves of Grass" and "Two Rivulets" also bring their + contribution; nay, behind every page <i>that</i> is the main purport,—to + outline a New World Man and a New World Woman, modern, complete, + democratic, not only fully and nobly intellectual and spiritual, but in + the same measure physical, emotional, and even fully and nobly carnal. + </p> + <p> + An acute person once said to me, "As I read and re-read these poems, I + more and more think their inevitable result in time must be to produce + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 'A race of splendid and savage <i>old men,</i>' +</pre> + <p> + of course dominated by moral and spiritual laws, but with volcanoes of + force always alive beneath the surface." + </p> + <p> + And still again: One of the questions to be put to any poem assuming a + first-class importance among us—and I especially invite this inquiry + toward "Leaves of Grass"—is, How far is this work consistent with, + and the outcome of, that something which secures to the race ascendency, + empire, and perpetuity? There is in every dominant people a germ, a + quality, an expansive force, that, no matter how it is overlaid, gives + them their push and their hold upon existence,—writes their history + upon the earth, and stamps their imprint upon the age. To what extent is + your masterpiece the standard-bearer of this quality,—helping the + race to victory? helping me to be more myself than I otherwise would? + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Not the least of my poet's successes is in his thorough assimilation of + the modern sciences, transmuting them into strong poetic nutriment, and in + the extent to which all his main poems are grounded in the deepest + principles of modern philosophical inquiry. + </p> + <p> + Nearly all the old literatures may be said to have been founded upon + fable, and upon a basis and even superstructure of ignorance, that, + however charming it may be, we have not now got, and could not keep if we + had. The bump of wonder and the feeling of the marvelous,—a kind of + half-pleasing fear, like that of children in the dark or in the woods,—were + largely operative with the old poets, and I believe are necessary to any + eminent success in this field; but they seem nearly to have died out of + the modern mind, like organs there is no longer any use for. The poetic + temperament has not yet adjusted itself to the new lights, to science, and + to the vast fields and expanses opened up in the physical cosmos by + astronomy and geology, and in the spiritual or intellectual world by the + great German metaphysicians. The staple of a large share of our poetic + literature is yet mainly the result of the long age of fable and myth that + now lies behind us. "Leaves of Grass" is, perhaps, the first serious and + large attempt at an expression in poetry of a knowledge of the earth as + one of the orbs, and of man as a microcosm of the whole, and to give to + the imagination these new and true fields of wonder and romance. In it + fable and superstition are at an end, priestcraft is at an end, skepticism + and doubt are at an end, with all the misgivings and dark forebodings that + have dogged the human mind since it began to relax its hold upon tradition + and the past; and we behold man reconciled, happy, ecstatic, full of + reverence, awe, and wonder, reinstated in Paradise,—the paradise of + perfect knowledge and unrestricted faith. + </p> + <p> + It needs but a little pondering to see that the great poet of the future + will not be afraid of science, but will rather seek to plant his feet upon + it as upon a rock. He knows that, from an enlarged point of view, there is + no feud between Science and Poesy, any more than there is between Science + and Religion, or between Science and Life. He sees that the poet and the + scientist do not travel opposite but parallel roads, that often approach + each other very closely, if they do not at times actually join. The poet + will always pause when he finds himself in opposition to science; and the + scientist is never more worthy the name than when he escapes from analysis + into synthesis, and gives us living wholes. And science, in its present + bold and receptive mood, may be said to be eminently creative, and to have + made every first-class thinker and every large worker in any aesthetic or + spiritual field immeasurably its debtor. It has dispelled many illusions, + but it has more than compensated the imagination by the unbounded vistas + it has opened up on every hand. It has added to our knowledge, but it has + added to our ignorance in the same measure: the large circle of light only + reveals the larger circle of darkness that encompasses it, and life and + being and the orbs are enveloped in a greater mystery to the poet to-day + than they were in the times of Homer or Isaiah. Science, therefore, does + not restrict the imagination, but often compels it to longer flights. The + conception of the earth as an orb shooting like a midnight meteor through + space, a brand cast by the burning sun with the fire at its heart still + unquenched, the sun itself shooting and carrying the whole train of worlds + with it, no one knows whither,—what a lift has science given the + imagination in this field! Or the tremendous discovery of the correlation + and conservation of forces, the identity and convertibility of heat and + force and motion, and that no ounce of power is lost, but forever passed + along, changing form but not essence, is a poetic discovery no less than a + scientific one. The poets have always felt that it must be so, and, when + the fact was authoritatively announced by science, every profound poetic + mind must have felt a thrill of pleasure. Or the nebular hypothesis of the + solar system,—it seems the conception of some inspired madman, like + William Blake, rather than the cool conclusion of reason, and to carry its + own justification, as great power always does. Indeed, our interest in + astronomy and geology is essentially a poetic one,—the love of the + marvelous, of the sublime, and of grand harmonies. The scientific + conception of the sun is strikingly Dantesque, and appalls the + imagination. Or the hell of fire through which the earth has passed, and + the aeons of monsters from which its fair forms have emerged,—from + which of the seven circles of the Inferno did the scientist get his hint? + Indeed, science everywhere reveals a carnival of mightier gods than those + that cut such fantastic tricks in the ancient world. Listen to Tyndall on + light, or to Youmans on the chemistry of a sunbeam, and see how fable + pales its ineffectual fires, and the boldest dreams of the poets are + eclipsed. + </p> + <p> + The vibratory theory of light and its identity with the laws of sound, the + laws of the tides and the seasons, the wonders of the spectroscope, the + theory of gravitation, of electricity, of chemical affinity, the deep + beneath deep of the telescope, the world within world of the microscope,—in + these and many other fields it is hard to tell whether it is the scientist + or the poet we are listening to. What greater magic than that you can take + a colorless ray of light, break it across a prism, and catch upon a screen + all the divine hues of the rainbow? + </p> + <p> + In some respects science has but followed out and confirmed the dim + foreshadowings of the human breast. Man in his simplicity has called the + sun father and the earth mother. Science shows this to be no fiction, but + a reality; that we are really children of the sun, and that every + heart-beat, every pound of force we exert, is a solar emanation. The power + with which you now move and breathe came from the sun just as literally as + the bank-notes in your pocket came from the bank. + </p> + <p> + The ancients fabled the earth as resting upon the shoulders of Atlas, and + Atlas as standing upon a turtle; but what the turtle stood upon was a + puzzle. An acute person says that science has but changed the terms of the + equation, but that the unknown quantity is the same as ever. The earth now + rests upon the sun,—in his outstretched palm; the sun rests upon + some other sun, and that upon some other; but what they all finally rest + upon, who can tell? Well may Tennyson speak of the "fairy tales of + science," and well may Walt Whitman say:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the + reasons of things; + They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen." +</pre> + <p> + But, making all due acknowledgments to science, there is one danger + attending it that the poet alone can save us from,—the danger that + science, absorbed with its great problems, will forget Man. Hence the + especial office of the poet with reference to science is to endow it with + a human interest. The heart has been disenchanted by having disclosed to + it blind, abstract forces where it had enthroned personal humanistic + divinities. In the old time, man was the centre of the system; everything + was interested in him, and took sides for or against him. There were + nothing but men and gods in the universe. But in the results of science + the world is more and more, and man is less and less. The poet must come + to the rescue, and place man again at the top, magnify him, exalt him, + reinforce him, and match these wonders from without with equal wonders + from within. Welcome to the bard who is not appalled by the task, and who + can readily assimilate and turn into human emotions these vast deductions + of the savants! The minor poets do nothing in this direction; only men of + the largest calibre and the most heroic fibre are adequate to the service. + Hence one finds in Tennyson a vast deal more science than he would at + first suspect; but it is under his feet; it is no longer science, but + faith, or reverence, or poetic nutriment. It is in "Locksley Hall," "The + Princess," "In Memoriam," "Maud," and in others of his poems. Here is a + passage from "In Memoriam:"— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "They say, + The solid earth whereon we tread + + "In tracts of fluent heat began, + And grew to seeming-random forms, + The seeming prey of cyclic storms, + Till at the last arose the man; + + "Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime, + The herald of a higher race, + And of himself in higher place + If so he type this work of time + + "Within himself, from more to more; + Or, crown'd with attributes of woe, + Like glories, move his course, and show + That life is not as idle ore, + + "But iron dug from central gloom, + And heated hot with burning fears, + And dipt in baths of hissing tears, + And batter'd with the shocks of doom + + "To shape and use. Arise and fly + The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; + Move upward, working out the beast, + And let the ape and tiger die." +</pre> + <p> + Or in this stanza behold how the science is disguised or turned into the + sweetest music:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Move eastward, happy earth, and leave + Yon orange sunset waning slow; + From fringes of the faded eve, + O happy planet, eastward go; + Till over thy dark shoulder glow + Thy silver sister-world, and rise + To glass herself in dewy eyes + That watch me from the glen below." +</pre> + <p> + A recognition of the planetary system, and of the great fact that the + earth moves eastward through the heavens, in a soft and tender love-song! + </p> + <p> + But in Walt Whitman alone do we find the full, practical absorption, and + re-departure therefrom, of the astounding idea that the earth is a star in + the heavens like the rest, and that man, as the crown and finish, carries + in his moral consciousness the flower, the outcome, of all this wide field + of turbulent unconscious nature. Of course in his handling it is no longer + science, or rather it is science dissolved in the fervent heat of the + poet's heart, and charged with emotion. "The words of true poems," he + says, "are the tufts and final applause of science." Before Darwin or + Spencer he proclaimed the doctrine of evolution:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "I am stuccoed with quadrupeds and birds all over, + And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons, + And call anything close again when I desire it. + + "In vain the speeding and shyness; + In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach; + In vain the mastodon retreats beneath his own powder'd bones; + In vain objects stand leagues off, and assume manifold shapes; + In vain the ocean settling in hollows, and the great monsters + lying low." +</pre> + <p> + In the following passage the idea is more fully carried out, and man is + viewed through a vista which science alone has laid open; yet how + absolutely a work of the creative imagination is revealed:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I am incloser of things + to be. + My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs; + On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the + steps; + All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount. + + "Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me; + Afar down I see the huge first Nothing—I know I was even there; + I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, + And took my time, and took no hurt from the foetid carbon. + + "Long I was hugg'd close—long and long, + Immense have been the preparations for me, + Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me, + Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful + boatmen; + For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings; + They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. + + "Before I was born out of my mother, generations guided me; + My embryo has never been torpid—nothing could overlay it, + For it the nebula cohered to an orb, + The long low strata piled to rest it on, + Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, + Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths, and deposited + it with care; + All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight + me: + Now on this spot I stand with my robust Soul." +</pre> + <p> + I recall no single line of poetry in the language that fills my + imagination like that beginning the second stanza:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me." +</pre> + <p> + One seems to see those huge Brocken shadows of the past sinking and + dropping below the horizon like mountain peaks, as he presses onward on + his journey. Akin to this absorption of science is another quality in my + poet not found in the rest, except perhaps a mere hint of it now and then + in Lucretius,—a quality easier felt than described. It is a tidal + wave of emotion running all through the poems, which is now and then + crested with such passages as this:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "I am he that walks with the tender and growing night; + I call to the earth and sea, half held by the night. + + "Press close, bare-bosom'd night! Press close, magnetic, + nourishing night! + Night of south winds! night of the large, few stars! + Still, nodding night! mad, naked, summer night. + + "Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath'd earth! + Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! + Earth of departed sunset! Earth of the mountains, misty topt! + Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with + blue! + Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river! + Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my + sake! + Far-swooping, elbow'd earth! rich, apple-blossom'd earth! + Smile, for your lover comes!" +</pre> + <p> + Professor Clifford calls it "cosmic emotion,"—a poetic thrill and + rhapsody in contemplating the earth as a whole,—its chemistry and + vitality, its bounty, its beauty, its power, and the applicability of its + laws and principles to human, aesthetic, and art products. It affords the + key to the theory of art upon which Whitman's poems are projected, and + accounts for what several critics call their sense of magnitude,—"something + of the vastness of the succession of objects in Nature." + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those + of the earth! + I swear there can be no theory of any account, unless it corroborate + the theory of the earth! + No politics, art, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account, + unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth, + Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude + of the earth." +</pre> + <p> + Or again, in his "Laws for Creation:"— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the + compact truth of the world, + There shall be no subject too pronounced—All works shall illustrate + the divine law of indirections." +</pre> + <p> + Indeed, the earth ever floats in this poet's mind as his mightiest symbol,—his + type of completeness and power. It is the armory from which he draws his + most potent weapons. See, especially, "To the Sayers of Words," "This + Compost," "The Song of the Open Road," and "Pensive on her Dead gazing I + heard the Mother of all." + </p> + <p> + The poet holds essentially the same attitude toward cosmic humanity, well + illustrated in "Salut au Monde:"— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the + whole earth; + I have look'd for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me + in all lands; + I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them. + + "O vapors! I think I have risen with you and moved away to distant + continents, and fallen down there for reasons; + I think I have blown with you, O winds; + O waters, I have finger'd every shore with you." +</pre> + <p> + Indeed, the whole book is leavened with vehement Comradeship. Not only in + the relations of individuals to each other shall loving good-will exist + and be cultivated,—not only between the different towns and cities, + and all the States of this indissoluble, compacted Union,—but it + shall make a tie of fraternity and fusion holding all the races and + peoples and countries of the whole earth. + </p> + <p> + Then the National question. As Whitman's completed works now stand, in + their two volumes, it is certain they could only have grown out of the + Secession War; and they will probably go to future ages as in literature + the most characteristic identification of that war,—risen from and + portraying it, representing its sea of passions and progresses, partaking + of all its fierce movements and perturbed emotions, and yet sinking the + mere military parts of that war, great as those were, below and with + matters far greater, deeper, more human, more expanding, and more + enduring. + </p> + <p> + I must not close this paper without some reference to Walt Whitman's prose + writings, which are scarcely less important than his poems. Never has + Patriotism, never has the antique Love of Country, with even doubled + passion and strength, been more fully expressed than in these + contributions. They comprise two thin volumes,—now included in "Two + Rivulets,"—called "Democratic Vistas" and "Memoranda during the + War;" the former exhibiting the personality of the poet in more vehement + and sweeping action even than do the poems, and affording specimens of + soaring vaticination and impassioned appeal impossible to match in the + literature of our time. The only living author suggested is Carlyle; but + so much is added, the <i>presence</i> is so much more vascular and human, + and the whole page so saturated with faith and love and democracy, that + even the great Scotchman is overborne. Whitman, too, radiates belief, + while at the core of Carlyle's utterances is despair. The style here is + eruptive and complex, or what Jeremy Taylor calls <i>agglomerative,</i> + and puts the Addisonian models utterly to rout,—a style such as only + the largest and most Titanic workman could effectively use. A sensitive + lady of my acquaintance says reading the "Vistas" is like being exposed to + a pouring hailstorm,—the words fairly bruise her mind. In its + literary construction the book is indeed a shower, or a succession of + showers, multitudinous, wide-stretching, down-pouring,—the wrathful + bolt and the quick veins of poetic fire lighting up the page from time to + time. I can easily conceive how certain minds must be swayed and bent by + some of these long, involved, but firm and vehement passages. I cannot + deny myself the pleasure of quoting one or two pages. The writer is + referring to the great literary relics of past times:— + </p> + <p> + "For us, along the great highways of time, those monuments stand,—those + forms of majesty and beauty. For us those beacons burn through all the + nights. Unknown Egyptians, graving hieroglyphs; Hindus, with hymn and + apothegm and endless epic; Hebrew prophet, with spirituality, as in flames + of lightning, conscience like red-hot iron, plaintive songs and screams of + vengeance for tyrannies and enslavement; Christ, with bent head, brooding + love and peace, like a dove; Greek, creating eternal shapes of physical + and aesthetic proportion; Roman, lord of satire, the sword, and the codex,—of + the figures, some far off and veiled, others near and visible; Dante, + stalking with lean form, nothing but fibre, not a grain of superfluous + flesh; Angelo, and the great painters, architects, musicians; rich + Shakespeare, luxuriant as the sun, artist and singer of Feudalism in its + sunset, with all the gorgeous colors, owner thereof, and using them at + will;—and so to such as German Kant and Hegel, where they, though + near us, leaping over the ages, sit again, impassive, imperturbable, like + the Egyptian gods. Of these, and the like of these, is it too much, + indeed, to return to our favorite figure, and view them as orbs, moving in + free paths in the spaces of that other heaven, the cosmic intellect, the + Soul? + </p> + <p> + "Ye powerful and resplendent ones! ye were, in your atmospheres, grown not + for America, but rather for her foes, the Feudal and the old—while + our genius is democratic and modern. Yet could ye, indeed, but breathe + your breath of life into our New World's nostrils—not to enslave us + as now, but, for our needs, to breed a spirit like your own—perhaps + (dare we to say it?) to dominate, even destroy what you yourselves have + left! On your plane, and no less, but even higher and wider, will I mete + and measure for our wants to-day and here. I demand races of orbic bards, + with unconditional, uncompromising sway. Come forth, sweet democratic + despots of the west!" + </p> + <p> + Here is another passage of a political cast, but showing the same great + pinions and lofty flight:— + </p> + <p> + "It seems as if the Almighty had spread before this nation charts of + imperial destinies, dazzling as the sun, yet with lines of blood, and many + a deep intestine difficulty, and human aggregate of cankerous + imperfection,—saying, Lo! the roads, the only plans of development, + long, and varied with all terrible balks and ebullitions. You said in your + soul, I will be empire of empires, overshadowing all else, past and + present, putting the history of Old World dynasties, conquests, behind me + as of no account,—making a new history, the history of Democracy, + making old history a dwarf,—I alone inaugurating largeness, + culminating time. If these, O lands of America, are indeed the prizes, the + determinations of your Soul, be it so. But behold the cost, and already + specimens of the cost. Behold the anguish of suspense, existence itself + wavering in the balance, uncertain whether to rise or fall; already, close + behind you and around you, thick winrows of corpses on battlefields, + countless maimed and sick in hospitals, treachery among Generals, folly in + the Executive and Legislative departments, schemers, thieves everywhere,—cant, + credulity, make-believe everywhere. Thought you greatness was to ripen for + you, like a pear? If you would have greatness, know that you must conquer + it through ages, centuries,—must pay for it with a proportionate + price. For you, too, as for all lands, the struggle, the traitor, the wily + person in office, scrofulous wealth, the surfeit of prosperity, the + demonism of greed, the hell of passion, the decay of faith, the long + postponement, the fossil-like lethargy, the ceaseless need of revolutions, + prophets, thunder-storms, deaths, births, new projections, and + invigorations of ideas and men." + </p> + <p> + The "Memoranda during the War" is mainly a record of personal experiences, + nursing the sick and wounded soldiers in the hospitals: most of it is in a + low key, simple, unwrought, like a diary kept for one's self; but it + reveals the large, tender, sympathetic soul of the poet even more than his + elaborate works, and puts in practical form that unprecedented and fervid + comradeship which is his leading element. It is printed almost verbatim, + just as the notes were jotted down at the time and on the spot. It is + impossible to read it without the feeling of tears, while there is + elsewhere no such portrayal of the common soldier, and such appreciation + of him, as is contained in its pages. It is heart's blood, every word of + it, and along with "Drum-Taps" is the only literature of the war thus far + entirely characteristic and worthy of serious mention. There are in + particular two passages in the "Memoranda" that have amazing dramatic + power, vividness, and rapid action, like some quick painter covering a + large canvas. I refer to the account of the assassination of President + Lincoln, and to that of the scenes in Washington after the first battle of + Bull Run. What may be called the mass-movement of Whitman's prose style—the + rapid marshaling and grouping together of many facts and details, + gathering up, and recruiting, and expanding as the sentences move along, + till the force and momentum become like a rolling flood, or an army in + echelon on the charge—is here displayed with wonderful effect. + </p> + <p> + Noting and studying what forces move the world, the only sane explanation + that comes to me of the fact that such writing as these little volumes + contain has not, in this country especially, met with its due recognition + and approval, is that, like all Whitman's works, they have really never + yet been published at all in the true sense,—have never entered the + arena where the great laurels are won. They have been printed by the + author, and a few readers have found them out, but to all intents and + purposes they are unknown. + </p> + <p> + I have not dwelt on Whitman's personal circumstances, his age (he is now, + 1877, entering his fifty-ninth year), paralysis, seclusion, and the + treatment of him by certain portions of the literary classes, although + these have all been made the subjects of wide discussion of late, both in + America and Great Britain, and have, I think, a bearing under the + circumstances on his character and genius. It is an unwritten tragedy that + will doubtless always remain unwritten. I will but mention an eloquent + appeal of the Scotch poet, Robert Buchanan, published in London in March, + 1876, eulogizing and defending the American bard, in his old age, illness, + and poverty, from the swarms of maligners who still continue to assail + him. The appeal has this fine passage:— + </p> + <p> + "He who wanders through the solitudes of far-off Uist or lonely Donegal + may often behold the Golden Eagle sick to death, worn with age or famine, + or with both, passing with weary waft of wing from promontory to + promontory, from peak to peak, pursued by a crowd of rooks and crows, + which fall back screaming whenever the noble bird turns his indignant + head, and which follow frantically once more, hooting behind him, whenever + he wends again upon his way." + </p> + <p> + Skipping many things I should yet like to touch upon,—for this paper + is already too long,—I will say in conclusion that, if any reader of + mine is moved by what I have here written to undertake the perusal of + "Leaves of Grass," or the later volume, "Two Rivulets," let me yet warn + him that he little suspects what is before him. Poetry in the Virgilian, + Tennysonian, or Lowellian sense it certainly is not. Just as the living + form of man in its ordinary garb is less beautiful (yet more beautiful) + than the marble statue; just as the living woman and child that may have + sat for the model is less beautiful (yet more so) than one of Raphael's + finest Madonnas, or just as a forest of trees addresses itself less + directly to the feeling of what is called art and form than the house or + other edifice built from them; just as you, and the whole spirit of our + current times, have been trained to feed on and enjoy, not Nature or Man, + or the aboriginal forces, or the actual, but pictures, books, art, and the + selected and refined,—just so these poems will doubtless first shock + and disappoint you. Your admiration for the beautiful is never the feeling + directly and chiefly addressed in them, but your love for the breathing + flesh, the concrete reality, the moving forms and shows of the universe. A + man reaches and moves you, not an artist. Doubtless, too, a certain + withholding and repugnance has first to be overcome, analogous to a cold + sea plunge; and it is not till you experience the reaction, the + after-glow, and feel the swing and surge of the strong waves, that you + know what Walt Whitman's pages really are. They don't give themselves at + first,—like the real landscape and the sea, they are all + indirections. You may have to try them many times; there is something of + Nature's rudeness and forbiddingness, not only at the first, but probably + always. But after you have mastered them by resigning yourself to them, + there is nothing like them anywhere in literature for vital help and + meaning. The poet says:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections, + That scorn the best I can do to relate them." +</pre> + <p> + And the press of your mind to these pages will certainly start new and + countless problems that poetry and art have never before touched, and that + afford a perpetual stimulus and delight. + </p> + <p> + It has been said that the object of poetry and the higher forms of + literature is to escape from the tyranny of the real into the freedom of + the ideal; but what is the ideal unless ballasted and weighted with the + real? All these poems have a lofty ideal background; the great laws and + harmonies stretch unerringly above them, and give their vista and + perspective. It is because Whitman's ideal is clothed with rank + materiality, as the soul is clothed with the carnal body, that his poems + beget such warmth and desire in the mind, and are the reservoirs of so + much power. No one can feel more than I how absolutely necessary it is + that the facts of nature and experience be born again in the heart of the + bard, and receive the baptism of the true fire before they be counted + poetical; and I have no trouble on this score with the author of "Leaves + of Grass." He never fails to ascend into spiritual meanings. Indeed, the + spirituality of Walt Whitman is the chief fact after all, and dominates + every page he has written. + </p> + <p> + Observe that this singer and artist makes no <i>direct</i> attempt to be + poetical, any more than he does to be melodious or rhythmical. He + approaches these qualities and results as it were from beneath, and always + indirectly; they are drawn to him, not he to them; and if they appear + absent from his page at first, it is because we have been looking for them + in the customary places on the outside, where he never puts them, and have + not yet penetrated the interiors. As many of the fowls hide their eggs by + a sort of intuitive prudery and secretiveness, Whitman always half hides, + or more than half hides, his thought, his glow, his magnetism, his most + golden and orbic treasures. + </p> + <p> + Finally, as those men and women respect and love Walt Whitman best who + have known him longest and closest personally, the same rule will apply to + "Leaves of Grass" and the later volume, "Two Rivulets." It is indeed + neither the first surface reading of those books, nor perhaps even the + second or third, that will any more than prepare the student for the full + assimilation of the poems. Like Nature, and like the Sciences, they + suggest endless suites of chambers opening and expanding more and more and + continually. + </p> + <p> + INDEX + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + [Transcribist's note: Index has been shortened to names + of authors and to birds, with scientific names.] + + Aeschylus + Akers, Elizabeth. + Apuleius. + Audubon, John Jaines. + + Bacon, Francis. + Benton, Myron. + Bible. + Bittern, American (<i>Botaurus lentiginosus</i>). + Björnson, Björnstjerne. + Blackbird, cow, or cowbird (<i>Molothrus ater</i>). + Blackbird, European. + Bluebird (<i>Sialia sialis</i>). + Bobolink (<i>Dolichonyx oryzivorus</i>). + Bryant, William Cullen. + Buchanan, Robert. + Bunting, snow, or snowflake (<i>Passerina nivalis</i>). + Burke, Edmund. + Burns, Robert. + Byron, Lord. + + Cardinal. See Grosbeak, cardinal. + Carlyle, Thomas. + Cedar-bird, or cedar waxwing (<i>Ampelis cedrorum</i>). + Chat, yellow-breasted (<i>Icteria virens</i>). + Chewink, or towhee (<i>Pipilo erythrophthalmus</i>). + Chickadee (<i>Parus atricapillus</i>). + Cicada. + Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. + Cowper, William. + Crow, American (<i>Corvis brachyrhynchos</i>). + Cuckoo, American. + Cuckoo, European. + Dante. + Darwin, Charles. + Dove, mourning (<i>Zenaidura macroura</i>). + + Eagle. + Emerson, Ralph Waldo. + Everett, Edward. + + Flagg, Wilson. + Flicker. See High-hole. + Flycatcher, great crested (<i>Myiarchus crinitus</i>). + Frogs. See Hyla. + + Gilder, Richard Watson. + Grasshopper of Greek poetry. + Grosbeak, cardinal, or cardinal (<i>Cardinalis cardinalis</i>). + Grosbeak, pine (<i>Pinicola enucleator leucura</i>). + Grouse, ruffed (<i>Bonasa umbellus</i>). + + Hamerton, Philip Gilbert. + Hawk. + High-hole, or yellow-hammer, or golden-shafted woodpecker, or + flicker (<i>Colaptes auratus luteus</i>). + Hogg, James. + Homer. + Hood, Thomas. + Hornets, black. + Hudson River valley. + Hummingbird, ruby-throated (<i>Trochilus colubris</i>). + Hyla, green. + Hyla, Pickering's. + + Ingelow, Jean. + + Jefferson, Thomas. + Jonson, Ben. + + Keats, John. + Kingbird (<i>Tyrannus tyrannus</i>). + + Lamb, Charles. + Lark. See Skylark. + Lark, shore or horned (<i>Otocoris alpestris</i>). + Lathrop, George Parson. + Lincoln, Abraham. + Lizard. + Locust. + Logan, John. + Loon (<i>Gavia imber</i>). + Lowell, James Russell. + Lyly, John. + + Macaulay, Thomas Babington. + Meadowlark (<i>Sturnella magna</i>). + Michael Angelo. + Milton, John. + Mockingbird (<i>Mimus polyglottos</i>). + + Oriole, Baltimore (<i>Icterus galbula</i>). + Oven-bird, or golden-crowned thrush (<i>Seiurus aurocapillus</i>). + Owl. + + Partridge. See Grouse, ruffed. + Pewee, wood (<i>Contopus virens</i>). + Phaedrus. + Phoebe-bird (<i>Sayornis phoebe</i>). + Pigeon, passenger (<i>Ectopistes migratorius</i>). + Pipit, American, or titlark (<i>Anthus pensilvanicus</i>). + Pipit, Sprague's (<i>Anthus spragueii</i>). + Pope, Alexander. + + Quail, or bob-white (<i>Colinus virginianus</i>). + + Redpoll (<i>Acanthis linaria</i>). + Robin, American (<i>Merula migratoria</i>). + + Sandpiper, spotted, or "tip-up" (<i>Actitis macularia</i>). + Sandpipers. + Shelley, Percy Bysshe. + + Snake. + Snake, garter. + Socrates. + Solomon. + Sparrow, social or chipping (<i>Spizella socialis</i>). + Sparrow, song (<i>Melospiza cinerea melodia</i>). + Sparrow, tree or Canada (<i>Spizella monticola</i>). + Sparrow, vesper (<i>Pooecetes gramineus</i>). + Sparrow, white-crowned (<i>Zonotrichia leucophrys</i>). + Sparrow, white-throated (<i>Zonotrichia albicollis</i>). + Spenser. + Strawberry. + Sugar-berry. + Swallow, barn (<i>Hirundo erythrogastra</i>). + Swallow, chimney, or chimney swift (<i>Chaetura pelagica</i>). + Swallow, cliff (Petrochellidon lunifrons). + Swift, chimney. See Swallow. + + Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe. + Tennyson, Alfred. + Thaxter, Celia. + Thomson, James. + Thoreau, Henry D.. + Thrasher, brown, or long-tailed thrush (<i>Toxostoma rufum</i>). + Thrush, golden-crowned. See Ovenbird. + Thrush, hermit (<i>Hylocichla guttata pallasii</i>). + Thrush, wood (<i>Hylocichla mustelina</i>). + Tip-up. See Sandpiper, spotted. + Titlark. See Pipit, American. + Townee. See Chewink. + Trowbridge, John T. + Turgenieff. + Turner, J. M. W. + Turtles. + + Warbler, pine (<i>Dendroica vigorsii</i>). + Water-thrush. + Whip-poor-will (<i>Antrostomus vociferous</i>). + Whitman, Walt. + Whittier, John Greenleaf. + Wilde, Richard Henry. + Wilson, Alexander. + Woodchuck. + Woodpecker, downy (<i>Dryobates pubescens medianus</i>). + Woodpecker, golden-shafted. See High-hole. + Woodpecker, hairy (<i>Dryobates villosus</i>). + Woodpecker, red-headed (<i>Melanerpes erythrocephalus</i>). + Wordsworth, William. + Wren, house (<i>Troglodytes aëdon</i>). + + Yellow-hammer. See High-hole. + Yellow-throat, Maryland, or northern yellow-throat (<i>Geothlypis + trichas brachidactyla</i>). +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds and Poets, by John Burroughs + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS AND POETS *** + +***** This file should be named 5177-h.htm or 5177-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/7/5177/ + +Produced by Jack Eden, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Birds and Poets + +Author: John Burroughs + +Posting Date: March 19, 2009 [EBook #5177] +Release Date: February, 2004 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS AND POETS *** + + + + +Produced by Jack Eden + + + + + + + + + +BIRDS AND POETS + +WITH OTHER PAPERS + +THE WRITINGS OF JOHN BURROUGHS, VOLUME III WITH PORTRAITS AND MANY +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +By John Burroughs + + + + +PREFACE + +I have deliberated a long time about coupling some of my sketches of +outdoor nature with a few chapters of a more purely literary character, +and thus confiding to my reader what absorbs and delights me inside my +four walls, as well as what pleases and engages me outside those walls; +especially since I have aimed to bring my outdoor spirit and method +within, and still to look upon my subject with the best naturalist's eye +I could command. + +I hope, therefore, he will not be scared away when I boldly confront +him in the latter portions of my book with this name of strange portent, +Walt Whitman, for I assure him that in this misjudged man he may press +the strongest poetic pulse that has yet beaten in America, or perhaps +in modern times. Then, these chapters are a proper supplement or +continuation of my themes and their analogy in literature, because +in them we shall "follow out these lessons of the earth and air," and +behold their application to higher matters. + +It is not an artificially graded path strewn with roses that invites us +in this part, but, let me hope, something better, a rugged trail through +the woods or along the beach where we shall now and then get a whiff of +natural air, or a glimpse of something to + + "Make the wild blood start + In its mystic springs." + +ESOPUS-ON-HUDSON, March, 1877. + + + +CONTENTS + + I. BIRDS AND POETS + II. TOUCHES OF NATURE + III. A BIRD MEDLEY + IV. APRIL + V. SPRING POEMS + VI. OUR RURAL DIVINITY + VII. BEFORE GENIUS +VIII. BEFORE BEAUTY IX. EMERSON + X. THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE + INDEX + + + + + +BIRDS AND POETS + + + + +I BIRDS AND POETS + + "In summer, when the shawes be shene, + And leaves be large and long, + It is full merry in fair forest + To hear the fowles' song. + The wood-wele sang, and wolde not cease, + Sitting upon the spray; + So loud, it wakened Robin Hood + In the greenwood where he lay." + +It might almost be said that the birds are all birds of the poets and +of no one else, because it is only the poetical temperament that +fully responds to them. So true is this, that all the great +ornithologists--original namers and biographers of the birds--have been +poets in deed if not in word. Audubon is a notable case in point, who, +if he had not the tongue or the pen of the poet, certainly had the +eye and ear and heart--"the fluid and attaching character"--and the +singleness of purpose, the enthusiasm, the unworldliness, the love, that +characterize the true and divine race of bards. + +So had Wilson, though perhaps not in as large a measure; yet he took +fire as only a poet can. While making a journey on foot to Philadelphia, +shortly after landing in this country, he caught sight of the red-headed +woodpecker flitting among the trees,--a bird that shows like a +tricolored scarf among the foliage,--and it so kindled his enthusiasm +that his life was devoted to the pursuit of the birds from that day. It +was a lucky hit. Wilson had already set up as a poet in Scotland, and +was still fermenting when the bird met his eye and suggested to his soul +a new outlet for its enthusiasm. + +The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A +bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is +his life,--large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged +with buoyancy and his heart with song. The beautiful vagabonds, endowed +with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds,--how +many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday lives, and +how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song! + +Indeed, is not the bird the original type and teacher of the poet, and +do we not demand of the human lark or thrush that he "shake out his +carols" in the same free and spontaneous manner as his winged +prototype? Kingsley has shown how surely the old minnesingers and early +ballad-writers have learned of the birds, taking their key-note from the +blackbird, or the wood-lark, or the throstle, and giving utterance to a +melody as simple and unstudied. Such things as the following were surely +caught from the fields or the woods:-- + + "She sat down below a thorn, + Fine flowers in the valley, + And there has she her sweet babe borne, + And the green leaves they grow rarely." + +Or the best lyric pieces, how like they are to certain +bird-songs!--clear, ringing, ecstatic, and suggesting that challenge +and triumph which the outpouring of the male bird contains. (Is not +the genuine singing, lyrical quality essentially masculine?) Keats and +Shelley, perhaps more notably than any other English poets, have the +bird organization and the piercing wild-bird cry. This, of course, +is not saying that they are the greatest poets, but that they have +preeminently the sharp semi-tones of the sparrows and the larks. + +But when the general reader thinks of the birds of the poets, he +very naturally calls to mind the renowned birds, the lark and the +nightingale, Old World melodists, embalmed in Old World poetry, but +occasionally appearing on these shores, transported in the verse of some +callow singer. + +The very oldest poets, the towering antique bards, seem to make little +mention of the song-birds. They loved better the soaring, swooping birds +of prey, the eagle, the ominous birds, the vultures, the storks and +cranes, or the clamorous sea-birds and the screaming hawks. These +suited better the rugged, warlike character of the times and the simple, +powerful souls of the singers themselves. Homer must have heard the +twittering of the swallows, the cry of the plover, the voice of the +turtle, and the warble of the nightingale; but they were not adequate +symbols to express what he felt or to adorn his theme. Aeschylus saw in +the eagle "the dog of Jove," and his verse cuts like a sword with such a +conception. + +It is not because the old bards were less as poets, but that they were +more as men. To strong, susceptible characters, the music of nature is +not confined to sweet sounds. The defiant scream of the hawk circling +aloft, the wild whinny of the loon, the whooping of the crane, the +booming of the bittern, the vulpine bark of the eagle, the loud +trumpeting of the migratory geese sounding down out of the midnight sky; +or by the seashore, the coast of New Jersey or Long Island, the wild +crooning of the flocks of gulls, repeated, continued by the hour, +swirling sharp and shrill, rising and falling like the wind in a storm, +as they circle above the beach or dip to the dash of the waves,--are +much more welcome in certain moods than any and all mere bird-melodies, +in keeping as they are with the shaggy and untamed features of ocean +and woods, and suggesting something like the Richard Wagner music in the +ornithological orchestra. + + "Nor these alone whose notes + Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain, + But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime + In still repeated circles, screaming loud, + The jay, the pie, and even the boding owl, + That hails the rising moon, have charms for me," + +says Cowper. "I never hear," says Burns in one of his letters, "the +loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild +mixing cadence of a troop of gray plovers in an autumnal morning, +without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or +poetry." + +Even the Greek minor poets, the swarm of them that are represented in +the Greek Anthology, rarely make affectionate mention of the birds, +except perhaps Sappho, whom Ben Jonson makes speak of the nightingale +as-- + + "The dear glad angel of the spring." + +The cicada, the locust, and the grasshopper are often referred to, but +rarely by name any of the common birds. That Greek grasshopper must +have been a wonderful creature. He was a sacred object in Greece, and +is spoken of by the poets as a charming songster. What we would say of +birds the Greek said of this favorite insect. When Socrates and Phaedrus +came to the fountain shaded by the plane-tree, where they had their +famous discourse, Socrates said: "Observe the freshness of the spot, how +charming and very delightful it is, and how summer-like and shrill +it sounds from the choir of grasshoppers." One of the poets in the +Anthology finds a grasshopper struggling in a spider's web, which he +releases with the words:-- + + "Go safe and free with your sweet voice of song." + +Another one makes the insect say to a rustic who had captured him:-- + + "Me, the Nymphs' wayside minstrel whose sweet note + O'er sultry hill is heard, and shady grove to float." + +Still another sings how a grasshopper took the place of a broken string +on his lyre, and "filled the cadence due." + + "For while six chords beneath my fingers cried, + He with his tuneful voice the seventh supplied; + The midday songster of the mountain set + His pastoral ditty to my canzonet; + And when he sang, his modulated throat + Accorded with the lifeless string I smote." + +While we are trying to introduce the lark in this country, why not try +this Pindaric grasshopper also? + +It is to the literary poets and to the minstrels of a softer age that +we must look for special mention of the song-birds and for poetical +rhapsodies upon them. The nightingale is the most general favorite, and +nearly all the more noted English poets have sung her praises. To the +melancholy poet she is melancholy, and to the cheerful she is cheerful. +Shakespeare in one of his sonnets speaks of her song as mournful, while +Martial calls her the "most garrulous" of birds. Milton sang:-- + + "Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, + Most musical, most melancholy, + Thee, chantress, oft the woods among + I woo, to hear thy evening song." + +To Wordsworth she told another story:-- + + "O nightingale! thou surely art + A creature of ebullient heart; + These notes of thine,--they pierce and pierce,-- + Tumultuous harmony and fierce! + Thou sing'st as if the god of wine + Had helped thee to a valentine; + A song in mockery and despite + Of shades, and dews, and silent night, + And steady bliss, and all the loves + Now sleeping in these peaceful groves." + +In a like vein Coleridge sang:-- + + "'T is the merry nightingale + That crowds and hurries and precipitates + With fast, thick warble his delicious notes." + +Keats's poem on the nightingale is doubtless more in the spirit of the +bird's strain than any other. It is less a description of the song and +more the song itself. Hood called the nightingale + + "The sweet and plaintive Sappho of the dell." + +I mention the nightingale only to point my remarks upon its American +rival, the famous mockingbird of the Southern States, which is also a +nightingale,--a night-singer,--and which no doubt excels the Old World +bird in the variety and compass of its powers. The two birds belong to +totally distinct families, there being no American species which answers +to the European nightingale, as there are that answer to the robin, +the cuckoo, the blackbird, and numerous others. Philomel has the color, +manners, and habits of a thrush,--our hermit thrush,--but it is not a +thrush at all, but a warbler. I gather from the books that its song is +protracted and full rather than melodious,--a capricious, long-continued +warble, doubling and redoubling, rising and falling, issuing from the +groves and the great gardens, and associated in the minds of the poets +with love and moonlight and the privacy of sequestered walks. All our +sympathies and attractions are with the bird, and we do not forget that +Arabia and Persia are there back of its song. + +_Our_ nightingale has mainly the reputation of the caged bird, and +is famed mostly for its powers of mimicry, which are truly wonderful, +enabling the bird to exactly reproduce and even improve upon the notes +of almost any other songster. But in a state of freedom it has a song of +its own which is infinitely rich and various. It is a garrulous polyglot +when it chooses to be, and there is a dash of the clown and the buffoon +in its nature which too often flavors its whole performance, especially +in captivity; but in its native haunts, and when its love-passion is +upon it, the serious and even grand side of its character comes out. In +Alabama and Florida its song may be heard all through the sultry summer +night, at times low and plaintive, then full and strong. A friend of +Thoreau and a careful observer, who has resided in Florida, tells me +that this bird is a much more marvelous singer than it has the credit of +being. He describes a habit it has of singing on the wing on moonlight +nights, that would be worth going South to hear. Starting from a low +bush, it mounts in the air and continues its flight apparently to an +altitude of several hundred feet, remaining on the wing a number +of minutes, and pouring out its song with the utmost clearness and +abandon,--a slowly rising musical rocket that fills the night air with +harmonious sounds. Here are both the lark and nightingale in one; and if +poets were as plentiful down South as they are in New England, we should +have heard of this song long ago, and had it celebrated in appropriate +verse. But so far only one Southern poet, Wilde, has accredited the bird +this song. This he has done in the following admirable sonnet:-- + + TO THE MOCKINGBIRD + + Winged mimic of the woods! thou motley fool! + Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe? + Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule + Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe. + Wit--sophist--songster--Yorick of thy tribe, + Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school, + To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, + Arch scoffer, and mad Abbot of Misrule! + For such thou art by day--but all night long + Thou pour'st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, + As if thou didst in this, thy moonlight song, + Like to the melancholy Jaques, complain, + Musing on falsehood, violence, and wrong, + And sighing for thy motley coat again. + +Aside from this sonnet, the mockingbird has got into poetical +literature, so far as I know, in only one notable instance, and that in +the page of a poet where we would least expect to find him,--a bard who +habitually bends his ear only to the musical surge and rhythmus of total +nature, and is as little wont to turn aside for any special beauties +or points as the most austere of the ancient masters. I refer to +Walt Whitman's "Out of the cradle endlessly rocking," in which the +mockingbird plays a part. The poet's treatment of the bird is entirely +ideal and eminently characteristic. That is to say, it is altogether +poetical and not at all ornithological; yet it contains a rendering +or free translation of a bird-song--the nocturne of the mockingbird, +singing and calling through the night for its lost mate--that I consider +quite unmatched in our literature:-- + + Once, Paumanok, + When the snows had melted, and the Fifth-month grass was growing, + Up this seashore, in some briers, + Two guests from Alabama--two together, + And their nest, and four light green eggs, spotted with brown, + And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand, + And every day the she-bird, crouched on her nest, silent, with bright + eyes, + And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, + Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. + + _Shine! Shine! Shine! + Pour down your warmth, great Sun! + While we bask--we two together._ + + _Two together! + Winds blow South, or winds blow North, + Day come white, or night come black, + Home, or rivers and mountains from home, + Singing all time, minding no time, + If we two but keep together._ + + Till of a sudden, + Maybe killed unknown to her mate, + One forenoon the she-bird crouched not on the nest, + Nor returned that afternoon, nor the next, + Nor ever appeared again. + + And thenceforward all summer, in the sound of the sea, + And at night, under the full of the moon, in calmer weather, + Over the hoarse surging of the sea, + Or flitting from brier to brier by day, + I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one, the he-bird, + The solitary guest from Alabama. + + _Blow! blow! blow! + Blow up, sea-winds, along Paumanok's shore! + I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me._ + + Yes, when the stars glistened, + All night long, on the prong of a moss-scalloped stake, + Down, almost amid the slapping waves, + Sat the lone singer, wonderful, causing tears. + + He called on his mate: + He poured forth the meanings which I, of all men, know. + +. . . . . . . . . . . + + _Soothe! soothe! soothe! + Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, + And again another behind, embracing and lapping, every one close, + But my love soothes not me, not me._ + + _Low hangs the moon--it rose late. + Oh it is lagging--oh I think it is heavy with love, with love._ + + _Oh madly the sea pushes, pushes upon the land, + With love--with love._ + + _O night! do I not see my love fluttering out there among the breakers! + What is that little black thing I see there in the white?_ + + _Loud! loud! loud! + Loud I call to you, my love! + High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves: + Surely you must know who is here, is here; + You must know who I am, my love._ + + _Low-hanging moon! + What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow? + Oh it is the shape, the shape of my mate! + O moon, do not keep her from me any longer._ + + _Land! land! O land! + Whichever way I turn, oh I think you could give my mate back again, + if you only would; + For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look._ + + _O rising stars! + Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you._ + + _O throat! O trembling throat! + Sound clearer through the atmosphere! + Pierce the woods, the earth; + Somewhere listening to catch you, must be the one I want._ + + _Shake out, carols! + Solitary here--the night's carols! + Carols of lonesome love! Death's carols! + Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon! + Oh, under that moon, where she droops almost down into the sea! + O reckless, despairing carols._ + + _But soft! sink low! Soft! let me just murmur; + And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea; + For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me, + So faint--I must be still, be still to listen! + But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately + to me._ + + _Hither, my love! + Here I am! Here! + With this just-sustained note I announce myself to you; + This gentle call is for you, my love, for you._ + + _Do not be decoyed elsewhere! + That is the whistle of the wind--it is not my voice; + That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray; + Those are the shadows of leaves._ + + _O darkness! Oh in vain! + Oh I am very sick and sorrowful._ + +. . . . . . . . . . . + +The bird that occupies the second place to the nightingale in British +poetical literature is the skylark, a pastoral bird as the Philomel is +an arboreal,--a creature of light and air and motion, the companion of +the plowman, the shepherd, the harvester,--whose nest is in the stubble +and whose tryst is in the clouds. Its life affords that kind of contrast +which the imagination loves,--one moment a plain pedestrian bird, hardly +distinguishable from the ground, the next a soaring, untiring songster, +reveling in the upper air, challenging the eye to follow him and the ear +to separate his notes. + +The lark's song is not especially melodious, but is blithesome, +sibilant, and unceasing. Its type is the grass, where the bird makes its +home, abounding, multitudinous, the notes nearly all alike and all in +the same key, but rapid, swarming, prodigal, showering down as thick and +fast as drops of rain in a summer shower. + +Many noted poets have sung the praises of the lark, or been kindled +by his example. Shelley's ode and Wordsworth's "To a Skylark" are well +known to all readers of poetry, while every schoolboy will recall Hogg's +poem, beginning:-- + + "Bird of the wilderness, + Blithesome and cumberless, + Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! + Emblem of happiness, + Blest is thy dwelling-place-- + Oh to abide in the desert with thee!" + +I heard of an enthusiastic American who went about English fields +hunting a lark with Shelley's poem in his hand, thinking no doubt to use +it as a kind of guide-book to the intricacies and harmonies of the song. +He reported not having heard any larks, though I have little doubt they +were soaring and singing about him all the time, though of course they +did not sing to his ear the song that Shelley heard. The poets are +the best natural historians, only you must know how to read them. They +translate the facts largely and freely. A celebrated lady once said to +Turner, "I confess I cannot see in nature what you do." "Ah, madam," +said the complacent artist, "don't you wish you could!" + +Shelley's poem is perhaps better known, and has a higher reputation +among literary folk, than Wordsworth's; it is more lyrical and +lark-like; but it is needlessly long, though no longer than the lark's +song itself, but the lark can't help it, and Shelley can. I quote only a +few stanzas:-- + + "In the golden lightning + Of the sunken sun, + O'er which clouds are bright'ning + Thou dost float and run, + Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. + + "The pale purple even + Melts around thy flight; + Like a star of heaven, + In the broad daylight + Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, + + "Keen as are the arrows + Of that silver sphere, + Whose intense lamp narrows + In the white dawn clear, + Until we hardly see--we feel that it is there; + + "All the earth and air + With thy voice is loud, + As, when Night is bare, + From one lonely cloud + The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed." + +Wordsworth has written two poems upon the lark, in one of which he calls +the bird "pilgrim of the sky." This is the one quoted by Emerson in +"Parnassus." Here is the concluding stanza:-- + + "Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; + A privacy of glorious light is thine, + Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood + Of harmony, with instinct more divine; + Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam, + True to the kindred points of heaven and home." + +The other poem I give entire:-- + + "Up with me! up with me into the clouds! + For thy song, Lark, is strong; + Up with me, up with me into the clouds! + Singing, singing, + With clouds and sky about thee ringing, + Lift me, guide me till I find + That spot which seems so to thy mind! + + "I have walked through wilderness dreary, + And to-day my heart is weary; + Had I now the wings of a Faery + Up to thee would I fly. + There is madness about thee, and joy divine + In that song of thine; + Lift me, guide me high and high + To thy banqueting-place in the sky. + + "Joyous as morning + Thou art laughing and scorning; + Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest, + And, though little troubled with sloth, + Drunken Lark! thou wouldst be loth + To be such a traveler as I. + Happy, happy Liver! + With a soul as strong as a mountain river, + Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, + Joy and jollity be with us both! + + "Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven, + Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind; + But hearing thee, or others of thy kind, + As full of gladness and as free of heaven, + I, with my fate contented, will plod on, + And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done." + + +But better than either--better and more than a hundred pages--is +Shakespeare's simple line,-- + + "Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings," + +or John Lyly's, his contemporary,-- + + "Who is't now we hear? + None but the lark so shrill and clear; + Now at heaven's gate she claps her wings, + The morn not waking till she sings." + +We have no well-known pastoral bird in the Eastern States that answers +to the skylark. The American pipit or titlark and the shore lark, both +birds of the far north, and seen in the States only in fall and winter, +are said to sing on the wing in a similar strain. Common enough in our +woods are two birds that have many of the habits and manners of the +lark--the water-thrush and the golden-crowned thrush, or oven-bird. They +are both walkers, and the latter frequently sings on the wing up aloft +after the manner of the lark. Starting from its low perch, it rises in +a spiral flight far above the tallest trees, and breaks out in a clear, +ringing, ecstatic song, sweeter and more richly modulated than the +skylark's, but brief, ceasing almost before you have noticed it; whereas +the skylark goes singing away after you have forgotten him and returned +to him half a dozen times. + +But on the Great Plains, of the West there; is a bird whose song +resembles the skylark's quite closely and is said to be not at all +inferior. This is Sprague's pipit, sometimes called the Missouri +skylark, an excelsior songster, which from far up in the transparent +blue rains down its notes for many minutes together. It is, no doubt, +destined to figure in the future poetical literature of the West. + +Throughout the northern and eastern parts of the Union the lark would +find a dangerous rival in the bobolink, a bird that has no European +prototype, and no near relatives anywhere, standing quite alone, unique, +and, in the qualities of hilarity and musical tintinnabulation, with +a song unequaled. He has already a secure place in general literature, +having been laureated by no less a poet than Bryant, and invested with a +lasting human charm in the sunny page of Irving, and is the only one of +our songsters, I believe, that the mockingbird cannot parody or imitate. +He affords the most marked example of exuberant pride, and a glad, +rollicking, holiday spirit, that can be seen among our birds. Every note +expresses complacency and glee. He is a beau of the first pattern, and, +unlike any other bird of my acquaintance, pushes his gallantry to the +point of wheeling gayly into the train of every female that comes along, +even after the season of courtship is over and the matches are all +settled; and when she leads him on too wild a chase, he turns, lightly +about and breaks out with a song is precisely analogous to a burst of +gay and self-satisfied laughter, as much as to say, _"Ha! ha! ha! I +must have my fun, Miss Silverthimble, thimble, thimble, if I break every +heart in the meadow, see, see, see!"_ + +At the approach of the breeding season the bobolink undergoes a complete +change; his form changes, his color changes, his flight changes. From +mottled brown or brindle he becomes black and white, earning, in some +localities, the shocking name of "skunk bird;" his small, compact form +becomes broad and conspicuous, and his ordinary flight is laid aside for +a mincing, affected gait, in which he seems to use only the very tips of +his wings. It is very noticeable what a contrast he presents to his mate +at this season, not only in color but in manners, she being as shy and +retiring as he is forward and hilarious. Indeed, she seems disagreeably +serious and indisposed to any fun or jollity, scurrying away at his +approach, and apparently annoyed at every endearing word and look. It +is surprising that all this parade of plumage and tinkling of cymbals +should be gone through with and persisted in to please a creature so +coldly indifferent as she really seems to be. If Robert O'Lincoln has +been stimulated into acquiring this holiday uniform and this musical +gift by the approbation of Mrs. Robert, as Darwin, with his sexual +selection principle, would have us believe, then there must have been +a time when the females of this tribe were not quite so chary of their +favors as they are now. Indeed, I never knew a female bird of any kind +that did not appear utterly indifferent to the charms of voice and +plumage that the male birds are so fond of displaying. But I am inclined +to believe that the males think only of themselves and of outshining +each other, and not at all of the approbation of their mates, as, in an +analogous case in a higher species, it is well known whom the females +dress for, and whom they want to kill with envy! + +I know of no other song-bird that expresses so much self-consciousness +and vanity, and comes so near being an ornithological coxcomb. The +red-bird, the yellowbird, the indigo-bird, the oriole, the cardinal +grosbeak, and others, all birds of brilliant plumage and musical +ability, seem quite unconscious of self, and neither by tone nor act +challenge the admiration of the beholder. + +By the time the bobolink reaches the Potomac, in September, he has +degenerated into a game-bird that is slaughtered by tens of thousands in +the marshes. I think the prospects now are of his gradual extermination, +as gunners and sportsmen are clearly on the increase, while the limit of +the bird's productivity in the North has no doubt been reached long ago. +There are no more meadows to be added to his domain there, while he is +being waylaid and cut off more and more on his return to the South. +It is gourmand eat gourmand, until in half a century more I expect the +blithest and merriest of our meadow songsters will have disappeared +before the rapacity of human throats. + +But the poets have had a shot at him in good time, and have preserved +some of his traits. Bryant's poem on this subject does not compare with +his lines "To a Water-Fowl,"--a subject so well suited to the peculiar, +simple, and deliberate motion of his mind; at the same time it is fit +that the poet who sings of "The Planting of the Apple-Tree" should +render into words the song of "Robert of Lincoln." I subjoin a few +stanzas:-- + + ROBERT OF LINCOLN + + Merrily swinging on brier and weed, + Near to the nest of his little dame, + Over the mountain-side or mead, + Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: + Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, + Spink, spank, spink: + Snug and safe is that nest of ours, + Hidden among the summer flowers. + Chee, chee, chee. + + Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, + Wearing a bright black wedding-coat, + White are his shoulders and white his crest, + Hear him call in his merry note: + Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, + Spink, spank, spink: + Look what a nice new coat is mine, + Sure there was never a bird so fine. + Chee, chee, chee. + + Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, + Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, + Passing at home a patient life, + Broods in the grass while her husband sings. + Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, + Spink, spank, spink: + Brood, kind creature; you need not fear + Thieves and robbers while I am here. + Chee, chee, chee. + + +But it has been reserved for a practical ornithologist, Mr. Wilson +Flagg, to write by far the best poem on the bobolink that I have yet +seen. It is much more in the mood and spirit of the actual song than +Bryant's poem:-- + + THE O'LINCOLN FAMILY + + A flock of merry singing-birds were sporting in the grove; + Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love: + There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,-- + A livelier set was never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle,-- + Crying, "Phew, shew, Wadolincon, see, see, Bobolincon, + Down among the tickletops, hiding in the buttercups! + I know the saucy chap, I see his shining cap + Bobbing in the clover there--see, see, see!" + + Up flies Bobolincon, perching on an apple-tree, + Startled by his rival's song, quickened by his raillery. + Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curveting in the air, + And merrily he turns about, and warns him to beware! + "'T is you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O! + But wait a week, till flowers are cheery,--wait a week,and, + ere you marry, + Be sure of a house wherein to tarry! + Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!" + + Every one's a funny fellow; every one's a little mellow; + Follow, follow, follow, follow, o'er the hill and in the hollow! + Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly; + They cross and turn, and in and out, and down in the middle, + and wheel about,-- + With a "Phew, shew, Wadolincon! listen to me, Bobolincon!-- + Happy's the wooing that's speedily doing, that's speedily doing, + That's merry and over with the bloom of the clover! + Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me!" + + +Many persons, I presume, have admired Wordsworth's poem on the cuckoo, +without recognizing its truthfulness, or how thoroughly, in the main, +the description applies to our own species. If the poem had been written +in New England or New York, it could not have suited our case better:-- + + "O blithe New-comer! I have heard, + I hear thee and rejoice, + O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, + Or but a wandering Voice? + + "While I am lying on the grass, + Thy twofold shout I hear, + From hill to hill it seems to pass, + At once far off, and near. + + "Though babbling only to the Vale, + Of sunshine and of flowers, + Thou bringest unto me a tale + Of visionary hours. + + "Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! + Even yet thou art to me + No bird, but an invisible thing, + A voice, a mystery; + + "The same whom in my schoolboy days + I listened to; that Cry + Which made me look a thousand ways + In bush, and tree, and sky. + + "To seek thee did I often rove + Through woods and on the green; + And thou wert still a hope, a love; + Still longed for, never seen. + + "And I can listen to thee yet; + Can lie upon the plain + And listen, till I do beget + That golden time again. + + "O blessed Bird! the earth we pace + Again appears to be + An unsubstantial, faery place; + That is fit home for thee!" + +Logan's stanzas, "To the Cuckoo," have less merit both as poetry and +natural history, but they are older, and doubtless the latter poet +benefited by them. Burke admired them so much that, while on a visit to +Edinburgh, he sought the author out to compliment him:-- + + "Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove! + Thou messenger of spring! + Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, + And woods thy welcome sing. + + "What time the daisy decks the green, + Thy certain voice we hear; + Hast thou a star to guide thy path, + Or mark the rolling year? + + . . . . . . . . + + "The schoolboy, wandering through the wood + To pull the primrose gay, + Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, + And imitates thy lay. + + . . . . . . . . + + "Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, + Thy sky is ever clear; + Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, + No winter in thy year." + +The European cuckoo is evidently a much gayer bird than ours, and much +more noticeable. + + "Hark, how the jolly cuckoos sing + 'Cuckoo!' to welcome in the spring," + +says John Lyly three hundred years agone. Its note is easily imitated, +and boys will render it so perfectly as to deceive any but the shrewdest +ear. An English lady tells me its voice reminds one of children at play, +and is full of gayety and happiness. It is a persistent songster, +and keeps up its call from morning to night. Indeed, certain parts +of Wordsworth's poem--those that refer to the bird as a mystery, a +wandering, solitary voice--seem to fit our bird better than the European +species. Our cuckoo is in fact a solitary wanderer, repeating its loud, +guttural call in the depths of the forest, and well calculated to arrest +the attention of a poet like Wordsworth, who was himself a kind of +cuckoo, a solitary voice, syllabling the loneliness that broods over +streams and woods,-- + + "And once far off, and near." + +Our cuckoo is not a spring bird, being seldom seen or heard in the North +before late in May. He is a great devourer of canker-worms, and, when +these pests appear, he comes out of his forest seclusion and makes +excursions through the orchards stealthily and quietly, regaling himself +upon those pulpy, fuzzy titbits. His coat of deep cinnamon brown has a +silky gloss and is very beautiful. His note or call is not musical +but loud, and has in a remarkable degree the quality of remoteness and +introvertedness. It is like a vocal legend, and to the farmer bodes +rain. + +It is worthy of note, and illustrates some things said farther back, +that birds not strictly denominated songsters, but criers like the +cuckoo, have been quite as great favorites with the poets, and +have received as affectionate treatment at their hands, as have the +song-birds. One readily recalls Emerson's "Titmouse," Trowbridge's +"Pewee," Celia Thaxter's "Sandpiper," and others of a like character. + +It is also worthy of note that the owl appears to be a greater favorite +with the poets than the proud, soaring hawk. The owl is doubtless the +more human and picturesque bird; then he belongs to the night and its +weird effects. Bird of the silent wing and expansive eye, grimalkin in +feathers, feline, mousing, haunting ruins" and towers, and mocking the +midnight stillness with thy uncanny cry! The owl is the great bugaboo of +the feathered tribes. His appearance by day is hailed by shouts of +alarm and derision from nearly every bird that flies, from crows down +to sparrows. They swarm about him like flies, and literally mob him back +into his dusky retreat. Silence is as the breath of his nostrils to him, +and the uproar that greets him when he emerges into the open day seems +to alarm and confuse him as it does the pickpocket when everybody cries +Thief. + +But the poets, I say, have not despised him:-- + + "The lark is but a bumpkin fowl; + He sleeps in his nest till morn; + But my blessing upon the jolly owl + That all night blows his horn." + +Both Shakespeare and Tennyson have made songs about him. This is +Shakespeare's, from "Love's Labor's Lost," and perhaps has reference to +the white or snowy owl:-- + + "When icicles hang by the wall, + And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, + And Tom bears logs into the hall, + And milk comes frozen home in pail; + When blood is nipped and ways be foul, + Then nightly sings the staring owl, + Tu-whoo! + Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note, + While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. + + "When all aloud the wind doth blow, + And coughing drowns the parson's saw, + And birds sit brooding in the snow, + And Marian's nose looks red and raw; + When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, + Then nightly sings the staring owl, + Tu-whoo! + Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! a merry note, + While greasy Joan doth keel the pot." + +There is, perhaps, a slight reminiscence of this song in Tennyson's +"Owl:"-- + + "When cats run home and light is come, + And dew is cold upon the ground, + And the far-off stream is dumb, + And the whirring sail goes round, + And the whirring sail goes round; + Alone and warming his five wits, + The white owl in the belfry sits. + + "When merry milkmaids click the latch, + And rarely smells the new-mown hay, + And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch + Twice or thrice his roundelay, + Twice or thrice his roundelay; + Alone and warming his five wits, + The white owl in the belfry sits." + +Tennyson has not directly celebrated any of the more famous birds, but +his poems contain frequent allusions to them. The + + "Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, + Rings Eden through the budded quicks, + Oh, tell me where the senses mix, + Oh, tell me where the passions meet," + +of "In Memoriam," is doubtless the nightingale. And here we have the +lark:-- + + "Now sings the woodland loud and long, + And distance takes a lovelier hue, + And drowned in yonder living blue + The lark becomes a sightless song." + +And again in this from "A Dream of Fair Women:"-- + + "Then I heard + A noise of some one coming through the lawn, + And singing clearer than the crested bird + That claps his wings at dawn." + +The swallow is a favorite bird with Tennyson, and is frequently +mentioned, beside being the principal figure in one of those charming +love-songs in "The Princess." His allusions to the birds, as to any +other natural feature, show him to be a careful observer, as when he +speaks of + + "The swamp, where hums the dropping snipe." + +His single bird-poem, aside from the song I have quoted, is "The +Blackbird," the Old World prototype of our robin, as if our bird had +doffed the aristocratic black for a more democratic suit on reaching +these shores. In curious contrast to the color of its plumage is its +beak, which is as yellow as a kernel of Indian corn. The following are +the two middle stanzas of the poem:-- + + "Yet, though I spared thee all the spring, + Thy sole delight is, sitting still, + With that gold dagger of thy bill + To fret the summer jenneting. + + "A golden bill! the silver tongue + Cold February loved is dry; + Plenty corrupts the melody + That made thee famous once, when young." + +Shakespeare, in one of his songs, alludes to the blackbird as the +ouzel-cock; indeed, he puts quite a flock of birds in this song:-- + + "The ouzel-cock so black of hue, + With orange tawny bill; + The throstle with his note so true, + The wren with little quill; + The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, + The plain song cuckoo gray, + Whose note full many a man doth mark, + And dares not answer nay." + +So far as external appearances are concerned,--form, plumage, grace of +manner,--no one ever had a less promising subject than had Trowbridge +in the "Pewee." This bird, if not the plainest dressed, is the most +unshapely in the woods. It is stiff and abrupt in its manners and +sedentary in its habits, sitting around all day, in the dark recesses +of the woods, on the dry twigs and branches, uttering now and then +its plaintive cry, and "with many a flirt and flutter" snapping up its +insect game. + +The pewee belongs to quite a large family of birds, all of whom have +strong family traits, and who are not the most peaceable and harmonious +of the sylvan folk. They are pugnacious, harsh-voiced, angular in form +and movement, with flexible tails and broad, flat, bristling beaks that +stand to the face at the angle of a turn-up nose, and most of them wear +a black cap pulled well down over their eyes. Their heads are large, +neck and legs short, and elbows sharp. The wild Irishman of them all +is the great crested flycatcher, a large, leather-colored or +sandy-complexioned bird that prowls through the woods, uttering its +harsh, uncanny note and waging fierce warfare upon its fellows. The +exquisite of the family, and the braggart of the orchard, is the +kingbird, a bully that loves to strip the feathers off its more timid +neighbors such as the bluebird, that feeds on the stingless bees of the +hive, the drones, and earns the reputation of great boldness by teasing +large hawks, while it gives a wide berth to little ones. + +The best beloved of them all is the phoebe-bird, one of the firstlings +of the spring, of whom so many of our poets have made affectionate +mention. + +The wood pewee is the sweetest voiced, and, notwithstanding the +ungracious things I have said of it and of its relations, merits to +the full all Trowbridge's pleasant fancies. His poem is indeed a very +careful study of the bird and its haunts, and is good poetry as well as +good ornithology:-- + + "The listening Dryads hushed the woods; + The boughs were thick, and thin and few + The golden ribbons fluttering through; + Their sun-embroidered, leafy hoods + The lindens lifted to the blue; + Only a little forest-brook + The farthest hem of silence shook; + When in the hollow shades I heard-- + Was it a spirit or a bird? + Or, strayed from Eden, desolate, + Some Peri calling to her mate, + Whom nevermore her mate would cheer? + 'Pe-ri! pe-ri! peer!' + + . . . . . . . . + + "To trace it in its green retreat + I sought among the boughs in vain; + And followed still the wandering strain, + So melancholy and so sweet, + The dim-eyed violets yearned with pain. + 'T was now a sorrow in the air, + Some nymph's immortalized despair + Haunting the woods and waterfalls; + And now, at long, sad intervals, + Sitting unseen in dusky shade, + His plaintive pipe some fairy played, + With long-drawn cadence thin and clear,-- + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!' + + "Long-drawn and clear its closes were-- + As if the hand of Music through + The sombre robe of Silence drew + A thread of golden gossamer; + So pure a flute the fairy blew. + Like beggared princes of the wood, + In silver rags the birches stood; + The hemlocks, lordly counselors, + Were dumb; the sturdy servitors, + In beechen jackets patched and gray, + Seemed waiting spellbound all the day + That low, entrancing note to hear,-- + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!' + + "I quit the search, and sat me down + Beside the brook, irresolute, + And watched a little bird in suit + Of sober olive, soft and brown, + Perched in the maple branches, mute; + With greenish gold its vest was fringed, + Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged, + With ivory pale its wings were barred, + And its dark eyes were tender-starred. + "Dear bird," I said, "what is thy name?" + And thrice the mournful answer came, + So faint and far, and yet so near,-- + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!' + + "For so I found my forest bird,-- + The pewee of the loneliest woods, + Sole singer in these solitudes, + Which never robin's whistle stirred, + Where never bluebird's plume intrudes. + Quick darting through the dewy morn, + The redstart trilled his twittering horn + And vanished in thick boughs; at even, + Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven, + The high notes of the lone wood thrush + Fell on the forest's holy hush; + But thou all day complainest here,-- + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!'" + +Emerson's best natural history poem is the "Humble-Bee,"--a poem as +good in its way as Burns's poem on the mouse; but his later poem, +"The Titmouse," has many of the same qualities, and cannot fail to be +acceptable to both poet and naturalist. + +The chickadee is indeed a truly Emersonian bird, and the poet shows him +to be both a hero and a philosopher. Hardy, active, social, a winter +bird no less than a summer, a defier of both frost and heat, lover of +the pine-tree, and diligent searcher after truth in the shape of eggs +and larvae of insects, preeminently a New England bird, clad in black +and ashen gray, with a note the most cheering and reassuring to be +heard in our January woods,--I know of none other of our birds so well +calculated to captivate the Emersonian muse. + +Emerson himself is a northern hyperborean genius,--a winter bird with +a clear, saucy, cheery call, and not a passionate summer songster. +His lines have little melody to the ear, but they have the vigor and +distinctness of all pure and compact things. They are like the needles +of the pine--"the snow loving pine"--more than the emotional foliage of +the deciduous trees, and the titmouse becomes them well:-- + + "Up and away for life! be fleet!-- + The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, + Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, + Curdles the blood to the marble bones, + Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, + And hems in life with narrowing fence. + Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,-- + The punctual stars will vigil keep,-- + Embalmed by purifying cold; + The wind shall sing their dead march old, + The snow is no ignoble shroud, + The moon thy mourner, and the cloud. + + "Softly,--but this way fate was pointing, + 'T was coming fast to such anointing, + When piped a tiny voice hard by, + Gay and polite, a cheerful cry, + _Chick-chickadeedee!_ saucy note, + Out of sound heart and merry throat, + As if it said 'Good day, good sir! + Fine afternoon, old passenger! + Happy to meet you in these places, + Where January brings few faces.' + + "This poet, though he lived apart, + Moved by his hospitable heart, + Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort, + To do the honors of his court, + As fits a feathered lord of land; + Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hands + Hopped on the bough, then darting low, + Prints his small impress on the snow, + Shows feats of his gymnastic play, + Head downward, clinging to the spray. + + "Here was this atom in full breath, + Hurling defiance at vast death; + This scrap of valor just for play + Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray, + As if to shame my weak behavior; + I greeted loud my little savior, + 'You pet! what dost here? and what for? + In these woods, thy small Labrador, + At this pinch, wee San Salvador! + What fire burns in that little chest, + So frolic, stout, and self-possest? + Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine; + Ashes and jet all hues outshine. + Why are not diamonds black and gray, + To ape thy dare-devil array? + And I affirm, the spacious North + Exists to draw thy virtue forth. + I think no virtue goes with size; + The reason of all cowardice + Is, that men are overgrown, + And, to be valiant, must come down + To the titmouse dimension.' + + . . . . . . . . + + "I think old Caesar must have heard + In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, + And, echoed in some frosty wold, + Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold. + And I will write our annals new + And thank thee for a better clew. + I, who dreamed not when I came here + To find the antidote of fear, + Now hear thee say in Roman key, + _Poean! Veni, vidi, vici."_ + +A late bird-poem, and a good one of its kind, is Celia Thaxter's +"Sandpiper," which recalls Bryant's "Water-Fowl" in its successful +rendering of the spirit and atmosphere of the scene, and the +distinctness with which the lone bird, flitting along the beach, is +brought before the mind. It is a woman's or a feminine poem, as Bryant's +is characteristically a man's. + +The sentiment or feeling awakened by any of the aquatic fowls is +preeminently one of loneliness. The wood duck which your approach starts +from the pond or the marsh, the loon neighing down out of the April +sky, the wild goose, the curlew, the stork, the bittern, the sandpiper, +awaken quite a different train of emotions from those awakened by +the land-birds. They all have clinging to them some reminiscence and +suggestion of the sea. Their cries echo its wildness and desolation; +their wings are the shape of its billows. + +Of the sandpipers there are many varieties, found upon the coast and +penetrating inland along the rivers and water-courses, one of the most +interesting of the family, commonly called the "tip-up," going up all +the mountain brooks and breeding in the sand along their banks; but +the characteristics are the same in all, and the eye detects little +difference except in size. + +The walker on the beach sees it running or flitting before him, +following up the breakers and picking up the aquatic insects left on the +sands; and the trout-fisher along the farthest inland stream likewise +intrudes upon its privacy. Flitting along from stone to stone seeking +its food, the hind part of its body "teetering" up and down, its soft +gray color blending it with the pebbles and the rocks, or else skimming +up or down the stream on its long, convex wings, uttering its shrill +cry, the sandpiper is not a bird of the sea merely; and Mrs. Thaxter's +poem is as much for the dweller inland as for the dweller upon the +coast:-- + + THE SANDPIPER + + Across the narrow beach we flit, + One little sandpiper and I; + And fast I gather, bit by bit, + The scattered driftwood bleached and dry. + The wild waves reach their hands for it, + The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, + As up and down the beach we flit,-- + One little sandpiper and I. + + Above our heads the sullen clouds + Scud black and swift across the sky; + Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds + Stand out the white lighthouses high. + Almost as far as eye can reach + I see the close-reefed vessels fly, + As fast we flit along the beach,-- + One little sandpiper and I. + + I watch him as he skims along, + Uttering his sweet and mournful cry; + He starts not at my fitful song, + Or flash of fluttering drapery; + He has no thought of any wrong; + He scans me with a fearless eye. + Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong, + The little sandpiper and I. + + Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night + When the loosed storm breaks furiously? + My driftwood fire will burn so bright! + To what warm shelter canst thou fly? + I do not fear for thee, though wroth + The tempest rushes through the sky; + For are we not God's children both, + Thou, little sandpiper, and I? + +Others of our birds have been game for the poetic muse, but in most +cases the poets have had some moral or pretty conceit to convey, and +have not loved the bird first. Mr. Lathrop preaches a little in his +pleasant poem, "The Sparrow," but he must some time have looked upon the +bird with genuine emotion to have written the first two stanzas:-- + + "Glimmers gay the leafless thicket + Close beside my garden gate, + Where, so light, from post to wicket, + Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate: + Who, with meekly folded wing, + Comes to sun himself and sing. + + "It was there, perhaps, last year, + That his little house he built; + For he seems to perk and peer, + And to twitter, too, and tilt + The bare branches in between, + With a fond, familiar mien." + +The bluebird has not been overlooked, and Halleek, Longfellow, and Mrs. +Sigourney have written poems upon him, but from none of them does there +fall that first note of his in early spring,--a note that may be called +the violet of sound, and as welcome to the ear, heard above the cold, +damp earth; as is its floral type to the eye a few weeks later Lowell's +two lines come nearer the mark:-- + + "The bluebird, shifting his light load of song + From post to post along the cheerless fence." + +Or the first swallow that comes twittering up the southern valley, +laughing a gleeful, childish laugh, and awakening such memories in +the heart, who has put him in a poem? So the hummingbird, too, escapes +through the finest meshes of rhyme. + +The most melodious of our songsters, the wood thrush and the hermit +thrush,--birds whose strains, more than any others, express harmony +and serenity,--have not yet, that I am aware, had reared to them their +merited poetic monument, unless, indeed, Whitman has done this service +for the hermit thrush in his "President Lincoln's Burial Hymn." Here +the threnody is blent of three chords, the blossoming lilac, the evening +star, and the hermit thrush, the latter playing the most prominent part +throughout the composition. It is the exalting and spiritual utterance +of the "solitary singer" that calms and consoles the poet when the +powerful shock of the President's assassination comes upon him, and he +flees from the stifling atmosphere and offensive lights and conversation +of the house,-- + + "Forth to hiding, receiving night that talks not, +Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, +To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still." + +Numerous others of our birds would seem to challenge attention by their +calls and notes. There is the Maryland yellowthroat, for instance, +standing in the door of his bushy tent, and calling out as you approach, +_"which way, sir! which way, sir!"_ If he says this to the ear of common +folk, what would he not say to the poet? One of the peewees says _"stay +there!"_ with great emphasis. The cardinal grosbeak calls out _"what +cheer" "what cheer;"_ " the bluebird says _"purity," "purity," "purity;"_ +the brown thrasher, or ferruginous thrush, according to Thoreau, calls +out to the farmer planting his corn, _"drop it," "drop it," "cover it +up," "cover it up"_ The yellow-breasted chat says _"who," "who"_ and +_"tea-boy"_ What the robin says, caroling that simple strain from +the top of the tall maple, or the crow with his hardy haw-haw, or the +pedestrain meadowlark sounding his piercing and long-drawn note in the +spring meadows, the poets ought to be able to tell us. I only know the +birds all have a language which is very expressive, and which is easily +translatable into the human tongue. + + + + +II TOUCHES OF NATURE + + +I + +WHEREVER Nature has commissioned one creature to prey upon another, she +has preserved the balance by forewarning that other creature of what she +has done. Nature says to the cat, "Catch the mouse," and she equips her +for that purpose; but on the selfsame day she says to the mouse, "Be +wary,--the cat is watching for you." Nature takes care that none of her +creatures have smooth sailing, the whole voyage at least. Why has she +not made the mosquito noiseless and its bite itchless? Simply because +in that case the odds would be too greatly in its favor. She has taken +especial pains to enable the owl to fly softly and silently, because the +creatures it preys upon are small and wary, and never venture far from +their holes. She has not shown the same caution in the case of the crow, +because the crow feeds on dead flesh, or on grubs and beetles, or fruit +and grain, that do not need to be approached stealthily. The big fish +love to cat up the little fish, and the little fish know it, and, on the +very day they are hatched, seek shallow water, and put little sandbars +between themselves and their too loving parents. + +How easily a bird's tail, or that of any fowl, or in fact any part of +the plumage, comes out when the hold of its would-be capturer is upon +this alone; and how hard it yields in the dead bird! No doubt there is +relaxation in the former case. Nature says to the pursuer, "Hold on," +and to the pursued, "Let your tail go." What is the tortuous, zigzag +course of those slow-flying moths for but to make it difficult for the +birds to snap them up? The skunk is a slow, witless creature, and the +fox and lynx love its meat; yet it carries a bloodless weapon that +neither likes to face. + +I recently heard of an ingenious method a certain other simple and +slow-going creature has of baffling its enemy. A friend of mine was +walking in the fields when he saw a commotion in the grass a few +yards off. Approaching the spot, he found a snake--the common garter +snake--trying to swallow a lizard. And how do you suppose the lizard was +defeating the benevolent designs of the snake? By simply taking hold +of its own tail and making itself into a hoop. The snake went round and +round, and could find neither beginning nor end. Who was the old giant +that found himself wrestling with Time? This little snake had a tougher +customer the other day in the bit of eternity it was trying to swallow. + +The snake itself has not the same wit, because I lately saw a black +snake in the woods trying to swallow the garter snake, and he had made +some headway, though the little snake was fighting every inch of the +ground, hooking his tail about sticks and bushes, and pulling back with +all his might, apparently not liking the look of things down there +at all. I thought it well to let him have a good taste of his own +doctrines, when I put my foot down against further proceedings. + +This arming of one creature against another is often cited as an +evidence of the wisdom of Nature, but it is rather an evidence of her +impartiality. She does not care a fig more for one creature than for +another, and is equally on the side of both, or perhaps it would be +better to say she does not care a fig for either. Every creature must +take its chances, and man is no exception. We can ride if we know +how and are going her way, or we can be run over if we fall or make a +mistake. Nature does not care whether the hunter slay the beast or the +beast the hunter; she will make good compost of them both, and her ends +are prospered whichever succeeds. + + "If the red slayer think he slays, + Or if the slain think he is slain, + They know not well the subtle ways + I keep, and pass, and turn again." + +What is the end of Nature? Where is the end of a sphere? The sphere +balances at any and every point. So everything in Nature is at the top, +and yet no _one_ thing is at the top. + +She works with reference to no measure of time, no limit of space, and +with an abundance of material, not expressed by exhaustless. Did you +think Niagara a great exhibition of power? What is that, then, that +withdraws noiseless and invisible in the ground about, and of which +Niagara is but the lifting of the finger? + +Nature is thoroughly selfish, and looks only to her own ends. One +thing she is bent upon, and that is keeping up the supply, multiplying +endlessly and scattering as she multiplies. Did Nature have in view our +delectation when she made the apple, the peach, the plum, the cherry? +Undoubtedly; but only as a means to her own private ends. What a bribe +or a wage is the pulp of these delicacies to all creatures to come and +sow their seed! And Nature has taken care to make the seed indigestible, +so that, though the fruit be eaten, the germ is not, but only planted. + +God made the crab, but man made the pippin; but the pippin cannot +propagate itself, and exists only by violence and usurpation. Bacon +says, "It is easier to deceive Nature than to force her," but it seems +to me the nurserymen really force her. They cut off the head of a savage +and clap on the head of a fine gentleman, and the crab becomes a Swaar +or a Baldwin. Or is it a kind of deception practiced upon Nature, which +succeeds only by being carefully concealed? If we could play the same +tricks upon her in the human species, how the great geniuses could be +preserved and propagated, and the world stocked with them! But what a +frightful condition of things that would be! No new men, but a tiresome +and endless repetition of the old ones,--a world perpetually stocked +with Newtons and Shakespeares! + +We say Nature knows best, and has adapted this or that to our wants or +to our constitution,--sound to the ear, light and color to the eye; but +she has not done any such thing, but has adapted man to these things. +The physical cosmos is the mould, and man is the molten metal that is +poured into it. The light fashioned the eye, the laws of sound made +the ear; in fact, man is the outcome of Nature and not the reverse. +Creatures that live forever in the dark have no eyes; and would not any +one of our senses perish and be shed, as it were, in a world where it +could not be used? + + + +II + +It is well to let down our metropolitan pride a little. Man thinks +himself at the top, and that the immense display and prodigality of +Nature are for him. But they are no more for him than they are for +the birds and beasts, and he is no more at the top than they are. He +appeared upon the stage when the play had advanced to a certain point, +and he will disappear from the stage when the play has reached another +point, and the great drama will go on without him. The geological ages, +the convulsions and parturition throes of the globe, were to bring him +forth no more than the beetles. Is not all this wealth of the seasons, +these solar and sidereal influences, this depth and vitality and +internal fire, these seas, and rivers, and oceans, and atmospheric +currents, as necessary to the life of the ants and worms we tread under +foot as to our own? And does the sun shine for me any more than for yon +butterfly? What I mean to say is, we cannot put our finger upon this +or that and say, Here is the end of Nature. The Infinite cannot be +measured. The plan of Nature is so immense,--but she has no plan, +no scheme, but to go on and on forever. What is size, what is time, +distance, to the Infinite? Nothing. The Infinite knows no time, no +space, no great, no small, no beginning, no end. + +I sometimes think that the earth and the worlds are a kind of nervous +ganglia in an organization of which we can form no conception, or less +even than that. If one of the globules of blood that circulate in our +veins were magnified enough million times, we might see a globe teeming +with life and power. Such is this earth of ours, coursing in the veins +of the Infinite. Size is only relative, and the imagination finds no end +to the series either way. + + + +III + +Looking out of the car window one day, I saw the pretty and unusual +sight of an eagle sitting upon the ice in the river, surrounded by half +a dozen or more crows. The crows appeared as if looking up to the +noble bird and attending his movements. "Are those its young?" asked a +gentleman by my side. How much did that man know--not about eagles, +but about Nature? If he had been familiar with geese or hens, or with +donkeys, he would not have asked that question. The ancients had an +axiom that he who knew one truth knew all truths; so much else becomes +knowable when one vital fact is thoroughly known. You have a key, a +standard, and cannot be deceived. Chemistry, geology, astronomy, natural +history, all admit one to the same measureless interiors. + +I heard a great man say that he could see how much of the theology +of the day would fall before the standard of him who had got even the +insects. And let any one set about studying these creatures carefully, +and he will see the force of the remark. We learn the tremendous +doctrine of metamorphosis from the insect world; and have not the bee +and the ant taught man wisdom from the first? I was highly edified +the past summer by observing the ways and doings of a colony of black +hornets that established themselves under one of the projecting gables +of my house. This hornet has the reputation of being a very ugly +customer, but I found it no trouble to live on the most friendly terms +with her. She was as little disposed to quarrel as I was. She is indeed +the eagle among hornets, and very noble and dignified in her bearing. +She used to come freely into the house and prey upon the flies. You +would hear that deep, mellow hum, and see the black falcon poising on +wing, or striking here and there at the flies, that scattered on her +approach like chickens before a hawk. When she had caught one, she would +alight upon some object and proceed to dress and draw her game. The +wings were sheared off, the legs cut away, the bristles trimmed, then +the body thoroughly bruised and broken. When the work was completed, +the fly was rolled up into a small pellet, and with it under her arm +the hornet flew to her nest, where no doubt in due time it was properly +served up on the royal board. Every dinner inside these paper walls is a +state dinner, for the queen is always present. + +I used to mount the ladder to within two or three feet of the nest +and observe the proceedings. I at first thought the workshop must be +inside,--a place where the pulp was mixed, and perhaps treated with +chemicals; for each hornet, when she came with her burden of materials, +passed into the nest, and then, after a few moments, emerged again and +crawled to the place of building. But I one day stopped up the entrance +with some cotton, when no one happened to be on guard, and then observed +that, when the loaded hornet could not get inside, she, after some +deliberation, proceeded to the unfinished part and went forward with her +work. Hence I inferred that maybe the hornet went inside to report and +to receive orders, or possibly to surrender her material into fresh +hands. Her career when away from the nest is beset with dangers; the +colony is never large, and the safe return of every hornet is no doubt a +matter of solicitude to the royal mother. + +The hornet was the first paper-maker, and holds the original patent. The +paper it makes is about like that of the newspaper; nearly as firm, and +made of essentially the same material,--woody fibres scraped from old +rails and boards. And there is news on it, too, if one could make out +the characters. + +When I stopped the entrance with cotton, there was no commotion or +excitement, as there would have been in the case of yellow-jackets. +Those outside went to pulling, and those inside went to pushing and +chewing. Only once did one of the outsiders come down and look me +suspiciously in the face, and inquire very plainly what my business +might be up there. I bowed my head, being at the top of a twenty-foot +ladder, and had nothing to say. + +The cotton was chewed and moistened about the edges till every fibre +was loosened, when the mass dropped. But instantly the entrance was +made smaller, and changed so as to make the feat of stopping it more +difficult. + + + +IV + +There are those who look at Nature from the standpoint of +conventional and artificial life,--from parlor windows and through +gilt-edged poems,--the sentimentalists. At the other extreme are those +who do not look at Nature at all, but are a grown part of her, and look +away from her toward the other class,--the backwoodsmen and pioneers, +and all rude and simple persons. Then there are those in whom the +two are united or merged,--the great poets and artists. In them the +sentimentalist is corrected and cured, and the hairy and taciturn +frontiersman has had experience to some purpose. The true poet knows +more about Nature than the naturalist because he carries her open +secrets in his heart. Eckermann could instruct Goethe in ornithology, +but could not Goethe instruct Eckermann in the meaning and mystery of +the bird? It is my privilege to number among my friends a man who has +passed his life in cities amid the throngs of men, who never goes to +the woods or to the country, or hunts or fishes, and yet he is the true +naturalist. I think he studies the orbs. I think day and night and the +stars, and the faces of men and women, have taught him all there is +worth knowing. + +We run to Nature because we are afraid of man. Our artists paint the +landscape because they cannot paint the human face. If we could look +into the eyes of a man as coolly as we can into the eyes of an animal, +the products of our pens and brushes would be quite different from what +they are. + + + +V + +But I suspect, after all, it makes but little difference to which school +you go, whether to the woods or to the city. A sincere man learns pretty +much the same things in both places. The differences are superficial, +the resemblances deep and many. The hermit is a hermit, and the poet +a poet, whether he grow up in the town or the country. I was forcibly +reminded of this fact recently on opening the works of Charles Lamb +after I had been reading those of our Henry Thoreau. Lamb cared nothing +for nature, Thoreau for little else. One was as attached to the city and +the life of the street and tavern as the other to the country and the +life of animals and plants. Yet they are close akin. They give out the +same tone and are pitched in about the same key. Their methods are the +same; so are their quaintness and scorn of rhetoric. Thoreau has the +drier humor, as might be expected, and is less stomachic. There is more +juice and unction in Lamb, but this he owes to his nationality. Both are +essayists who in a less reflective age would have been poets pure and +simple. Both were spare, high-nosed men, and I fancy a resemblance even +in their portraits. Thoreau is the Lamb of New England fields and +woods, and Lamb is the Thoreau of London streets and clubs. There was a +willfulness and perversity about Thoreau, behind which he concealed his +shyness and his thin skin, and there was a similar foil in Lamb, though +less marked, on account of his good-nature; that was a part of his +armor, too. + + + +VI + +Speaking of Thoreau's dry humor reminds me how surely the old English +unctuous and sympathetic humor is dying out or has died out of our +literature. Our first notable crop of authors had it,--Paulding, Cooper, +Irving, and in a measure Hawthorne,--but our later humorists have it not +at all, but in its stead an intellectual quickness and perception of the +ludicrous that is not unmixed with scorn. + +One of the marks of the great humorist, like Cervantes, or Sterne, or +Scott, is that he approaches his subject, not through his head merely, +but through his heart, his love, his humanity. His humor is full of +compassion, full of the milk of human kindness, and does not separate +him from his subject, but unites him to it by vital ties. How Sterne +loved Uncle Toby and sympathized with him, and Cervantes his luckless +knight! I fear our humorists would have made fun of them, would have +shown them up and stood aloof superior, and "laughed a laugh of merry +scorn." Whatever else the great humorist or poet, or any artist, may be +or do, there is no contempt in his laughter. And this point cannot +be too strongly insisted on in view of the fact that nearly all our +humorous writers seem impressed with the conviction that their own +dignity and self-respect require them to _look down_ upon what they +portray. But it is only little men who look down upon anything or speak +down to anybody. One sees every day how clear it is that specially fine, +delicate, intellectual persons cannot portray satisfactorily coarse, +common, uncultured characters. Their attitude is at once scornful and +supercilious. The great man, like Socrates, or Dr. Johnson, or Abraham +Lincoln, is just as surely coarse as he is fine, but the complaint I +make with our humorists is that they are fine and not coarse in any +healthful and manly sense. A great part of the best literature and the +best art is of the vital fluids, the bowels, the chest, the appetites, +and is to be read and judged only through love and compassion. Let us +pray for unction, which is the marrowfat of humor, and for humility, +which is the badge of manhood. + +As the voice of the American has retreated from his chest to his +throat and nasal passages, so there is danger that his contribution to +literature will soon cease to imply any blood or viscera, or healthful +carnality, or depth of human and manly affection, and will be the fruit +entirely of our toploftical brilliancy and cleverness. + +What I complain of is just as true of the essayists and the critics as +of the novelists. The prevailing tone here also is born of a feeling of +immense superiority. How our lofty young men, for instance, look down +upon Carlyle, and administer their masterly rebukes to him! But see how +Carlyle treats Burns, or Scott, or Johnson, or Novalis, or any of his +heroes. Ay, there's the rub; he makes heroes of them, which is not a +trick of small natures. He can say of Johnson that he was "moonstruck," +but it is from no lofty height of fancied superiority, but he uses the +word as a naturalist uses a term to describe an object he loves. + +What we want, and perhaps have got more of than I am ready to admit, is +a race of writers who affiliate with their subjects, and enter into them +through their blood, their sexuality and manliness, instead of +standing apart and criticising them and writing about them through mere +intellectual cleverness and "smartness." + + + +VII + +There is a feeling in heroic poetry, or in a burst of eloquence, that I +sometimes catch in quite different fields. I caught it this morning, +for instance, when I saw the belated trains go by, and knew how they +had been battling with storm, darkness, and distance, and had triumphed. +They were due at my place in the night, but did not pass till after +eight o'clock in the morning. Two trains coupled together,--the fast +mail and the express,--making an immense line of coaches hauled by two +engines. They had come from the West, and were all covered with snow and +ice, like soldiers with the dust of battle upon them. They had massed +their forces, and were now moving with augmented speed, and with a +resolution that was epic and grand. Talk about the railroad dispelling +the romance from the landscape; if it does, it brings the heroic element +in. The moving train is a proud spectacle, especially on stormy and +tempestuous nights. When I look out and see its light, steady and +unflickering as the planets, and hear the roar of its advancing tread, +or its sound diminishing in the distance, I am comforted and made stout +of heart. O night, where is thy stay! O space, where is thy victory! Or +to see the fast mail pass in the morning is as good as a page of Homer. +It quickens one's pulse for all day. It is the Ajax of trains. I hear +its defiant, warning whistle, hear it thunder over the bridges, and its +sharp, rushing ring among the rocks, and in the winter mornings see its +glancing, meteoric lights, or in summer its white form bursting through +the silence and the shadows, its plume of smoke lying flat upon its +roofs and stretching far behind,--a sight better than a battle. It +is something of the same feeling one has in witnessing any wild, free +careering in storms, and in floods in nature; or in beholding the +charge of an army; or in listening to an eloquent man, or to a hundred +instruments of music in full blast,--it is triumph, victory. What is +eloquence but mass in motion,--a flood, a cataract, an express train, a +cavalry charge? We are literally carried away, swept from our feet, and +recover our senses again as best we can. + +I experienced the same emotion when I saw them go by with the sunken +steamer. The procession moved slowly and solemnly. It was like a funeral +cortege,--a long line of grim floats and barges and boxes, with their +bowed and solemn derricks, the pall-bearers; and underneath in her +watery grave, where she had been for six months, the sunken steamer, +partially lifted and borne along. Next day the procession went back +again, and the spectacle was still more eloquent. The steamer had been +taken to the flats above and raised till her walking-beam was out of +water; her bell also was exposed and cleaned and rung, and the wreckers' +Herculean labor seemed nearly over. But that night the winds and the +storms held high carnival. It looked like preconcerted action on the +part of tide, tempest, and rain to defeat these wreckers, for the +elements all pulled together and pulled till cables and hawser snapped +like threads. Back the procession started, anchors were dragged or lost, +immense new cables were quickly taken ashore and fastened to trees; but +no use: trees were upturned, the cables stretched till they grew +small and sang like harp-strings, then parted; back, back against the +desperate efforts of the men, till within a few feet of her old +grave, when there was a great commotion among the craft, floats were +overturned, enormous chains parted, colossal timbers were snapped +like pipestems, and, with a sound that filled all the air, the steamer +plunged to the bottom again in seventy feet of water. + + + +VIII + +I am glad to observe that all the poetry of the midsummer harvesting has +not gone out with the scythe and the whetstone. The line of mowers was a +pretty sight, if one did not sympathize too deeply with the human backs +turned up there to the sun, and the sound of the whetstone, coming up +from the meadows in the dewy morning, was pleasant music. But I find the +sound of the mowing-machine and the patent reaper is even more in tune +with the voices of Nature at this season. The characteristic sounds of +midsummer are the sharp, whirring crescendo of the cicada or harvest +fly, and the rasping, stridulous notes of the nocturnal insects. The +mowing-machine repeats and imitates these sounds. 'T is like the hum of +a locust or the shuffling of a mighty grasshopper. More than that, the +grass and the grain at this season have become hard. The timothy stalk +is like a file; the rye straw is glazed with flint; the grasshoppers +snap sharply as they fly up in front of you; the bird-songs have ceased; +the ground crackles under foot; the eye of day is brassy and merciless; +and in harmony with all these things is the rattle of the mower and the +hay-tedder. + + + +IX + +'T is an evidence of how directly we are related to Nature, that we more +or less sympathize with the weather, and take on the color of the day. +Goethe said he worked easiest on a high barometer. One is like a chimney +that draws well some days and won't draw at all on others, and the +secret is mainly in the condition of the atmosphere. Anything positive +and decided with the weather is a good omen. A pouring rain may be more +auspicious than a sleeping sunshine. When the stove draws well, the fogs +and fumes will leave your mind. I find there is great virtue in the bare +ground, and have been much put out at times by those white angelic +days we have in winter, such as Whittier has so well described in these +lines:-- + + "Around the glistening wonder bent + The blue walls of the firmament; + No cloud above, no earth below, + A universe of sky and snow." + +On such days my spirit gets snow-blind; all things take on the same +color, or no color; my thought loses its perspective; the inner world is +a blank like the outer, and all my great ideals are wrapped in the same +monotonous and expressionless commonplace. The blackest of black days +are better. + +Why does snow so kill the landscape and blot out our interest in it? Not +merely because it is cold, and the symbol of death,--for I imagine as +many inches of apple blossoms would have about the same effect,--but +because it expresses nothing. White is a negative; a perfect blank. The +eye was made for color, and for the earthy tints, and, when these are +denied it, the mind is very apt to sympathize and to suffer also. + +Then when the sap begins to mount in the trees, and the spring languor +comes, does not one grow restless indoors? The sun puts out the fire, +the people say, and the spring sun certainly makes one's intellectual +light grow dim. Why should not a man sympathize with the seasons and the +moods and phases of Nature? He is an apple upon this tree, or rather he +is a babe at this breast, and what his great mother feels affects him +also. + + + +X + +I have frequently been surprised, in late fall and early winter, to +see how unequal or irregular was the encroachment of the frost upon the +earth. If there is suddenly a great fall in the mercury, the frost lays +siege to the soil and effects a lodgment here and there, and extends its +conquests gradually. At one place in the field you can easily run your +staff through into the soft ground, when a few rods farther on it will +be as hard as a rock. A little covering of dry grass or leaves is a +great protection. The moist places hold out long, and the spring runs +never freeze. You find the frost has gone several inches into the plowed +ground, but on going to the woods, and poking away the leaves and debris +under the hemlocks and cedars, you find there is no frost at all. The +Earth freezes her ears and toes and naked places first, and her body +last. + +If heat were visible, or if we should represent it say by smoke, then +the December landscape would present a curious spectacle. We should see +the smoke lying low over the meadows, thickest in the hollows and moist +places, and where the turf is oldest and densest. It would cling to the +fences and ravines. Under every evergreen tree we should see the vapor +rising and filling the branches, while the woods of pine and hemlock +would be blue with it long after it had disappeared from the open +country. It would rise from the tops of the trees, and be carried this +way and that with the wind. The valleys of the great rivers, like the +Hudson, would overflow with it. Large bodies of water become regular +magazines in which heat is stored during the summer, and they give it +out again during the fall and early winter. The early frosts keep well +back from the Hudson, skulking behind the ridges, and hardly come over +in sight at any point. But they grow bold as the season advances, till +the river's fires, too, I are put out and Winter covers it with his +snows. + + + +XI + +One of the strong and original strokes of Nature was when she made the +loon. It is always refreshing to contemplate a creature so positive and +characteristic. He is the great diver and flyer under water. The loon +is the genius loci of the wild northern lakes, as solitary as they are. +Some birds represent the majesty of nature, like the eagles; others its +ferocity, like the hawks; others its cunning, like the crow; others +its sweetness and melody, like the song-birds. The loon represents +its wildness and solitariness. It is cousin to the beaver. It has the +feathers of a bird and the fur of an animal, and the heart of both. It +is as quick and cunning as it is bold and resolute. It dives with such +marvelous quickness that the shot of the gunner get there just in time +"to cut across a circle of descending tail feathers and a couple of +little jets of water flung upward by the web feet of the loon." When +disabled so that it can neither dive nor fly, it is said to face its +foe, look him in the face with its clear, piercing eye, and fight +resolutely till death. The gunners say there is something in its +wailing, piteous cry, when dying, almost human in its agony. The loon +is, in the strictest sense, an aquatic fowl. It can barely walk upon the +land, and one species at least cannot take flight from the shore. But in +the water its feet are more than feet, and its wings more than wings. It +plunges into this denser air and flies with incredible speed. Its head +and beak form a sharp point to its tapering neck. Its wings are far in +front and its legs equally far in the rear, and its course through the +crystal depths is like the speed of an arrow. In the northern lakes it +has been taken forty feet under water upon hooks baited for the great +lake trout. I had never seen one till last fall, when one appeared on +the river in front of my house. I knew instantly it was the loon. Who +could not tell a loon a half mile or more away, though he had never seen +one before? The river was like glass, and every movement of the bird as +it sported about broke the surface into ripples, that revealed it far +and wide. Presently a boat shot out from shore, and went ripping up +the surface toward the loon. The creature at once seemed to divine the +intentions of the boatman, and sidled off obliquely, keeping a sharp +lookout as if to make sure it was pursued. A steamer came down and +passed between them, and when the way was again clear, the loon was +still swimming on the surface. Presently it disappeared under the +water, and the boatman pulled sharp and hard. In a few moments the bird +reappeared some rods farther on, as if to make an observation. Seeing it +was being pursued, and no mistake, it dived quickly, and, when it came +up again, had gone many times as far as the boat had in the same space +of time. Then it dived again, and distanced its pursuer so easily that +he gave over the chase and rested upon his oars. But the bird made a +final plunge, and, when it emerged upon the surface again, it was over +a mile away. Its course must have been, and doubtless was, an actual +flight under water, and half as fast as the crow flies in the air. + +The loon would have delighted the old poets. Its wild, demoniac laughter +awakens the echoes on the solitary lakes, and its ferity and hardiness +are kindred to those robust spirits. + + + +XII + +One notable difference between man and the four-footed animals which +has often occurred to me is in the eye, and the greater perfection, or +rather supremacy, of the sense of sight in the human species. All +the animals--the dog, the fox, the wolf, the deer, the cow, the +horse--depend mainly upon the senses of hearing and smell. Almost their +entire powers of discrimination are confined to these two senses. The +dog picks his master out of the crowd by smell, and the cow her calf out +of the herd. Sight is only partial recognition. The question can only +be settled beyond all doubt by the aid of the nose. The fox, alert and +cunning as he is, will pass within a few yards of the hunter and not +know him from a stump. A squirrel will run across your lap, and a marmot +between your feet, if you are motionless. When a herd of cattle see a +strange object, they are not satisfied till each one has sniffed it; and +the horse is cured of his fright at the robe, or the meal-bag, or other +object, as soon as he can be induced to smell it. There is a great deal +of speculation in the eye of an animal, but very little science. Then +you cannot catch an animal's eye; he looks at you, but not into your +eye. The dog directs his gaze toward your face, but, for aught you can +tell, it centres upon your mouth or nose. The same with your horse or +cow. Their eye is vague and indefinite. + +Not so with the birds. The bird has the human eye in its clearness, its +power, and its supremacy over the other senses. How acute their sense +of smell may be is uncertain; their hearing is sharp enough, but their +vision is the most remarkable. A crow or a hawk, or any of the larger +birds, will not mistake you for a stump or a rock, stand you never so +still amid the bushes. But they cannot separate you from your horse or +team. A hawk reads a man on horseback as one animal, and reads it as a +horse. None of the sharp-scented animals could be thus deceived. + +The bird has man's brain also in its size. The brain of a song-bird is +even much larger in proportion than that of the greatest human monarch, +and its life is correspondingly intense and high-strung. But the bird's +eye is superficial. It is on the outside of his head. It is round, that +it may take in a full circle at a glance. + +All the quadrupeds emphasize their direct forward gaze by a +corresponding movement of the ears, as if to supplement and aid one +sense with another. But man's eye seldom needs the confirmation of +his ear, while it is so set, and his head so poised, that his look is +forcible and pointed without being thus seconded. + + + +XIII + +I once saw a cow that had lost her cud. How forlorn and desolate and +sick at heart that cow looked! No more rumination, no more of that +second and finer mastication, no more of that sweet and juicy reverie +under the spreading trees, or in the stall. Then the farmer took an +elder and scraped the bark and put something with it, and made the cow a +cud, and, after due waiting, the experiment took, a response came back, +and the mysterious machinery was once more in motion, and the cow was +herself again. + +Have you, O poet, or essayist, or story-writer, never lost your cud, +and wandered about days and weeks without being able to start a single +thought or an image that tasted good,--your literary appetite dull or +all gone, and the conviction daily growing that it was all over with you +in that direction? A little elder-bark, something fresh and bitter from +the woods, is about the best thing you can take. + + + +XIV + +Notwithstanding what I have elsewhere said about the desolation of snow, +when one looks closely it is little more than a thin veil after all, and +takes and repeats the form of whatever it covers. Every path through +the fields is just as plain as before. On every hand the ground sends +tokens, and the curves and slopes are not of the snow, but of the earth +beneath. In like manner the rankest vegetation hides the ground less +than we think. Looking across a wide valley in the month of July, I have +noted that the fields, except the meadows, had a ruddy tinge, and that +corn, which near at hand seemed to completely envelop the soil, at that +distance gave only a slight shade of green. The color of the ground +everywhere predominated, and I doubt not that, if we could see the earth +from a point sufficiently removed, as from the moon, its ruddy hue, like +that of Mars, would alone be visible. + +What is a man but a miniature earth, with many disguises in the way of +manners, possessions, dissemblances? Yet through all--through all the +work of his hands and all the thoughts of his mind--how surely the +ground quality of him, the fundamental hue, whether it be this or that, +makes itself felt and is alone important! + + + +XV + +Men follow their noses, it is said. I have wondered why the Greek did +not follow his nose in architecture,--did not copy those arches that +spring from it as from a pier, and support his brow,--but always and +everywhere used the post and the lintel. There was something in that +face that has never reappeared in the human countenance. I am thinking +especially of that straight, strong profile. Is it really godlike, or +is this impression the result of association? But any suggestion or +reminiscence of it in the modern face at once gives one the idea of +strength. It is a face strong in the loins, or it suggests a high, +elastic instep. It is the face of order and proportion. Those arches are +the symbols of law and self-control. The point of greatest interest is +the union of the nose with the brow,--that strong, high embankment; +it makes the bridge from the ideal to the real sure and easy. All the +Greek's ideas passed readily into form. In the modern face the arches +are more or less crushed, and the nose is severed from the brow,--hence +the abstract and the analytic; hence the preponderance of the +speculative intellect over creative power. + + + +XVI + +I have thought that the boy is the only true lover of Nature, and that +we, who make such a dead set at studying and admiring her, come very +wide of the mark. "The nonchalance of a boy who is sure of his dinner," +says our Emerson, "is the healthy attitude of humanity." The boy is a +part of Nature; he is as indifferent, as careless, as vagrant as she. He +browses, he digs, he hunts, he climbs, he halloes, he feeds on roots +and greens and mast. He uses things roughly and without sentiment. The +coolness with which boys will drown dogs or cats, or hang them to trees, +or murder young birds, or torture frogs or squirrels, is like Nature's +own mercilessness. + +Certain it is that we often get some of the best touches of nature from +children. Childhood is a world by itself, and we listen to children when +they frankly speak out of it with a strange interest. There is such a +freedom from responsibility and from worldly wisdom,--it is heavenly +wisdom. There is no sentiment in children, because there is no ruin; +nothing has gone to decay about them yet,--not a leaf or a twig. Until +he is well into his teens, and sometimes later, a boy is like a +bean-pod before the fruit has developed,--indefinite, succulent, rich in +possibilities which are only vaguely outlined. He is a pericarp merely. +How rudimental are all his ideas! I knew a boy who began his +school composition on swallows by saying there were two kinds of +swallows,--chimney swallows and swallows. + +Girls come to themselves sooner; are indeed, from the first, more +definite and "translatable." + + + +XVII + +Who will write the natural history of the boy? One of the first points +to be taken account of is his clannishness. The boys of one neighborhood +are always pitted against those of an adjoining neighborhood, or of one +end of the town against those of the other end. A bridge, a river, a +railroad track, are always boundaries of hostile or semi-hostile tribes. +The boys that go up the road from the country school hoot derisively +at those that go down the road, and not infrequently add the insult of +stones; and the down-roaders return the hooting and the missiles with +interest. + +Often there is open war, and the boys meet and have regular battles. A +few years since, the boys of two rival towns on opposite sides of the +Ohio River became so belligerent that the authorities had to interfere. +Whenever an Ohio boy was caught on the West Virginia side of the river, +he was unmercifully beaten; and when a West Virginia boy was discovered +on the Ohio side, he was pounced upon in the same manner. One day a +vast number of boys, about one hundred and fifty on a side, met +by appointment upon the ice and engaged in a pitched battle. Every +conceivable missile was used, including pistols. The battle, says the +local paper, raged with fury for about two hours. One boy received +a wound behind the ear, from the effects of which he died the next +morning. More recently the boys of a large manufacturing town of New +Jersey were divided into two hostile clans that came into frequent +collision. One Saturday both sides mustered their forces, and a regular +fight ensued, one boy here also losing his life from the encounter. + +Every village and settlement is at times the scene of these youthful +collisions When a new boy appears in the village, or at the country +school, how the other boys crowd around him and take his measure, or +pick at him and insult him to try his mettle! + +I knew a boy, twelve or thirteen years old, who was sent to help a +drover with some cattle as far as a certain village ten miles from his +home. After the place was reached, and while the boy was eating his +cracker and candies, he strolled about the village, and fell in with +some other boys playing upon a bridge. In a short time a large number of +children of all sizes had collected upon the bridge. The new-comer was +presently challenged by the boys of his own age to jump with them. This +he readily did, and cleared their farthest mark. Then he gave them a +sample of his stone-throwing, and at this pastime he also far surpassed +his competitors. Before long, the feeling of the crowd began to set +against him, showing itself first in the smaller fry, who began half +playfully to throw pebbles and lumps of dry earth at him. Then they +would run up slyly and strike him with sticks. Presently the large +ones began to tease him in like manner, till the contagion of hostility +spread, and the whole pack was arrayed against the strange boy. He kept +them at bay for a few moments with his stick, till, the feeling mounting +higher and higher, he broke through their ranks, and fled precipitately +toward home, with the throng of little and big at his heels. Gradually +the girls and smaller boys dropped behind, till at the end of the +first fifty rods only two boys of about his own size, with wrath and +determination in their faces, kept up the pursuit. But to these he added +the final insult of beating them at running also, and reached, much +blown, a point beyond which they refused to follow. + +The world the boy lives in is separate and distinct from the world +the man lives in. It is a world inhabited only by boys. No events are +important or of any moment save those affecting boys. How they +ignore the presence of their elders on the street, shouting out their +invitations, their appointments, their pass-words from our midst, as +from the veriest solitude! They have peculiar calls, whistles, signals, +by which they communicate with each other at long distances, like birds +or wild creatures. And there is as genuine a wildness about these notes +and calls as about those of a fox or a coon. + +The boy is a savage, a barbarian, in his taste,--devouring roots, +leaves, bark, unripe fruit; and in the kind of music or discord he +delights in,--of harmony he has no perception. He has his fashions that +spread from city to city. In one of our large cities the rage at one +time was an old tin can with a string attached, out of which they +tortured the most savage and ear-splitting discords. The police were +obliged to interfere and suppress the nuisance. On another occasion, at +Christmas, they all came forth with tin horns, and nearly drove the town +distracted with the hideous uproar. + +Another savage trait of the boy is his untruthfulness. Corner him, and +the chances are ten to one he will lie his way out. Conscience is +a plant of slow growth in the boy. If caught in one lie, he invents +another. I know a boy who was in the habit of eating apples in school. +His teacher finally caught him in the act, and, without removing his eye +from him, called him to the middle of the floor. + +"I saw you this time," said the teacher. + +"Saw me what?" said the boy innocently. + +"Bite that apple," replied the teacher. + +"No, sir," said the rascal. + +"Open your mouth;" and from its depths the teacher, with his thumb and +finger, took out the piece of apple. + +"Did n't know it was there," said the boy, unabashed. + +Nearly all the moral sentiment and graces are late in maturing in the +boy. He has no proper self-respect till past his majority. Of course +there are exceptions, but they are mostly windfalls. The good boys +die young. We lament the wickedness and thoughtlessness of the young +vagabonds at the same time that we know it is mainly the acridity and +bitterness of the unripe fruit that we are lamenting. + + + + +III A BIRD MEDLEY + +People who have not made friends with the birds do not know how much +they miss. Especially to one living in the country, of strong local +attachments and an observing turn of mind, does an acquaintance with +the birds form a close and invaluable tie. The only time I saw Thomas +Carlyle, I remember his relating, apropos of this subject, that in his +earlier days he was sent on a journey to a distant town on some business +that gave him much bother and vexation, and that on his way back home, +forlorn and dejected, he suddenly heard the larks singing all about +him,--soaring and singing, just as they did about his father's fields, +and it comforted him and cheered him up amazingly. + +Most lovers of the birds can doubtless recall similar experiences from +their own lives. Nothing wonts me to a new place more than the birds. I +go, for instance, to take up my abode in the country,--to plant myself +upon unfamiliar ground. I know nobody, and nobody knows me. The roads, +the fields, the hills, the streams, the woods, are all strange. I look +wistfully upon them, but they know me not. They give back nothing to +my yearning gaze. But there, on every hand, are the long-familiar +birds,--the same ones I left behind me, the same ones I knew in my +youth,--robins, sparrows, swallows, bobolinks, crows, hawks, high-holes, +meadowlarks, all there before me, and ready to renew and perpetuate the +old associations. Before my house is begun, theirs is completed; before +I have taken root at all, they are thoroughly established. I do not yet +know what kind of apples my apple-trees bear, but there, in the cavity +of a decayed limb, the bluebirds are building a nest, and yonder, on +that branch, the social sparrow is busy with hairs and straws. The +robins have tasted the quality of my cherries, and the cedar-birds have +known every red cedar on the place these many years. While my house +is yet surrounded by its scaffoldings, the phoebe-bird has built her +exquisite mossy nest on a projecting stone beneath the eaves, a robin +has filled a niche in the wall with mud and dry grass, the chimney +swallows are going out and in the chimney, and a pair of house wrens are +at home in a snug cavity over the door, and, during an April snowstorm, +a number of hermit thrushes have taken shelter in my unfinished +chambers. Indeed, I am in the midst of friends before I fairly know it. +The place is not so new as I had thought. It is already old; the birds +have supplied the memories of many decades of years. + +There is something almost pathetic in the fact that the birds remain +forever the same. You grow old, your friends die or move to distant +lands, events sweep on, and all things are changed. Yet there in your +garden or orchard are the birds of your boyhood, the same notes, the +same calls, and, to all intents and purposes, the identical birds +endowed with perennial youth. The swallows, that built so far out of +your reach beneath the eaves of your father's barn, the same ones now +squeak and chatter beneath the eaves of your barn. The warblers and +shy wood-birds you pursued with such glee ever so many summers ago, and +whose names you taught to some beloved youth who now, perchance, sleeps +amid his native hills, no marks of time or change cling to them; and +when you walk out to the strange woods, there they are, mocking you with +their ever-renewed and joyous youth. The call of the high-holes, the +whistle of the quail, the strong piercing note of the meadowlark, the +drumming of the grouse,--how these sounds ignore the years, and strike +on the ear with the melody of that springtime when the world was young, +and life was all holiday and romance! + +During any unusual tension of the feelings or emotions, how the note or +song of a single bird will sink into the memory, and become inseparably +associated with your grief or joy! Shall I ever again be able to hear +the song of the oriole without being pierced through and through? Can it +ever be other than a dirge for the dead to me? Day after day, and week +after week, this bird whistled and warbled in a mulberry by the door, +while sorrow, like a pall, darkened my day. So loud and persistent was +the singer that his note teased and worried my excited ear. + + "Hearken to yon pine warbler, + Singing aloft in the tree! + Hearest thou, O traveler! + What he singeth to me? + + "Not unless God made sharp thine ear + With sorrow such as mine, + Out of that delicate lay couldst thou + Its heavy tale divine." + +It is the opinion of some naturalists that birds never die what is +called a natural death, but come to their end by some murderous or +accidental means; yet I have found sparrows and vireos in the fields and +woods dead or dying, that bore no marks of violence; and I remember that +once in my childhood a redbird fell down in the yard exhausted, and was +brought in by the girl; its bright scarlet image is indelibly stamped +upon my recollection. It is not known that birds have any distempers +like the domestic fowls, but I saw a social sparrow one day quite +disabled by some curious malady that suggested a disease that sometimes +attacks poultry; one eye was nearly put out by a scrofulous-looking +sore, and on the last joint of one wing there was a large tumorous or +fungous growth that crippled the bird completely. On another occasion +I picked up one that appeared well, but could not keep its centre of +gravity when in flight, and so fell to the ground. + +One reason why dead birds and animals are so rarely found is, that on +the approach of death their instinct prompts them to creep away in some +hole or under some cover, where they will be least liable to fall a prey +to their natural enemies. It is doubtful if any of the game-birds, like +the pigeon and grouse, ever die of old age, or the semi-game-birds, like +the bobolink, or the "century living" crow; but in what other form can +death overtake the hummingbird, or even the swift and the barn swallow? +Such are true birds of the air; they may be occasionally lost at sea +during their migrations, but, so far as I know, they are not preyed upon +by any other species. + +The valley of the Hudson, I find, forms a great natural highway for the +birds, as do doubtless the Connecticut, the Susquehanna, the Delaware, +and all other large water-courses running north and south. The birds +love an easy way, and in the valleys of the rivers they find a road +already graded for them; and they abound more in such places throughout +the season than they do farther inland. The swarms of robins that come +to us in early spring are a delight to behold. In one of his poems +Emerson speaks of + + "April's bird, + Blue-coated, flying before from tree to tree;" + +but April's bird with me is the robin, brisk, vociferous, musical, +dotting every field, and larking it in every grove; he is as easily atop +at this season as the bobolink is a month or two later. The tints of +April are ruddy and brown,--the new furrow and the leafless trees,--and +these are the tints of its dominant bird. + +From my dining-room window I look, or did look, out upon a long stretch +of smooth meadow, and as pretty a spring sight as I ever wish to behold +was this field, sprinkled all over with robins, their red breasts turned +toward the morning sun, or their pert forms sharply outlined against +lingering patches of snow. Every morning for weeks I had those robins +for breakfast; but what they had I never could find out. + +After the leaves are out, and gayer colors come into fashion, the robin +takes a back seat. He goes to housekeeping in the old apple-tree, or, +what he likes better, the cherry-tree. A pair reared their domestic +altar (of mud and dry grass) in one of the latter trees, where I saw +much of them. The cock took it upon himself to keep the tree free of all +other robins during cherry time, and its branches were the scene of +some lively tussles every hour in the day. The innocent visitor would +scarcely alight before the jealous cock was upon him; but while he was +thrusting the intruder out at one side, a second would be coming in on +the other. He managed, however, to protect his cherries very well, but +had so little time to eat the fruit himself that we got fully our share. + +I have frequently seen the robin courting, and have always been +astonished and amused at the utter coldness and indifference of the +female. The females of every species of bird, however, I believe, have +this in common,--they are absolutely free from coquetry, or any airs and +wiles whatever. In most cases, Nature has given the song and the plumage +to the other sex, and all the embellishing and acting is done by the +male bird. + +I am always at home when I see the passenger pigeon. Few spectacles +please me more than to see clouds of these birds sweeping across the +sky, and few sounds are more agreeable to my ear than their lively +piping and calling in the spring woods. They come in such multitudes, +they people the whole air; they cover townships, and make the solitary +places gay as with a festival. The naked woods are suddenly blue as with +fluttering ribbons and scarfs, and vocal as with the voices of children. +Their arrival is always unexpected. We know April will bring the robins +and May the bobolinks, but we do not know that either they or any +other month will bring the passenger pigeon. Sometimes years elapse and +scarcely a flock is seen. Then, of a sudden, some March or April they +come pouring over the horizon from the south or southwest, and for a few +days the land is alive with them. + +The whole race seems to be collected in a few vast swarms or +assemblages. Indeed, I have sometimes thought there was only one such +in the United States, and that it moved in squads, and regiments, and +brigades, and divisions, like a giant army. The scouting and foraging +squads are not unusual, and every few years we see larger bodies of +them, but rarely indeed do we witness the spectacle of the whole vast +tribe in motion. Sometimes we hear of them in Virginia, or Kentucky +and Tennessee; then in Ohio or Pennsylvania; then in New York; then in +Canada or Michigan or Missouri. They are followed from point to point, +and from State to State, by human sharks, who catch and shoot them for +market. + +A year ago last April, the pigeons flew for two or three days up and +down the Hudson. In long bowing lines, or else in dense masses, they +moved across the sky. It was not the whole army, but I should think at +least one corps of it; I had not seen such a flight of pigeons since +my boyhood. I went up to the top of the house, the better to behold the +winged procession. The day seemed memorable and poetic in which such +sights occurred. + + [Footnote: This proved to be the last flight of the pigeons + in the valley of the Hudson. The whole tribe has now (1895) + been nearly exterminated by pot-hunters. The few that still + remain appear to be scattered through the Northern States + in small, loose flocks.] + +While I was looking at the pigeons, a flock of wild geese went by, +harrowing the sky northward. The geese strike a deeper chord than the +pigeons. Level and straight they go as fate to its mark. I cannot tell +what emotions these migrating birds awaken in me,--the geese especially. +One seldom sees more than a flock or two in a season, and what a spring +token it is! The great bodies are in motion. It is like the passage of +a victorious army. No longer inch by inch does spring come, but these +geese advance the standard across zones at one pull. How my desire goes +with them; how something in me, wild and migratory, plumes itself and +follows fast! + + "Steering north, with raucous cry, + Through tracts and provinces of sky, + Every night alighting down + In new landscapes of romance, + Where darkling feed the clamorous clans + By lonely lakes to men unknown." + +Dwelling upon these sights, I am reminded that the seeing of spring +come, not only upon the great wings of the geese and the lesser wings +of the pigeons and birds, but in the many more subtle and indirect +signs and mediums, is also a part of the compensation of living in +the country. I enjoy not less what may be called the negative side of +spring,--those dark, dank, dissolving days, + yellow sposh and mud and water everywhere,--yet who can stay long +indoors? The humidity is soft and satisfying to the smell, and to the +face and hands, and, for the first time for months, there is the fresh +odor of the earth. The air is full of the notes and calls of the first +birds. The domestic fowls refuse their accustomed food and wander far +from the barn. Is it something winter has left, or spring has dropped, +that they pick up? And what is it that holds me so long standing in the +yard or in the fields? Something besides the ice and snow melts and runs +away with the spring floods. + +The little sparrows and purple finches are so punctual in announcing +spring, that some seasons one wonders how they know without looking in +the almanac, for surely there are no signs of spring out of doors. Yet +they will strike up as cheerily amid the driving snow as if they had +just been told that to-morrow is the first day of March. About the same +time I notice the potatoes in the cellar show signs of sprouting. +They, too, find out so quickly when spring is near. Spring comes by two +routes,--in the air and underground, and often gets here by the latter +course first. She undermines Winter when outwardly his front is nearly +as bold as ever. I have known the trees to bud long before, by outward +appearances, one would expect them to. The frost was gone from the +ground before the snow was gone from the surface. + +But Winter hath his birds also; some of them such tiny bodies that one +wonders how they withstand the giant cold,--but they do. Birds live on +highly concentrated food,--the fine seeds of weeds and grasses, and +the eggs and larvae of insects. Such food must be very stimulating and +heating. A gizzard full of ants, for instance, what spiced and seasoned +extract is equal to that? Think what virtue there must be in an ounce +of gnats or mosquitoes, or in the fine mysterious food the chickadee and +the brown creeper gather in the winter woods! It is doubtful if these +birds ever freeze when fuel enough can be had to keep their little +furnaces going. And, as they get their food entirely from the limbs and +trunks of trees, like the woodpeckers, their supply is seldom interfered +with by the snow. The worst annoyance must be the enameling of ice our +winter woods sometimes get. + +Indeed, the food question seems to be the only serious one with the +birds. Give them plenty to eat, and no doubt the majority of them would +face our winters. I believe all the woodpeckers are winter birds, except +the high-hole or yellow-hammer, and he obtains the greater part of +his subsistence from the ground, and is not a woodpecker at all in his +habits of feeding. Were it not that it has recourse to budding, the +ruffed grouse would be obliged to migrate. The quail--a bird, no doubt, +equally hardy, but whose food is at the mercy of the snow--is frequently +cut off by our severe winters when it ventures to brave them, which is +not often. Where plenty of the berries of the red cedar can be had, the +cedar-bird will pass the winter in New York. The old ornithologists say +the bluebird migrates to Bermuda; but in the winter of 1874-75, severe +as it was, a pair of them wintered with me eighty miles north of +New York city. They seem to have been decided in their choice by the +attractions of my rustic porch and the fruit of a sugar-berry tree +(celtis--a kind of tree-lotus) that stood in front of it. They lodged in +the porch and took their meals in the tree. Indeed, they became regular +lotus-eaters. Punctually at dusk they were in their places on a +large laurel root in the top of the porch, whence, however, they were +frequently routed by an indignant broom that was jealous of the neatness +of the porch floor. But the pair would not take any hints of this kind, +and did not give up their quarters in the porch or their lotus berries +till spring. + +Many times during the winter the sugar-berry tree was visited by a flock +of cedar-birds that also wintered in the vicinity. At such times it +was amusing to witness the pretty wrath of the bluebirds, scolding and +threatening the intruders, and begrudging them every berry they ate. The +bluebird cannot utter a harsh or unpleasing note. Indeed, he seems +to have but one language, one speech, for both love and war, and the +expression of his indignation is nearly as musical as his song. The male +frequently made hostile demonstrations toward the cedar-birds, but did +not openly attack them, and, with his mate, appeared to experience great +relief when the poachers had gone. + +I had other company in my solitude also, among the rest a distinguished +arrival from the far north, the pine grosbeak, a bird rarely seen in +these parts, except now and then a single specimen. But in the winter of +1875, heralding the extreme cold weather, and no doubt in consequence of +it, there was a large incursion of them into this State and New England. +They attracted the notice of the country people everywhere. I first saw +them early in December about the head of the Delaware. I was walking +along a cleared ridge with my gun, just at sundown, when I beheld two +strange birds sitting in a small maple. On bringing one of them down, I +found it was a bird I had never before seen; in color and shape like the +purple finch, but quite as large again in size. From its heavy beak, +I at once recognized it as belonging to the family of grosbeaks. A few +days later I saw large numbers of them in the woods, on the ground, +and in the trees. And still later, and on till February, they were very +numerous on the Hudson, coming all about my house,--more familiar even +than the little snowbird, hopping beneath the windows, and looking up +at me apparently with as much curiosity as I looked down upon them. +They fed on the buds of the sugar maples and upon frozen apples in the +orchard. They were mostly young birds and females, colored very +much like the common sparrow, with now and then visible the dull +carmine-colored head and neck of an old male. + +Other northern visitors that tarried with me the same winter were the +tree or Canada sparrow and the redpoll, the former a bird larger than +the social sparrow or hair-bird, but otherwise much resembling it, and +distinguishable by a dark spot in the middle of its breast; the latter a +bird the size and shape of the common goldfinch, with the same manner +of flight and nearly the same note or cry, but darker than the winter +plumage of the goldfinch, and with a red crown and a tinge of red on the +breast. Little bands of these two species lurked about the barnyard all +winter, picking up the hayseed, the sparrow sometimes venturing in on +the haymow when the supply outside was short. I felt grateful to them +for their company. They gave a sort of ornithological air to every +errand I had to the barn. + +Though a number of birds face our winters, and by various shifts worry +through till spring, some of them permanent residents, and some of them +visitors from the far north, yet there is but one genuine snow bird, +nursling of the snow, and that is the snow bunting, a bird that seems +proper to this season, heralding the coming storm, sweeping by on bold +and rapid wing, and calling and chirping as cheerily as the songsters +of May. In its plumage it reflects the winter landscape,--an expanse of +white surmounted or streaked with gray and brown; a field of snow with +a line of woods or a tinge of stubble. It fits into the scene, and does +not appear to lead a beggarly and disconsolate life, like most of our +winter residents. During the ice-harvesting on the river, I see them +flitting about among the gangs of men, or floating on the cakes of ice, +picking and scratching amid the droppings of the horses. They love the +stack and hay-barn in the distant field, where the farmer fodders his +cattle upon the snow, and every red-root, ragweed, or pigweed left +standing in the fall adds to their winter stores. + +Though this bird, and one or two others, like the chickadee and +nuthatch, are more or less complacent and cheerful during the winter, +yet no bird can look our winters in the face and sing, as do so many of +the English birds. Several species in Great Britain, their biographers +tell us, sing the winter through, except during the severest frosts; but +with us, as far south as Virginia, and, for aught I know, much farther, +the birds are tuneless at this season. The owls, even, do not hoot, nor +the hawks scream. + +Among the birds that tarry briefly with us in the spring on their way to +Canada and beyond, there is none I behold with so much pleasure as the +white-crowned sparrow. I have an eye out for him all through April +and the first week in May. He is the rarest and most beautiful of the +sparrow kind. He is crowned, as some hero or victor in the games. He is +usually in company with his congener, the white-throated sparrow, but +seldom more than in the proportion of one to twenty of the latter. +Contrasted with this bird, he looks like its more fortunate brother, +upon whom some special distinction has been conferred, and who is, from +the egg, of finer make and quality. His sparrow color of ashen gray +and brown is very clear and bright, and his form graceful. His whole +expression, however, culminates in a singular manner in his crown. The +various tints of the bird are brought to a focus here and intensified, +the lighter ones becoming white, and the deeper ones nearly black. +There is the suggestion of a crest, also, from a habit the bird has +of slightly elevating this part of its plumage, as if to make more +conspicuous its pretty markings. They are great scratchers, and will +often remain several minutes scratching in one place, like a hen. Yet, +unlike the hen and like all hoppers, they scratch with both feet at +once, which is by no means the best way to scratch. + +The white-throats often sing during their sojourning both in fall and +spring; but only on one occasion have I ever heard any part of the song +of the white-crowned, and that proceeded from what I took to be a young +male, one October morning, just as the sun was rising. It was pitched +very low, like a half-forgotten air, but it was very sweet. It was the +song of the vesper sparrow and the white-throat in one. In his breeding +haunts he must be a superior songster, but he is very chary of his music +while on his travels. + +The sparrows are all meek and lowly birds. They are of the grass, the +fences, the low bushes, the weedy wayside places. Nature has denied them +all brilliant tints, but she has given them sweet and musical voices. +Theirs are the quaint and simple lullaby songs of childhood. The +white-throat has a timid, tremulous strain, that issues from the low +bushes or from behind the fence, where its cradle is hid. The song +sparrow modulates its simple ditty as softly as the lining of its own +nest. The vesper sparrow has only peace and gentleness in its strain. + +What pretty nests, too, the sparrows build! Can anything be more +exquisite than a sparrow's nest under a grassy or mossy bank? What care +the bird has taken not to disturb one straw or spear of grass, or +thread of moss! You cannot approach it and put your hand into it without +violating the place more or less, and yet the little architect has +wrought day after day and left no marks. There has been an excavation, +and yet no grain of earth appears to have been moved. If the nest had +slowly and silently grown like the grass and the moss, it could not +have been more nicely adjusted to its place and surroundings. There is +absolutely nothing to tell the eye it is there. Generally a few spears +of dry grass fall down from the turf above and form a slight screen +before it. How commonly and coarsely it begins, blending with the debris +that lies about, and how it refines and comes into form as it approaches +the centre, which is modeled so perfectly and lined so softly! Then, +when the full complement of eggs is laid, and incubation has fairly +begun, what a sweet, pleasing little mystery the silent old bank holds! + +The song sparrow, whose nest I have been describing, displays a +more marked individuality in its song than any bird with which I am +acquainted. Birds of the same species generally all sing alike, but I +have observed numerous song sparrows with songs peculiarly their own. +Last season, the whole summer through, one sang about my grounds like +this: _swee-e-t, swee-e-t, swee-e-t, bitter._ Day after day, from May +to September, I heard this strain, which I thought a simple but very +profound summing-up of life, and wondered how the little bird had +learned it so quickly. The present season, I heard another with a song +equally original, but not so easily worded. Among a large troop of +them in April, my attention was attracted to one that was a master +songster,--some Shelley or Tennyson among his kind. The strain was +remarkably prolonged, intricate, and animated, and far surpassed +anything I ever before heard from that source. + +But the most noticeable instance of departure from the standard song +of a species I ever knew of was in the case of a wood thrush. The bird +sang, as did the sparrow, the whole season through, at the foot of my +lot near the river. The song began correctly and ended correctly; but +interjected into it about midway was a loud, piercing, artificial note, +at utter variance with the rest of the strain. When my ear first caught +this singular note, I started out, not a little puzzled, to make, as +I supposed, a new acquaintance, but had not gone far when I discovered +whence it proceeded. Brass amid gold, or pebbles amid pearls, are +not more out of place than was this discordant scream or cry in the +melodious strain of the wood thrush. It pained and startled the ear. It +seemed as if the instrument of the bird was not under control, or else +that one note was sadly out of tune, and, when its turn came, instead of +giving forth one of those sounds that are indeed like pearls, it shocked +the ear with a piercing discord. Yet the singer appeared entirely +unconscious of the defect; or had he grown used to it, or had his +friends persuaded him that it was a variation to be coveted? Sometimes, +after the brood had hatched and the bird's pride was at its full, he +would make a little triumphal tour of the locality, coming from under +the hill quite up to the house, and flaunting his cracked instrument +in the face of whoever would listen. He did not return again the next +season; or, if he did, the malformation of his song was gone. + +I have noticed that the bobolink does not sing the same in different +localities. In New Jersey it has one song; on the Hudson, a slight +variation of the same; and on the high grass-lands of the interior +of the State, quite a different strain,--clearer, more distinctly +articulated, and running off with more sparkle and liltingness. It +reminds one of the clearer mountain air and the translucent spring-water +of those localities. I never could make out what the bobolink says in +New Jersey, but in certain districts in this State his enunciation is +quite distinct. Sometimes he begins with the word _gegue, gegue._ +Then again, more fully, _be true to me, Clarsy, be true to me, Clarsy, +Clarsy,_ thence full tilt into his inimitable song, interspersed in +which the words _kick your slipper, kick your slipper,_ and temperance, +temperance (the last with a peculiar nasal resonance), are plainly +heard. At its best, it is a remarkable performance, a unique +performance, as it contains not the slightest hint or suggestion, either +in tone or manner or effect, of any other bird-song to be heard. The +bobolink has no mate or parallel in any part of the world. He stands +alone. There is no closely allied species. He is not a lark, nor a +finch, nor a warbler, nor a thrush, nor a starling (though classed +with the starlings by late naturalists). He is an exception to many +well-known rules. He is the only ground-bird known to me of marked and +conspicuous plumage. He is the only black and white field-bird we +have east of the Mississippi, and, what is still more odd, he is black +beneath and white above,--the reverse of the fact in all other cases. +Preeminently a bird of the meadow during the breeding season, and +associated with clover and daisies and buttercups as no other bird is, +he yet has the look of an interloper or a newcomer, and not of one to +the manner born. + +The bobolink has an unusually full throat, which may help account for +his great power of song. No bird has yet been found that could imitate +him, or even repeat or suggest a single note, as if his song were the +product of a new set of organs. There is a vibration about it, and a +rapid running over the keys, that is the despair of other songsters. It +is said that the mockingbird is dumb in the presence of the bobolink. +My neighbor has an English skylark that was hatched and reared in +captivity. The bird is a most persistent and vociferous songster, and +fully as successful a mimic as the mockingbird. It pours out a strain +that is a regular mosaic of nearly all the bird-notes to be heard, its +own proper lark song forming a kind of bordering for the whole. The +notes of the phoebe-bird, the purple finch, the swallow, the yellowbird, +the kingbird, the robin, and others, are rendered with perfect +distinctness and accuracy, but not a word of the bobolink's, though the +lark must have heard its song every day for four successive summers. It +was the one conspicuous note in the fields around that the lark made no +attempt to plagiarize. He could not steal the bobolink's thunder. + +The lark is a more marvelous songster than the bobolink only on account +of his soaring flight and the sustained copiousness of his song. His +note is rasping and harsh, in point of melody, when compared with the +bobolink's. When caged and near at hand, the lark's song is positively +disagreeable, it is so loud and full of sharp, aspirated sounds. But +high in air above the broad downs, poured out without interruption for +many minutes together, it is very agreeable. + +The bird among us that is usually called a lark, namely, the meadowlark, +but which our later classifiers say is no lark at all, has nearly the +same quality of voice as the English skylark,--loud, piercing, z-z-ing; +and during the mating season it frequently indulges while on the wing in +a brief song that is quite lark-like. It is also a bird of the stubble, +and one of the last to retreat on the approach of winter. + +The habits of many of our birds are slowly undergoing a change. Their +migrations are less marked. With the settlement and cultivation of the +country, the means of subsistence of nearly every species are vastly +increased. Insects are more numerous, and seeds of weeds and grasses +more abundant. They become more and more domestic, like the English +birds. The swallows have nearly all left their original abodes--hollow +trees, and cliffs, and rocks--for human habitations and their +environments. Where did the barn swallow nest before the country was +settled? The chimney swallow nested in hollow trees, and, perhaps, +occasionally resorts thither yet. But the chimney, notwithstanding the +smoke, seems to suit his taste best. In the spring, before they have +paired, I think these swallows sometimes pass the night in the woods, +but not if an old, disused chimney is handy. + +One evening in early May, my attention was arrested by a band of them +containing several hundreds, perhaps a thousand, circling about near a +large, tall, disused chimney in a secluded place in the country. They +were very lively, and chippering, and diving in a most extraordinary +manner. They formed a broad continuous circle many rods in diameter. +Gradually the circle contracted and neared the chimney. Presently +some of the birds as they came round began to dive toward it, and the +chippering was more animated than ever. Then a few ventured in; in a +moment more, the air at the mouth of the chimney was black with the +stream of descending swallows. When the passage began to get crowded, +the circle lifted and the rest of the birds continued their flight, +giving those inside time to dispose of themselves. Then the influx began +again, and was kept up till the crowd became too great, when it cleared +as before. Thus by installments, or in layers, the swallows were packed +into the chimney until the last one was stowed away. Passing by the +place a few days afterward, I saw a board reaching from the roof of the +building to the top of the chimney, and imagined some curious person or +some predaceous boy had been up to take a peep inside, and see how so +many swallows could dispose of themselves in such a space. It would have +been an interesting spectacle to see them emerge from the chimney in the +morning. + + + + +IV APRIL + +If we represent the winter of our northern climate by a rugged snow-clad +mountain, and summer by a broad fertile plain, then the intermediate +belt, the hilly and breezy uplands, will stand for spring, with March +reaching well up into the region of the snows, and April lapping well +down upon the greening fields and unloosened currents, not beyond +the limits of winter's sallying storms, but well within the vernal +zone,--within the reach of the warm breath and subtle, quickening +influences of the plain below. At its best, April is the tenderest of +tender salads made crisp by ice or snow water. Its type is the first +spear of grass. The senses--sight, hearing, smell--are as hungry for +its delicate and almost spiritual tokens as the cattle are for the first +bite of its fields. How it touches one and makes him both glad and sad! +The voices of the arriving birds, the migrating fowls, the clouds of +pigeons sweeping across the sky or filling the woods, the elfin horn of +the first honey-bee venturing abroad in the middle of the day, the clear +piping of the little frogs in the marshes at sundown, the campfire in +the sugar-bush, the smoke seen afar rising over the trees, the tinge of +green that comes so suddenly on the sunny knolls and slopes, the full +translucent streams, the waxing and warming sun,--how these things and +others like them are noted by the eager eye and ear! April is my natal +month, and I am born again into new delight and new surprises at +each return of it. Its name has an indescribable charm to me. Its two +syllables are like the calls of the first birds,--like that of the +phoebe-bird, or of the meadowlark. Its very snows are fertilizing, and +are called the poor man's manure. + +Then its odors! I am thrilled by its fresh and indescribable odors,--the +perfume of the bursting sod, of the quickened roots and rootlets, of the +mould under the leaves, of the fresh furrows. No other month has odors +like it. The west wind the other day came fraught with a perfume that +was to the sense of smell what a wild and delicate strain of music is to +the ear. It was almost transcendental. I walked across the hill with my +nose in the air taking it in. It lasted for two days. I imagined it came +from the willows of a distant swamp, whose catkins were affording the +bees their first pollen: or did it come from much farther,--from beyond +the horizon, the accumulated breath of innumerable farms and budding +forests? The main characteristic of these April odors is their uncloying +freshness. They are not sweet, they are oftener bitter, they are +penetrating and lyrical. I know well the odors of May and June, of the +world of meadows and orchards bursting into bloom, but they are not so +ineffable and immaterial and so stimulating to the sense as the incense +of April. + +The season of which I speak does not correspond with the April of the +almanac in all sections of our vast geography. It answers to March in +Virginia and Maryland, while in parts of New York and New England it +laps well over into May. It begins when the partridge drums, when the +hyla pipes, when the shad start up the rivers, when the grass greens in +the spring runs, and it ends when the leaves are unfolding and the last +snowflake dissolves in midair. It may be the first of May before the +first swallow appears, before the whip-poor-will is heard, before the +wood thrush sings; but it is April as long as there is snow upon the +mountains, no matter what the almanac may say. Our April is, in fact, +a kind of Alpine summer, full of such contrasts and touches of wild, +delicate beauty as no other season affords. The deluded citizen fancies +there is nothing enjoyable in the country till June, and so misses the +freshest, tenderest part. It is as if one should miss strawberries +and begin his fruit-eating with melons and peaches. These last are +good,--supremely so, they are melting and luscious,--but nothing so +thrills and penetrates the taste, and wakes up and teases the papillae +of the tongue, as the uncloying strawberry. What midsummer sweetness +half so distracting as its brisk sub-acid flavor, and what splendor of +full-leaved June can stir the blood like the best of leafless April? + +One characteristic April feature, and one that delights me very much, +is the perfect emerald of the spring runs while the fields are yet brown +and sere,--strips and patches of the most vivid velvet green on the +slopes and in the valleys. How the eye grazes there, and is filled +and refreshed! I had forgotten what a marked feature this was until I +recently rode in an open wagon for three days through a mountainous, +pastoral country, remarkable for its fine springs. Those delicious +green patches are yet in my eye. The fountains flowed with May. Where no +springs occurred, there were hints and suggestions of springs about +the fields and by the roadside in the freshened grass,--sometimes +overflowing a space in the form of an actual fountain. The water did not +quite get to the surface in such places, but sent its influence. + +The fields of wheat and rye, too, how they stand out of the April +landscape,--great green squares on a field of brown or gray! + +Among April sounds there is none more welcome or suggestive to me than +the voice of the little frogs piping in the marshes. No bird-note +can surpass it as a spring token; and as it is not mentioned, to my +knowledge, by the poets and writers of other lands, I am ready to +believe it is characteristic of our season alone. You may be sure April +has really come when this little amphibian creeps out of the mud and +inflates its throat. We talk of the bird inflating its throat, but you +should see this tiny minstrel inflate _its_ throat, which becomes like a +large bubble, and suggests a drummer-boy with his drum slung very high. +In this drum, or by the aid of it, the sound is produced. Generally the +note is very feeble at first, as if the frost was not yet all out of the +creature's throat, and only one voice will be heard, some prophet bolder +than all the rest, or upon whom the quickening ray of spring has first +fallen. And it often happens that he is stoned for his pains by the yet +unpacified element, and is compelled literally to "shut up" beneath +a fall of snow or a heavy frost. Soon, however, he lifts up his voice +again with more confidence, and is joined by others and still others, +till in due time, say toward the last of the month, there is a shrill +musical uproar, as the sun is setting, in every marsh and bog in the +land. It is a plaintive sound, and I have heard people from the city +speak of it as lonesome and depressing, but to the lover of the country +it is a pure spring melody. The little piper will sometimes climb a +bulrush, to which he clings like a sailor to a mast, and send forth his +shrill call. There is a Southern species, heard when you have reached +the Potomac, whose note is far more harsh and crackling. To stand on the +verge of a swamp vocal with these, pains and stuns the ear. The call +of the Northern species is far more tender and musical. [Footnote: The +Southern species is called the green hyla. I have since heard them in my +neighborhood on the Hudson.] + +Then is there anything like a perfect April morning? One hardly knows +what the sentiment of it is, but it is something very delicious. It is +youth and hope. It is a new earth and a new sky. How the air transmits +sounds, and what an awakening, prophetic character all sounds have! The +distant barking of a dog, or the lowing of a cow, or the crowing of +a cock, seems from out the heart of Nature, and to be a call to come +forth. The great sun appears to have been reburnished, and there is +something in his first glance above the eastern hills, and the way his +eye-beams dart right and left and smite the rugged mountains into gold, +that quickens the pulse and inspires the heart. + +Across the fields in the early morning I hear some of the rare April +birds,--the chewink and the brown thrasher. The robin, the bluebird, the +song sparrow, the phoebe-bird, come in March; but these two ground-birds +are seldom heard till toward the last of April. The ground-birds are all +tree-singers or air-singers; they must have an elevated stage to speak +from. Our long-tailed thrush, or thrasher, like its congeners the +catbird and the mockingbird, delights in a high branch of some solitary +tree, whence it will pour out its rich and intricate warble for an hour +together. This bird is the great American chipper. There is no other +bird that I know of that can chip with such emphasis and military +decision as this yellow-eyed songster. It is like the click of a giant +gunlock. Why is the thrasher so stealthy? It always seems to be going +about on tiptoe. I never knew it to steal anything, and yet it skulks +and hides like a fugitive from justice. One never sees it flying aloft +in the air and traversing the world openly, like most birds, but +it darts along fences and through bushes as if pursued by a guilty +conscience. Only when the musical fit is upon it does it come up into +full view, and invite the world to hear and behold. + +The chewink is a shy bird also, but not stealthy. It is very +inquisitive, and sets up a great scratching among the leaves, apparently +to attract your attention. The male is perhaps the most conspicuously +marked of all the ground-birds except the bobolink, being black above, +bay on the sides, and white beneath. The bay is in compliment to the +leaves he is forever scratching among,--they have rustled against his +breast and sides so long that these parts have taken their color; but +whence come the white and the black? The bird seems to be aware that his +color betrays him, for there are few birds in the woods so careful about +keeping themselves screened from view. When in song, its favorite perch +is the top of some high bush near to cover. On being disturbed at such +times, it pitches down into the brush and is instantly lost to view. + +This is the bird that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Wilson about, greatly +exciting the latter's curiosity. Wilson was just then upon the threshold +of his career as an ornithologist, and had made a drawing of the Canada +jay which he sent to the President. It was a new bird, and in reply +Jefferson called his attention to a "curious bird" which was everywhere +to be heard, but scarcely ever to be seen. He had for twenty years +interested the young sportsmen of his neighborhood to shoot one for him, +but without success. "It is in all the forests, from spring to fall," +he says in his letter, "and never but on the tops of the tallest trees, +from which it perpetually serenades us with some of the sweetest notes, +and as clear as those of the nightingale. I have followed it for miles, +without ever but once getting a good view of it. It is of the size +and make of the mockingbird, lightly thrush-colored on the back, and a +grayish white on the breast and belly. Mr. Randolph, my son-in-law, was +in possession of one which had been shot by a neighbor," etc. Randolph +pronounced it a flycatcher, which was a good way wide of the mark. +Jefferson must have seen only the female, after all his tramp, from his +description of the color; but he was doubtless following his own great +thoughts more than the bird, else he would have had an earlier view. The +bird was not a new one, but was well known then as the ground-robin. The +President put Wilson on the wrong scent by his erroneous description, +and it was a long time before the latter got at the truth of the case. +But Jefferson's letter is a good sample of those which specialists often +receive from intelligent persons who have seen or heard something in +their line very curious or entirely new, and who set the man of science +agog by a description of the supposed novelty,--a description that +generally fits the facts of the case about as well as your coat fits the +chair-back. Strange and curious things in the air, and in the water, and +in the earth beneath, are seen every day except by those who are looking +for them, namely, the naturalists. When Wilson or Audubon gets his eye +on the unknown bird, the illusion vanishes, and your phenomenon turns +out to be one of the commonplaces of the fields or woods. + +A prominent April bird, that one does not have to go to the woods or +away from his own door to see and hear, is the hardy and ever-welcome +meadowlark. What a twang there is about this bird, and what vigor! It +smacks of the soil. It is the winged embodiment of the spirit of our +spring meadows. What emphasis in its _"z-d-t, z-d-t"_ and what character +in its long, piercing note! Its straight, tapering, sharp beak is +typical of its voice. Its note goes like a shaft from a crossbow; it +is a little too sharp and piercing when near at hand, but, heard in the +proper perspective, it is eminently melodious and pleasing. It is one +of the major notes of the fields at this season. In fact, it easily +dominates all others. _"Spring o' the year! spring o' the year!"_ it +says, with a long-drawn breath, a little plaintive, but not complaining +or melancholy. At times it indulges in something much more intricate and +lark-like while hovering on the wing in midair, but a song is beyond the +compass of its instrument, and the attempt usually ends in a breakdown. +A clear, sweet, strong, high-keyed note, uttered from some knoll or +rock, or stake in the fence, is its proper vocal performance. It has the +build and walk and flight of the quail and the grouse. It gets up before +you in much the same manner, and falls an easy prey to the crack shot. +Its yellow breast, surmounted by a black crescent, it need not be +ashamed to turn to the morning sun, while its coat of mottled gray is +in perfect keeping with the stubble amid which it walks. The two lateral +white quills in its tail seem strictly in character. These quills spring +from a dash of scorn and defiance in the bird's make-up. By the aid +of these, it can almost emit a flash as it struts about the fields and +jerks out its sharp notes. They give a rayed, a definite and piquant +expression to its movements. This bird is not properly a lark, but a +starling, say the ornithologists, though it is lark-like in its habits, +being a walker and entirely a ground-bird. Its color also allies it to +the true lark. I believe there is no bird in the English or European +fields that answers to this hardy pedestrian of our meadows. He is a +true American, and his note one of our characteristic April sounds. + +Another marked April note, proceeding sometimes from the meadows, but +more frequently from the rough pastures and borders of the woods, is +the call of the high-hole, or golden-shafted woodpecker. It is quite as +strong as that of the meadowlark, but not so long-drawn and piercing. +It is a succession of short notes rapidly uttered, as if the bird said +_"if-if-if-if-if-if-if."_ The notes of the ordinary downy and hairy +woodpeckers suggest, in some way, the sound of a steel punch; but +that of the high-hole is much softer, and strikes on the ear with real +springtime melody. The high-hole is not so much a wood-pecker as he is +a ground-pecker. He subsists largely on ants and crickets, and does not +appear till they are to be found. + +In Solomon's description of spring, the voice of the turtle is +prominent, but our turtle, or mourning dove, though it arrives in April, +can hardly be said to contribute noticeably to the open-air sounds. +Its call is so vague, and soft, and mournful,--in fact, so remote and +diffused,--that few persons ever hear it at all. + +Such songsters as the cow blackbird are noticeable at this season, +though they take a back seat a little later. It utters a peculiarly +liquid April sound. Indeed, one would think its crop was full of water, +its notes so bubble up and regurgitate, and are delivered with such +an apparent stomachic contraction. This bird is the only feathered +polygamist we have. The females are greatly in excess of the males, and +the latter are usually attended by three or four of the former. As soon +as the other birds begin to build, they are on the _qui vive,_ prowling +about like gypsies, not to steal the young of others, but to steal their +eggs into other birds' nests, and so shirk the labor and responsibility +of hatching and rearing their own young. As these birds do not mate, and +as therefore there can be little or no rivalry or competition between +the males, one wonders--in view of Darwin's teaching--why one sex should +have brighter and richer plumage than the other, which is the fact. The +males are easily distinguished from the dull and faded females by their +deep glossy-black coats. + +The April of English literature corresponds nearly to our May. In Great +Britain, the swallow and the cuckoo usually arrive by the middle of +April; with us, their appearance is a week or two later. Our April, +at its best, is a bright, laughing face under a hood of snow, like the +English March, but presenting sharper contrasts, a greater mixture of +smiles and tears and icy looks than are known to our ancestral climate. +Indeed, Winter sometimes retraces his steps in this month, and unburdens +himself of the snows that the previous cold has kept back; but we are +always sure of a number of radiant, equable days,--days that go before +the bud, when the sun embraces the earth with fervor and determination. +How his beams pour into the woods till the mould under the leaves is +warm and emits an odor! The waters glint and sparkle, the birds gather +in groups, and even those unused to singing find a voice. On the streets +of the cities, what a flutter, what bright looks and gay colors! I +recall one preeminent day of this kind last April. I made a note of it +in my note-book. The earth seemed suddenly to emerge from a wilderness +of clouds and chilliness into one of these blue sunlit spaces. How +the voyagers rejoiced! Invalids came forth, old men sauntered down the +street, stocks went up, and the political outlook brightened. + +Such days bring out the last of the hibernating animals. The woodchuck +unrolls and creeps out of his den to see if his clover has started yet. +The torpidity leaves the snakes and the turtles, and they come forth and +bask in the sun. There is nothing so small, nothing so great, that it +does not respond to these celestial spring days, and give the pendulum +of life a fresh start. + +April is also the month of the new furrow. As soon as the frost is gone +and the ground settled, the plow is started upon the hill, and at each +bout I see its brightened mould-board flash in the sun. Where the last +remnants of the snowdrift lingered yesterday the plow breaks the sod +to-day. Where the drift was deepest the grass is pressed flat, and there +is a deposit of sand and earth blown from the fields to windward. Line +upon line the turf is reversed, until there stands out of the neutral +landscape a ruddy square visible for miles, or until the breasts of the +broad hills glow like the breasts of the robins. + +Then who would not have a garden in April? to rake together the rubbish +and burn it up, to turn over the renewed soil, to scatter the rich +compost, to plant the first seed, or bury the first tuber! It is not the +seed that is planted, any more than it is I that is planted; it is not +the dry stalks and weeds that are burned up, any more than it is my +gloom and regrets that are consumed. An April smoke makes a clean +harvest. + +I think April is the best month to be born in. One is just in time, so +to speak, to catch the first train, which is made up in this month. My +April chickens always turn out best. They get an early start; they have +rugged constitutions. Late chickens cannot stand the heavy dews, or +withstand the predaceous hawks. In April all nature starts with you. You +have not come out of your hibernaculum too early or too late; the time +is ripe, and, if you do not keep pace with the rest, why, the fault is +not in the season. + + + + +V SPRING POEMS + +There is no month oftener on the tongues of the poets than April. It is +the initiative month; it opens the door of the seasons; the interest and +expectations of the untried, the untasted, lurk in it, + + "From you have I been absent in the spring," + +says Shakespeare in one of his sonnets,-- + + "When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, + Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, + That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him." + +The following poem, from Tennyson's "In Memoriam," might be headed +"April," and serve as descriptive of parts of our season:-- + + "Now fades the last long streak of snow, + Now bourgeons every maze of quick + About the flowering squares, and thick + By ashen roots the violets blow. + + "Now rings the woodland loud and long, + The distance takes a lovelier hue, + And drowned in yonder living blue + The lark becomes a sightless song. + + "Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, + The flocks are whiter down the vale, + And milkier every milky sail + On winding stream or distant sea; + + "Where now the sea-mew pipes, or dives + In yonder greening gleam, and fly + The happy birds, that change their sky + To build and brood; that live their lives + + "From land to land; and in my breast + Spring wakens too; and my regret + Becomes an April violet, + And buds and blossoms like the rest." + +In the same poem the poet asks:-- + + "Can trouble live with April days?" + +Yet they are not all jubilant chords that this season awakens. +Occasionally there is an undertone of vague longing and sadness, akin +to that which one experiences in autumn. Hope for a moment assumes the +attitude of memory and stands with reverted look. The haze, that in +spring as well as in fall sometimes descends and envelops all things, +has in it in some way the sentiment of music, of melody, and awakens +pensive thoughts. Elizabeth Akers, in her "April," has recognized and +fully expressed this feeling. I give the first and last stanzas:-- + + "The strange, sweet days are here again, + The happy-mournful days; + The songs which trembled on our lips + Are half complaint, half praise. + + "Swing, robin, on the budded sprays, + And sing your blithest tune;-- + Help us across these homesick days + Into the joy of June!" + +This poet has also given a touch of spring in her "March," which, +however, should be written "April" in the New England climate:-- + + "The brown buds thicken on the trees, + Unbound, the free streams sing, + As March leads forth across the leas + The wild and windy spring. + + "Where in the fields the melted snow + Leaves hollows warm and wet, + Ere many days will sweetly blow + The first blue violet." + +But on the whole the poets have not been eminently successful in +depicting spring. The humid season, with its tender, melting blue sky, +its fresh, earthy smells, its new furrow, its few simple signs and +awakenings here and there, and its strange feeling of unrest,--how +difficult to put its charms into words! None of the so-called pastoral +poets have succeeded in doing it. That is the best part of spring which +escapes a direct and matter-of-fact description of her. There is more +of spring in a line or two of Chaucer and Spenser than in the elaborate +portraits of her by Thomson or Pope, because the former had spring +in their hearts, and the latter only in their inkhorns. Nearly all +Shakespeare's songs are spring songs,--full of the banter, the frolic, +and the love-making of the early season. What an unloosed current, too, +of joy and fresh new life and appetite in Burns! + +In spring everything has such a margin! there are such spaces of +silence! The influences are at work underground. Our delight is in a few +things. The drying road is enough; a single wild flower, the note of +the first bird, the partridge drumming in the April woods, the restless +herds, the sheep steering for the uplands, the cow lowing in the highway +or hiding her calf in the bushes, the first fires, the smoke going up +through the shining atmosphere, from the burning of rubbish in gardens +and old fields,--each of these simple things fills the breast with +yearning and delight, for they are tokens of the spring. The best spring +poems have this singleness and sparseness. Listen to Solomon: "For lo, +the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the +earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the +turtle is heard in the land." In Wordsworth are some things that breathe +the air of spring. These lines, written in early spring, afford a good +specimen:-- + + "I heard a thousand blended notes, + While in a grove I sate reclined, + In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts + Bring sad thoughts to the mind." + + "To her fair works did Nature link + The human soul that through me ran; + And much it grieved my heart to think + What man has made of man. + + "Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, + The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; + And 't is my faith that every flower + Enjoys the air it breathes. + + "The birds around me hopped and played, + Their thoughts I cannot measure: + But the least motion which they made + It seemed a thrill of pleasure." + +Or these from another poem, written in his usual study, "Out-of-Doors," +and addressed to his sister:-- + + "It is the first mild day of March, + Each minute sweeter than before; + The redbreast sings from the tall larch + That stands beside the door. + + "There is a blessing in the air, + Which seems a sense of joy to yield + To the bare trees, and mountains bare, + And grass in the green field. + + . . . . . . . . . + + "Love, now a universal birth, + From heart to heart is stealing, + From earth to man, from man to earth; + It is the hour of feeling. + + "One moment now may give us more + Than years of toiling reason: + Our minds shall drink at every pore + The spirit of the season." + +It is the simplicity of such lines, like the naked branches of the +trees or the unclothed fields, and the spring-like depth of feeling and +suggestion they hold, that make them so appropriate to this season. + +At this season I often find myself repeating these lines of his also:-- + + "My heart leaps up, when I behold + A rainbow in the sky; + So was it, when my life began; + So is it, now I am a man; + So be it, when I shall grow old, + Or let me die!" + +Though there are so few good poems especially commemorative of the +spring, there have no doubt been spring poets,--poets with such newness +and fullness of life, and such quickening power, that the world is +re-created, as it were, beneath their touch. Of course this is in a +measure so with all real poets. But the difference I would indicate may +exist between poets of the same or nearly the same magnitude. Thus, in +this light Tennyson is an autumnal poet, mellow and dead-ripe, and was +so from the first; while Wordsworth has much more of the spring in him, +is nearer the bone of things and to primitive conditions. + +Among the old poems, one which seems to me to have much of the charm +of springtime upon it is the story of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius. The +songs, gambols, and wooings of the early birds are not more welcome +and suggestive. How graceful and airy, and yet what a tender, profound, +human significance it contains! But the great vernal poem, doubly so in +that it is the expression of the springtime of the race, the boyhood of +man as well, is the Iliad of Homer. What faith, what simple wonder, +what unconscious strength, what beautiful savagery, what magnanimous +enmity,--a very paradise of war! + +Though so young a people, there is not much of the feeling of spring +in any of our books. The muse of our poets is wise rather than joyous. +There is no excess or extravagance or unruliness in her. There are +spring sounds and tokens in Emerson's "May-Day:"-- + + "April cold with dropping rain + Willows and lilacs brings again, + The whistle of returning birds, + And trumpet-lowing of the herds. + The scarlet maple-keys betray + What potent blood hath modest May, + What fiery force the earth renews, + The wealth of forms, the flush of hues; + What joy in rosy waves outpoured + Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord." + +But this is not spring in the blood. Among the works of our young +and rising poets, I am not certain but that Mr. Gilder's "New Day" is +entitled to rank as a spring poem in the sense in which I am speaking. +It is full of gayety and daring, and full of the reckless abandon of +the male bird when he is winning his mate. It is full also of the +tantalizing suggestiveness, the half-lights and shades, of April and +May. + +Of prose poets who have the charm of the springtime upon them, the best +recent example I know of is Bjoernson, the Norwegian romancist. What +especially makes his books spring-like is their freshness and sweet good +faith. There is also a reticence and an unwrought suggestiveness about +them that is like the promise of buds and early flowers. Of Turgenieff, +the Russian, much the same thing might be said. His stories are simple +and elementary, and have none of the elaborate hair-splitting and forced +hot-house character of the current English or American novel. They +spring from stronger, more healthful and manly conditions, and have a +force in them that is like a rising, incoming tide. + + + + +VI OUR RURAL DIVINITY + +I wonder that Wilson Flagg did not include the cow among his +"Picturesque Animals," for that is where she belongs. She has not the +classic beauty of the horse, but in picture-making qualities she is far +ahead of him. Her shaggy, loose-jointed body; her irregular, sketchy +outlines, like those of the landscape,--the hollows and ridges, the +slopes and prominences; her tossing horns, her bushy tail, tier swinging +gait, her tranquil, ruminating habits,--all tend to make her an object +upon which the artist eye loves to dwell. The artists are forever +putting her into pictures, too. In rural landscape scenes she is +an important feature. Behold her grazing in the pastures and on the +hillsides, or along banks of streams, or ruminating under wide-spreading +trees, or standing belly-deep in the creek or pond, or lying upon the +smooth places in the quiet summer afternoon, the day's grazing done, +and waiting to be summoned home to be milked; and again in the twilight +lying upon the level summit of the hill, or where the sward is thickest +and softest; or in winter a herd of them filing along toward the spring +to drink, or being "foddered" from the stack in the field upon the new +snow,--surely the cow is a picturesque animal, and all her goings and +comings are pleasant to behold. + +I looked into Hamerton's clever book on the domestic animals also, +expecting to find my divinity duly celebrated, but he passes her by and +contemplates the bovine qualities only as they appear in the ox and the +bull. + +Neither have the poets made much of the cow, but have rather dwelt +upon the steer, or the ox yoked to the plow. I recall this touch from +Emerson:-- + + "The heifer that lows in the upland farm, + Far heard, lows not thine ear to charm." + +But the ear is charmed, nevertheless, especially if it be not too near, +and the air be still and dense, or hollow, as the farmer says. And +again, if it be springtime and she task that powerful bellows of hers +to its utmost capacity, how round the sound is, and how far it goes over +the hills! + +The cow has at least four tones or lows. First, there is her alarmed +or distressed low when deprived of her calf, or when separated from +her mates,--her low of affection. Then there is her call of hunger, a +petition for food, sometimes full of impatience, or her answer to the +farmer's call, full of eagerness. Then there is that peculiar frenzied +bawl she utters on smelling blood, which causes every member of the herd +to lift its head and hasten to the spot,--the native cry of the clan. +When she is gored or in great danger she bawls also, but that is +different. And lastly, there is the long, sonorous volley she lets off +on the hills or in the yard, or along the highway, and which seems to +be expressive of a kind of unrest and vague longing,--the longing of the +imprisoned Io for her lost identity. She sends her voice forth so that +every god on Mount Olympus can hear her plaint. She makes this sound in +the morning, especially in the spring, as she goes forth to graze. + +One of our rural poets, Myron Benton, whose verse often has the flavor +of sweet cream, has written some lines called "Rumination," in which the +cow is the principal figure, and with which I am permitted to adorn my +theme. The poet first gives his attention to a little brook that "breaks +its shallow gossip" at his feet and "drowns the oriole's voice:"-- + + "But moveth not that wise and ancient cow, + Who chews her juicy cud so languid now + Beneath her favorite elm, whose drooping bough + Lulls all but inward vision fast asleep: + But still, her tireless tail a pendulum sweep + Mysterious clock-work guides, and some hid pulley + Her drowsy cud, each moment, raises duly. + + "Of this great, wondrous world she has seen more + Than you, my little brook, and cropped its store + Of succulent grass on many a mead and lawn; + And strayed to distant uplands in the dawn. + And she has had some dark experience + Of graceless man's ingratitude; and hence + Her ways have not been ways of pleasantness, + Nor all her paths of peace. But her distress + And grief she has lived past; your giddy round + Disturbs her not, for she is learned profound + In deep brahminical philosophy. + She chews the cud of sweetest revery + Above your worldly prattle, brooklet merry, + Oblivious of all things sublunary." + +The cow figures in Grecian mythology, and in the Oriental literature is +treated as a sacred animal. "The clouds are cows and the rain milk." I +remember what Herodotus says of the Egyptians' worship of heifers and +steers; and in the traditions of the Celtic nations the cow is regarded +as a divinity. In Norse mythology the milk of the cow Andhumbla afforded +nourishment to the Frost giants, and it was she that licked into being +and into shape a god, the father of Odin. If anything could lick a god +into shape, certainly the cow could do it. You may see her perform this +office for young Taurus any spring. She licks him out of the fogs and +bewilderments and uncertainties in which he finds himself on first +landing upon these shores, and up onto his feet in an incredibly short +time. Indeed, that potent tongue of hers can almost make the dead alive +any day, and the creative lick of the old Scandinavian mother cow is +only a large-lettered rendering of the commonest facts. + +The horse belongs to the fiery god Mars. He favors war, and is one of +its oldest, most available, and most formidable engines. The steed is +clothed with thunder, and smells the battle from afar; but the cattle +upon a thousand hills denote that peace and plenty bear sway in the +land. The neighing of the horse is a call to battle; but the lowing of +old Brockleface in the valley brings the golden age again. The savage +tribes are never without the horse; the Scythians are all mounted; but +the cow would tame and humanize them. When the Indians will cultivate +the cow, I shall think their civilization fairly begun. Recently, when +the horses were sick with the epizooetic, and the oxen came to the city +and helped to do their work, what an Arcadian air again filled the +streets! But the dear old oxen,--how awkward and distressed they looked! +Juno wept in the face of every one of them. The horse is a true citizen, +and is entirely at home in the paved streets; but the ox,--what a +complete embodiment of all rustic and rural things! Slow, deliberate, +thick-skinned, powerful, hulky, ruminating, fragrant-breathed, when he +came to town the spirit and suggestion of all Georgics and Bucolics came +with him. O citizen, was it only a plodding, unsightly brute that went +by? Was there no chord in your bosom, long silent, that sweetly vibrated +at the sight of that patient, Herculean couple? Did you smell no hay or +cropped herbage, see no summer pastures with circles of cool shade, hear +no voice of herds among the hills? They were very likely the only horses +your grandfather ever had. Not much trouble to harness and unharness +them. Not much vanity on the road in those days. They did all the work +on the early pioneer farm. They were the gods whose rude strength first +broke the soil. They could live where the moose and the deer could. If +there was no clover or timothy to be had, then the twigs of the basswood +and birch would do. Before there were yet fields given up to grass, they +found ample pasturage in the woods. Their wide-spreading horns gleamed +in the duskiness, and their paths and the paths of the cows became the +future roads and highways, or even the streets of great cities. + +All the descendants of Odin show a bovine trace, and cherish and +cultivate the cow. In Norway she is a great feature. Professor Boyesen +describes what he calls the _saeter_, the spring migration of the dairy +and dairymaids, with all the appurtenances of butter and cheese making, +from the valleys to the distant plains upon the mountains, where the +grass keeps fresh and tender till fall. It is the great event of the +year in all the rural districts. Nearly the whole family go with the +cattle and remain with them. At evening the cows are summoned home with +a long horn, called the _loor,_ in the hands of the milkmaid. The +whole herd comes winding down the mountain-side toward the _saeter_ in +obedience to the mellow blast. + +What were those old Vikings but thick-hided bulls that delighted +in nothing so much as goring each other? And has not the charge of +beefiness been brought much nearer home to us than that? But about all +the northern races there is something that is kindred to cattle in the +best sense,--something in their art and literature that is essentially +pastoral, sweet-breathed, continent, dispassionate, ruminating, +wide-eyed, soft-voiced,--a charm of kine, the virtue of brutes. + +The cow belongs more especially to the northern peoples, to the region +of the good, green grass. She is the true _grazing_ animal. That broad, +smooth, always dewy nose of hers is just the suggestion of greensward. +She caresses the grass; she sweeps off the ends of the leaves; she reaps +it with the soft sickle of her tongue. She crops close, but she does +not bruise or devour the turf like the horse. She is the sward's best +friend, and will make it thick and smooth as a carpet. + + "The turfy mountains where live the nibbling sheep" + +are not for her. Her muzzle is too blunt; then she does not _bite_ as do +the sheep; she has no upper teeth; she _crops._ But on the lower slopes, +and margins, and rich bottoms, she is at home. Where the daisy and the +buttercup and clover bloom, and where corn will grow, is her proper +domain. The agriculture of no country can long thrive without her. Not +only a large part of the real, but much of the potential, wealth of the +land is wrapped up in her. + +Then the cow has given us some good words and hints. How could we get +along without the parable of the cow that gave a good pail of milk and +then kicked it over? One could hardly keep house without it. Or the +parable of the cream and the skimmed milk, or of the buttered bread? We +know, too, through her aid, what the horns of the dilemma mean, and what +comfort there is in the juicy cud of reverie. + +I have said the cow has not been of much service to the poets, and yet +I remember that Jean Ingelow could hardly have managed her "High Tide" +without "Whitefoot" and "Lightfoot" and "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha! calling;" +or Trowbridge his "Evening at the Farm," in which the real call of the +American farm-boy of "Co', boss! Co', boss! Co', Co'," makes a very +musical refrain. + +Tennyson's charming "Milking Song" is another flower of poesy that has +sprung up in my divinity's footsteps. + +What a variety of individualities a herd of cows presents when you have +come to know them all, not only in form and color, but in manners and +disposition! Some are timid and awkward, and the butt of the whole +herd. Some remind you of deer. Some have an expression in the face +like certain persons you have known. A petted and well-fed cow has a +benevolent and gracious look; an ill-used and poorly fed one, a pitiful +and forlorn look. Some cows have a masculine or ox expression; others +are extremely feminine. The latter are the ones for milk. Some cows +will kick like a horse; some jump fences like deer. Every herd has its +ringleader, its unruly spirit,--one that plans all the mischief, and +leads the rest through the fences into the grain or into the orchard. +This one is usually quite different from the master spirit, the "boss of +the yard." The latter is generally the most peaceful and law-abiding cow +in the lot, and the least bullying and quarrelsome. But she is not to be +trifled with; her will is law; the whole herd give way before her, those +that have crossed horns with her and those that have not, but yielded +their allegiance without crossing. I remember such a one among my +father's milkers when I was a boy,--a slender-horned, deep-shouldered, +large-uddered, dewlapped old cow that we always put first in the long +stable, so she could not have a cow on each side of her to forage upon; +for the master is yielded to no less in the stanchions than in the +yard. She always had the first place anywhere. She had her choice of +standing-room in the milking-yard, and when she wanted to lie down there +or in the fields the best and softest spot was hers. When the herd were +foddered from the stack or barn, or fed with pumpkins in the fall, she +was always first served. Her demeanor was quiet but impressive. She +never bullied or gored her mates, but literally ruled them with the +breath of her nostrils. If any new-comer or ambitious younger cow, +however, chafed under her supremacy, she was ever ready to make good her +claims. And with what spirit she would fight when openly challenged! +She was a whirlwind of pluck and valor; and not after one defeat or two +defeats would she yield the championship. The boss cow, when overcome, +seems to brood over her disgrace, and day after day will meet her rival +in fierce combat. + +A friend of mine, a pastoral philosopher, whom I have consulted in +regard to the master cow, thinks it is seldom the case that one rules +all the herd, if it number many, but that there is often one that will +rule nearly all. "Curiously enough," he says, "a case like this will +often occur: No. 1 will whip No. 2; No. 2 whips No. 3; and No. 3 whips +No. 1; so around in a circle. This is not a mistake; it is often the +case. I remember," he continued, "we once had feeding out of a large +bin in the centre of the yard six cows who mastered right through in +succession from No. 1 to No. 6; _but_ No. 6 _paid off the score by +whipping No. 1._ I often watched them when they were all trying to feed +out of the box, and of course trying, dog-in-the-manger fashion, each to +prevent any other she could. They would often get in the order to do it +very systematically, since they could keep rotating about the box +till the chain happened to get broken somewhere, when there would be +confusion. Their mastership, you know, like that between nations, is +constantly changing. There are always Napoleons who hold their own +through many vicissitudes; but the ordinary cow is continually liable to +lose her foothold. Some cow she has always despised, and has often sent +tossing across the yard at her horns' ends, some pleasant morning will +return the compliment and pay off old scores." + +But my own observation has been that, in herds in which there have +been no important changes for several years, the question of might gets +pretty well settled, and some one cow becomes the acknowledged ruler. + +The bully of the yard is never the master, but usually a second or third +rate pusher that never loses an opportunity to hook those beneath her, +or to gore the masters if she can get them in a tight place. If such a +one can get loose in the stable, she is quite certain to do mischief. +She delights to pause in the open bars and turn and keep those behind +her at bay till she sees a pair of threatening horns pressing toward +her, when she quickly passes on. As one cow masters all, so there is one +cow that is mastered by all. These are the two extremes of the herd, the +head and the tail. Between them are all grades of authority, with none +so poor but hath some poorer to do her reverence. + +The cow has evidently come down to us from a wild or semi-wild state; +perhaps is a descendant of those wild, shaggy cattle of which a small +band is still preserved in some nobleman's park in Scotland. Cuvier +seems to have been of this opinion. One of the ways in which her wild +instincts still crop out is the disposition she shows in spring to hide +her calf,--a common practice among the wild herds. Her wild nature would +be likely to come to the surface at this crisis if ever; and I have +known cows that practiced great secrecy in dropping their calves. As +their time approached, they grew restless, a wild and excited look was +upon them; and if left free, they generally set out for the woods, or +for some other secluded spot. After the calf is several hours old, +and has got upon its feet and had its first meal, the dam by some sign +commands it to lie down and remain quiet while she goes forth to feed. +If the calf is approached at such time, it plays "possum," pretends +to be dead or asleep, till, on finding this ruse does not succeed, it +mounts to its feet, bleats loudly and fiercely, and charges desperately +upon the intruder. But it recovers from this wild scare in a little +while, and never shows signs of it again. + +The habit of the cow, also, in eating the placenta, looks to me like a +vestige of her former wild instincts,--the instinct to remove everything +that would give the wild beasts a clew or a scent, and so attract them +to her helpless young. + +How wise and sagacious the cows become that run upon the street, or pick +their living along the highway! The mystery of gates and bars is at last +solved to them. They ponder over them by night, they lurk about them by +day, till they acquire a new sense,--till they become _en rapport_ with +them and know when they are open and unguarded. The garden gate, if it +open into the highway at any point, is never out of the mind of these +roadsters, or out of their calculations. They calculate upon the chances +of its being left open a certain number of times in the season; and if +it be but once, and only for five minutes, your cabbage and sweet corn +suffer. What villager, or countryman either, has not been awakened at +night by the squeaking and crunching of those piratical jaws under the +window, or in the direction of the vegetable patch? I have had the cows, +after they had eaten up my garden, break into the stable where my own +milcher was tied, and gore her and devour her meal. Yes, life presents +but one absorbing problem to the street cow, and that is how to get into +your garden. She catches glimpses of it over the fence or through the +pickets, and her imagination or her epigastrium is inflamed. When +the spot is surrounded by a high board fence, I think I have seen her +peeping at the cabbages through a knothole. At last she learns to open +the gate. It is a great triumph of bovine wit. She does it with her horn +or her nose, or may be with her ever-ready tongue. I doubt if she has +ever yet penetrated the mystery of the newer patent fastenings; but the +old-fashioned thumb-latch she can see through, give her time enough. + +A large, lank, muley or polled cow used to annoy me in this way when I +was a dweller in a certain pastoral city. I more than half suspected she +was turned in by some one; so one day I watched. Presently I heard the +gate-latch rattle; the gate swung open, and in walked the old buffalo. +On seeing me she turned and ran like a horse. I then fastened the gate +on the inside and watched again. After long waiting the old cow came +quickly round the corner and approached the gate. She lifted the latch +with her nose. Then, as the gate did not move, she lifted it again and +again. Then she gently nudged it. Then, the obtuse gate not taking +the hint, she butted it gently, then harder and still harder, till it +rattled again. At this juncture I emerged from my hiding-place, when +the old villain scampered off with great precipitation. She knew she +was trespassing, and she had learned that there were usually some swift +penalties attached to this pastime. + +I have owned but three cows and loved but one. That was the first one, +Chloe, a bright red, curly-pated, golden-skinned Devonshire cow, that an +ocean steamer landed for me upon the banks of the Potomac one bright May +Day many clover summers ago. She came from the north, from the pastoral +regions of the Catskills, to graze upon the broad commons of the +national capital. I was then the fortunate and happy lessee of an old +place with an acre of ground attached, almost within the shadow of the +dome of the Capitol. Behind a high but aged and decrepit board fence I +indulged my rural and unclerical tastes. I could look up from my homely +tasks and cast a potato almost in the midst of that cataract of marble +steps that flows out of the north wing of the patriotic pile. Ah! when +that creaking and sagging back gate closed behind me in the evening, I +was happy; and when it opened for my egress thence in the morning, I was +not happy. Inside that gate was a miniature farm, redolent of homely, +primitive life, a tumble-down house and stables and implements of +agriculture and horticulture, broods of chickens, and growing pumpkins, +and a thousand antidotes to the weariness of an artificial life. +Outside of it were the marble and iron palaces, the paved and blistering +streets, and the high, vacant mahogany desk of a government clerk. +In that ancient inclosure I took an earth bath twice a day. I planted +myself as deep in the soil as I could, to restore the normal tone and +freshness of my system, impaired by the above-mentioned government +mahogany. I have found there is nothing like the earth to draw the +various social distempers out of one. The blue devils take flight at +once if they see you mean to bury them and make compost of them. Emerson +intimates that the scholar had better not try to have two gardens; but +I could never spend an hour hoeing up dock and red-root and twitch-grass +without in some way getting rid of many weeds and fungi, unwholesome +growths, that a petty indoor life is forever fostering in my moral and +intellectual nature. + +But the finishing touch was not given till Chloe came. She was the jewel +for which this homely setting waited. My agriculture had some object +then. The old gate never opened with such alacrity as when she paused +before it. How we waited for her coming! Should I send Drewer, the +colored patriarch, for her? No; the master of the house himself should +receive Juno at the capital. + +"One cask for you," said the clerk, referring to the steamer bill of +lading. + +"Then I hope it's a cask of milk," I said. "I expected a cow." + +"One cask, it says here." + +"Well, let's see it; I'll warrant it has horns and is tied by a rope;" +which proved to be the case, for there stood the only object that bore +my name, chewing its cud, on the forward deck. How she liked the voyage +I could not find out; but she seemed to relish so much the feeling of +solid ground beneath her feet once more, that she led me a lively step +all the way home. She cut capers in front of the White House, and tried +twice to wind me up in the rope as we passed the Treasury. She kicked up +her heels on the broad avenue, and became very coltish as she came under +the walls of the Capitol. But that night the long-vacant stall in the +old stable was filled, and the next morning the coffee had met with a +change of heart. I had to go out twice with the lantern and survey my +treasure before I went to bed. Did she not come from the delectable +mountains, and did I not have a sort of filial regard for her as toward +my foster-mother? + +This was during the Arcadian age at the capital, before the easy-going +Southern ways had gone out and the prim new Northern ways had come +in, and when the domestic animals were treated with distinguished +consideration and granted the freedom of the city. There was a charm of +cattle in the street and upon the commons; goats cropped your rosebushes +through the pickets, and nooned upon your front porch; and pigs dreamed +Arcadian dreams under your garden fence, or languidly frescoed it with +pigments from the nearest pool. It was a time of peace; it was the poor +man's golden age. Your cow, your goat, your pig, led vagrant, wandering +lives, and picked up a subsistence wherever they could, like the bees, +which was almost everywhere. Your cow went forth in the morning and came +home fraught with milk at night, and you never troubled yourself where +she went or how far she roamed. + +Chloe took very naturally to this kind of life. At first I had to go +with her a few times and pilot her to the nearest commons, and then I +left her to her own wit, which never failed her. What adventures she +had, what acquaintances she made, how far she wandered, I never knew. +I never came across her in my walks or rambles. Indeed, on several +occasions I thought I would look her up and see her feeding in national +pastures, but I never could find her. There were plenty of cows, but +they were all strangers. But punctually, between four and five o'clock +in the afternoon, her white horns would be seen tossing above the gate +and her impatient low be heard. Sometimes, when I turned her forth in +the morning, she would pause and apparently consider which way she would +go. Should she go toward Kendall Green to-day, or follow the Tiber, +or over by the Big Spring, or out around Lincoln Hospital? She seldom +reached a conclusion till she had stretched forth her neck and blown a +blast on her trumpet that awoke the echoes in the very lantern on the +dome of the Capitol. Then, after one or two licks, she would disappear +around the corner. Later in the season, when the grass was parched or +poor on the commons, and the corn and cabbage tempting in the garden, +Chloe was loath to depart in the morning, and her deliberations were +longer than ever, and very often I had to aid her in coming to a +decision. + +For two summers she was a wellspring of pleasure and profit in my farm +of one acre, when, in an evil moment, I resolved to part with her and +try another. In an evil moment I say, for from that time my luck in +cattle left me. The goddess never forgave me the execution of that rash +and cruel resolve. + +The day is indelibly stamped on my memory when I exposed my Chloe for +sale in the public market-place. It was in November, a bright, dreamy, +Indian summer day. A sadness oppressed me, not unmixed with guilt and +remorse. An old Irish woman came to the market also with her pets to +sell, a sow and five pigs, and took up a position next me. We condoled +with each other; we bewailed the fate of our darlings together; we +berated in chorus the white-aproned but blood-stained fraternity who +prowled about us. When she went away for a moment I minded the pigs, and +when I strolled about she minded my cow. How shy the innocent beast was +of those carnal marketmen! How she would shrink away from them! When +they put out a hand to feel her condition she would "scrooch" down her +back, or bend this way or that, as if the hand were a branding-iron. So +long as I stood by her head she felt safe--deluded creature!--and chewed +the cud of sweet content; but the moment I left her side she seemed +filled with apprehension, and followed me with her eyes, lowing softly +and entreatingly till I returned. + +At last the money was counted out for her, and her rope surrendered to +the hand of another. How that last look of alarm and incredulity, which +I caught as I turned for a parting glance, went to my heart! + +Her stall was soon filled, or partly filled, and this time with a +native,--a specimen of what may be called the cornstalk breed of +Virginia; a slender, furtive, long-geared heifer just verging on +cowhood, that in spite of my best efforts would wear a pinched and +hungry look. She evidently inherited a humped back. It was a family +trait, and evidence of the purity of her blood. For the native blooded +cow of Virginia, from shivering over half rations of cornstalks in the +open air during those bleak and windy winters, and roaming over those +parched fields in summer, has come to have some marked features. For +one thing, her pedal extremities seem lengthened; for another, her +udder does not impede her traveling; for a third, her backbone inclines +strongly to the curve; then, she despiseth hay. This last is a sure +test. Offer a thorough-bred Virginia cow hay, and she will laugh in +your face; but rattle the husks or shucks, and she knows you to be her +friend. + +The new-comer even declined corn-meal at first. She eyed it furtively, +then sniffed it suspiciously, but finally discovered that it bore some +relation to her native "shucks," when she fell to eagerly. + +I cherish the memory of this cow, however, as the most affectionate +brute I ever knew. Being deprived of her calf, she transferred her +affections to her master, and would fain have made a calf of him, lowing +in the most piteous and inconsolable manner when he was out of her +sight, hardly forgetting her grief long enough to eat her meal, and +entirely neglecting her beloved husks. Often in the middle of the night +she would set up that sonorous lamentation, and continue it till sleep +was chased from every eye in the household. This generally had the +effect of bringing the object of her affection before her, but in a mood +anything but filial or comforting. Still, at such times a kick seemed +a comfort to her, and she would gladly have kissed the rod that was the +instrument of my midnight wrath. + +But her tender star was destined soon to a fatal eclipse. Being tied +with too long a rope on one occasion during my temporary absence, she +got her head into the meal-barrel, and stopped not till she had devoured +nearly half a bushel of dry meal. The singularly placid and benevolent +look that beamed from the meal-besmeared face when I discovered her was +something to be remembered. For the first time, also, her spinal column +came near assuming a horizontal line. But the grist proved too much +for her frail mill, and her demise took place on the third day, not of +course without some attempt to relieve her on my part. I gave her, as is +usual in such emergencies, everything I "could think of," and everything +my neighbors could think of, besides some fearful prescriptions which I +obtained from a German veterinary surgeon, but to no purpose. I imagined +her poor maw distended and inflamed with the baking sodden mass which no +physic could penetrate or enliven. + +Thus ended my second venture in live-stock. My third, which followed +sharp upon the heels of this disaster, was scarcely more of a success. +This time I led to the altar a buffalo cow, as they call the "muley" +down South,--a large, spotted, creamy-skinned cow, with a fine udder, +that I persuaded a Jew drover to part with for ninety dollars. "Pag like +a dish rack (rag)," said he, pointing to her udder after she had been +milked. "You vill come pack and gif me the udder ten tollar" (for he +had demanded an even hundred), he continued, "after you have had her a +gouple of days." True, I felt like returning to him after a "gouple of +days," but not to pay the other ten dollars. The cow proved to be as +blind as a bat, though capable of counterfeiting the act of seeing to +perfection. For did she not lift up her head and follow with her eyes a +dog that scaled the fence and ran through the other end of the lot, +and the next moment dash my hopes thus raised by trying to walk over +a locust-tree thirty feet high? And when I set the bucket before her +containing her first mess of meal, she missed it by several inches, and +her nose brought up against the ground. Was it a kind of far-sightedness +and near blindness? That was it, I think; she had genius, but not +talent; she could see the man in the moon, but was quite oblivious to +the man immediately in her front. Her eyes were telescopic and required +a long range. + +As long as I kept her in the stall, or confined to the inclosure, this +strange eclipse of her sight was of little consequence. But when spring +came, and it was time for her to go forth and seek her livelihood in the +city's waste places, I was embarrassed. Into what remote corners or into +what _terra incognita_ might she not wander! There was little doubt but +that she would drift around home in the course of the summer, or perhaps +as often as every week or two; but could she be trusted to find her way +back every night? Perhaps she could be taught. Perhaps her other senses +were acute enough to compensate in a measure for her defective vision. +So I gave her lessons in the topography of the country. I led her forth +to graze for a few hours each day and led her home again. Then I left +her to come home alone, which feat she accomplished very encouragingly. +She came feeling her way along, stepping very high, but apparently a +most diligent and interested sight-seer. But she was not sure of the +right house when she got to it, though she stared at it very hard. + +Again I turned her forth, and again she came back, her telescopic eyes +apparently of some service to her. On the third day, there was a fierce +thunder-storm late in the afternoon, and old buffalo did not come home. +It had evidently scattered and bewildered what little wits she had. +Being barely able to navigate those streets on a calm day, what could +she be expected to do in a tempest? + +After the storm had passed, and near sundown, I set out in quest of +her, but could get no clew. I heard that two cows had been struck by +lightning about a mile out on the commons. My conscience instantly told +me that one of them was mine. It would be a fit closing of the third act +of this pastoral drama. Thitherward I bent my steps, and there upon the +smooth plain I beheld the scorched and swollen forms of two cows slain +by thunderbolts, but neither of them had ever been mine. + +The next day I continued the search, and the next, and the next. Finally +I hoisted an umbrella over my head, for the weather had become hot, and +set out deliberately and systematically to explore every foot of open +common on Capitol Hill. I tramped many miles, and found every man's cow +but my own,--some twelve or fifteen hundred, I should think. I saw many +vagrant boys and Irish and colored women, nearly all of whom had seen a +buffalo cow that very day that answered exactly to my description, but +in such diverse and widely separate places that I knew it was no cow of +mine. And it was astonishing how many times I was myself deceived; how +many rumps or heads, or line backs or white flanks, I saw peeping over +knolls, or from behind fences or other objects, that could belong to no +cow but mine! + +Finally I gave up the search, concluded the cow had been stolen, and +advertised her, offering a reward. But days passed, and no tidings were +obtained. Hope began to burn pretty low,--was indeed on the point of +going out altogether,--when one afternoon, as I was strolling over the +commons (for in my walks I still hovered about the scenes of my lost +milcher), I saw the rump of a cow, over a grassy knoll, that looked +familiar. Coming nearer, the beast lifted up her head; and, behold! it +was she! only a few squares from home, where doubtless she had been most +of the time. I had overshot the mark in my search. I had ransacked the +far-off, and had neglected the near-at-hand, as we are so apt to do. But +she was ruined as a milcher, and her history thenceforward was brief and +touching! + + + + +VII BEFORE GENIUS + +If there did not something else go to the making of literature besides +mere literary parts, even the best of them, how long ago the old bards +and the Biblical writers would have been superseded by the learned +professors and the gentlemanly versifiers of later times! Is there +to-day a popular poet, using the English language, who does not, in +technical acquirements and in the artificial adjuncts of poetry,--rhyme, +metre, melody, and especially sweet, dainty fancies,--surpass Europe's +and Asia's loftiest and oldest? Indeed, so marked is the success of the +latter-day poets in this respect, that any ordinary reader may well be +puzzled, and ask, if the shaggy antique masters are poets, what are the +refined and euphonious producers of our own day? + +If we were to inquire what this something else is which is prerequisite +to any deep and lasting success in literature, we should undoubtedly +find that it is the man behind the book. It is the fashion of the day +to attribute all splendid results to genius and culture. But genius and +culture are not enough. "All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has +not the science of honesty and goodness," says Montaigne. The quality +of simple manhood, and the universal human traits which form the bond +of union between man and man,--which form the basis of society, of the +family, of government, of friendship,--are quite overlooked; and the credit +is given to some special facility, or to brilliant and lucky hit. Does +any one doubt that the great poets and artists are made up mainly of the +most common universal human and heroic characteristics?--that in them, +though working to other ends, is all that construct the soldier, the +sailor, the farmer, the discoverer, the bringer-to-pass in any field, +and that their work is good and enduring in proportion as it is +saturated and fertilized by the qualities of these? Good human stock is +the main dependence. No great poet ever appeared except from a race of +good fighters, good eaters, good sleepers, good breeders. Literature +dies with the decay of the _un-_literary element. It is not in the +spirit of something far away in the clouds or under the moon, something +ethereal, visionary, and anti-mundane, that Angelo, Dante, and +Shakespeare work, but in the spirit of common Nature and of the +homeliest facts; through these, and not away from them, the path of the +creator lies. + +It is no doubt this tendency, always more or less marked in highly +refined and cultivated times, to forget or overlook the primary +basic qualities, and to parade and make much of verbal and technical +acquirements, that led Huxley to speak with such bitter scorn of the +"sensual caterwauling of the literary classes," for this is not the +only country in which books are produced that are a mere skin of elegant +words blown up by copious literary gas. + +In imaginative works, especially, much depends upon the quality of +mere weight. A stern, material inertia is indispensable. It is like +the immobility and the power of resistance of a piece of ordnance, upon +which the force and efficacy of the projectile finally depend. In +the most daring flights of the master, there is still something which +remains indifferent and uncommitted, and which acts as reserve power, +making the man always superior to his work. He must always leave the +impression that if he wanted to pull harder or to fly higher he could +easily do so. In Homer there is much that is not directly available +for Homer's purposes as poet. This is his personality,--the real +Homer,--which lies deeper than his talents and skill, and which works +through these by indirections. This gives the authority; this is the +unseen backer, which makes every promise good. + +What depths can a man sound but his own, or what heights explore? "We +carry within us," says Sir Thomas Browne, "the wonders we seek without +us." + +Indeed, there is a strict moral or ethical dependence of the capacity +to conceive or to project great things upon the capacity to be or to +do them. It is as true as any law of hydraulics or of statics, that the +workmanship of a man can never rise above the level of his character. +He can never adequately say or do anything greater than he himself is. +There is no such thing, for instance, as deep insight into the mystery +of Creation, without integrity and simplicity of character. + +In the highest mental results and conditions the whole being +sympathizes. The perception of a certain range of truth, such as is +indicated by Plato, Hegel, Swedenborg, and which is very far from +what is called "religious" or "moral," I should regard as the best +testimonial that could be offered of a man's probity and essential +nobility of soul. Is it possible to imagine a fickle, inconstant, or a +sly, vain, mean person reading and appreciating Emerson? Think of the +real men of science, the great geologists and astronomers, one opening +up time, the other space! Shall mere intellectual acumen be accredited +with these immense results? What noble pride, self-reliance, and +continuity of character underlie Newton's deductions! + +Only those books are for the making of men into which a man has gone in +the making. Mere professional skill and sleight of hand, of themselves, +are to be apprized as lightly in letters as in war or in government, +or in any kind of leadership. Strong native qualities only avail in the +long run; and the more these dominate over the artificial endowments, +sloughing or dropping the latter in the final result, the more we are +refreshed and enlarged. Who has not, at some period of his life, been +captivated by the rhetoric and fine style of nearly all the popular +authors of a certain sort, but at last waked up to discover that behind +these brilliant names was no strong, loving man, but only a refined +taste, a fertile invention, or a special talent of one kind or another. + +Think of the lather of the modern novel, and the fashion-plate men and +women that figure in it! What noble person has Dickens sketched, or +has any novelist since Scott? The utter poverty of almost every current +novelist, in any grand universal human traits in his own character, is +shown in nothing more clearly than in the _kind_ of interest the reader +takes in his books. We are led along solely by the ingenuity of the +plot, and a silly desire to see how the affair came out. What must be +the effect, long continued, of this class of jugglers working upon the +sympathies and the imagination of a nation of gestating women? + +How the best modern novel collapses before the homely but immense human +significance of Homer's celestial swineherd entertaining divine Ulysses, +or even the solitary watchman in Aeschylus' "Agamemnon," crouched, like +a night-dog, on the roofs of the Atreidae, waiting for the signal fires +that should announce the fall of sacred Ilion! + +But one need not look long, even in contemporary British literature, to +find a man. In the author of "Characteristics" and "Sartor Resartus" +we surely encounter one of the true heroic cast. We are made aware that +here is something more than a _litterateur,_ something more than genius. +Here is veracity, homely directness and sincerity, and strong primary +idiosyncrasies. Here the man enters into the estimate of the author. +There is no separating them, as there never is in great examples. A +curious perversity runs through all, but in no way vitiates the result. +In both his moral and intellectual nature, Carlyle seems made with +a sort of stub and twist, like the best gun-barrels. The knotty and +corrugated character of his sentences suits well the peculiar and +intense activity of his mind. What a transition from his terse and +sharply articulated pages, brimming with character and life, and a +strange mixture of rage, humor, tenderness, poetry, philosophy, to the +cold disbelief and municipal splendor of Macaulay! Nothing in Carlyle's +contributions seems fortuitous. It all flows from a good and sufficient +cause in the character of the man. + +Every great man is, in a certain way, an Atlas, with the weight of the +world upon him. And if one is to criticise at all, he may say that, if +Carlyle had not been quite so conscious of this weight, his work would +have been better done. Yet to whom do we owe more, even as Americans? +Anti-democratic in his opinions, he surely is not so in spirit, or +in the quality of his make. The nobility of labor and the essential +nobility of man were never so effectively preached before. The deadliest +enemy of democracy is not the warning or dissenting voice, but it is the +spirit, rife among us, which would engraft upon our hardy Western stock +the sickly and decayed standards of the expiring feudal world. + +With two or three exceptions, there is little as yet in American +literature that shows much advance beyond the merely conventional and +scholastic,--little, I mean, in which one gets a whiff of the strong, +unbreathed air of mountain or prairie, or a taste of rude, new power +that is like the tonic of the sea. Thoreau occupies a niche by himself. +Thoreau was not a great personality, yet his writings have a strong +characteristic flavor. He is anti-scorbutic, like leeks and onions. He +has reference, also, to the highest truths. + +It is very likely true that our most native and original characters do +not yet take to literature. It is, perhaps, too early in the day. Iron +and lime have to pass through the vegetable before they can reach the +higher organization of the animal, and maybe this Western nerve and +heartiness will yet emerge on the intellectual plane. Let us hope that +it will indeed be Western nerve and heartiness when it gets there, and +not Eastern wit and epigram! + +In Abraham Lincoln we had a character of very marked and lofty type, the +most suggestive study or sketch of the future American man that has +yet appeared in our history. How broad, unconventional, and humane! +How democratic! how adhesive! No fine arabesque carvings, but strong, +unhewn, native traits, and deep lines of care, toil, and human +sympathy. Lincoln's Gettysburg speech is one of the most genuine +and characteristic utterances in our annals. It has the true antique +simplicity and impressiveness. It came straight from the man, and is as +sure an index of character as the living voice, or the physiognomy, or +the personal presence. Indeed, it may be said of Mr. Lincoln's entire +course while at the head of the nation, that no President, since the +first, ever in his public acts allowed the man so fully to appear, or +showed so little disposition to retreat behind the featureless political +mask which seems to adhere to the idea of gubernatorial dignity. + +It would be hardly fair to cite Everett's speech on the same occasion +as a specimen of the opposite style, wherein ornate scholarship and the +pride of talents dominate. Yet a stern critic would be obliged to +say that, as an author, Everett allowed, for the most part, only +the expurgated, complimenting, drawing-room man to speak; and that, +considering the need of America to be kept virile and broad at all +hazards, his contribution, both as man and writer, falls immeasurably +short of Abraham Lincoln's. + +What a noble specimen of its kind, and how free from any verbal tricks +or admixture of literary sauce, is Thoreau's "Maine Woods"! And what a +marked specimen of the opposite style is a certain other book I could +mention in which these wild and grand scenes serve but as a medium to +advertise the author's fund of classic lore! + +Can there be any doubt about the traits and outward signs of a noble +character, and is not the style of an author the manners of his soul? + +Is there a lyceum lecturer in the country who is above manoeuvring for +the applause of his audience? or a writer who is willing to make himself +of no account for the sake of what he has to say? Even in the best there +is something of the air and manners of a performer on exhibition. The +newspaper, or magazine, or book is a sort of raised platform upon which +the advertiser advances before a gaping and expectant crowd. Truly, how +well he _handles_ his subject! He turns it over, and around, and inside +out, and top-side down. He tosses it about; he twirls it; he takes it +apart and puts it together again, and knows well beforehand where the +applause will come in. Any reader, in taking up the antique authors, +must be struck by the contrast. + +"In Aeschylus," says Landor, "there is no trickery, no trifling, no +delay, no exposition, no garrulity, no dogmatism, no declamation, no +prosing,... but the loud, clear challenge, the firm, unstealthy step, of +an erect, broad-breasted soldier." + +On the whole, the old authors are better than the new. The real question +of literature is not simplified by culture or a multiplication of books, +as the conditions of life are always the same, and are not made one +whit easier by all the myriads of men and women who have lived upon the +globe. The standing want is never for more skill, but for newer, fresher +power,--a more plentiful supply of arterial blood. The discoverer, or +the historian, or the man of science, may begin where his predecessor +left off, but the poet or any artist must go back for a fresh start. +With him it is always the first day of creation, and he must begin at +the stump or nowhere. + + + + +VIII BEFORE BEAUTY + +I + +Before genius is manliness, and before beauty is power. The Russian +novelist and poet, Turgenieff, scattered all through whose works you +will find unmistakable traits of greatness, makes one of his characters +say, speaking of beauty, "The old masters,--they never hunted after +it; it comes of itself into their compositions, God knows whence, from +heaven or elsewhere. The whole world belonged to them, but we are unable +to clasp its broad spaces; our arms are too short." + +From the same depth of insight come these lines from "Leaves of Grass," +apropos of true poems:-- + +"They do not seek beauty--they are sought; Forever touching them, or +close upon them, follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick." + +The Roman was perhaps the first to separate beauty from use, and to +pursue it as ornament merely. He built his grand edifice,--its piers, +its vaults, its walls of brick and concrete,--and then gave it a +marble envelope copied from the Greek architecture. The latter could be +stripped away, as in many cases it was by the hand of time, and leave +the essentials of the structure nearly complete. Not so with the Greek: +he did not seek the beautiful, he was beauty; his building had no +ornament, it was all structure; in its beauty was the flower of +necessity, the charm of inborn fitness and proportion. In other words, +"his art was structure refined into beautiful forms, not beautiful forms +superimposed upon structure," as with the Roman. And it is in Greek +mythology, is it not, that Beauty is represented as riding upon the back +of a lion? as she assuredly always does in their poetry and art,--rides +upon power, or terror, or savage fate; not only rides upon, but +is wedded and incorporated with it; hence the athletic desire and +refreshment her coming imparts. + +This is the invariable order of nature. Beauty without a rank material +basis enfeebles. The world is not thus made; man is not thus begotten +and nourished. + +It comes to me there is something implied or understood when we +look upon a beautiful object, that has quite as much to do with the +impression made upon the mind as anything in the object itself; perhaps +more. There is somehow an immense and undefined background of vast and +unconscionable energy, as of earthquakes, and ocean storms, and cleft +mountains, across which things of beauty play, and to which they +constantly defer; and when this background is wanting, as it is in much +current poetry, beauty sickens and dies, or at most has only a feeble +existence. + +Nature does nothing merely for beauty; beauty follows as the inevitable +result; and the final impression of health and finish which her works +make upon the mind is owing as much to those things which are not +technically called beautiful as to those which are. The former give +identity to the latter. The one is to the other what substance is to +form, or bone to flesh. The beauty of nature includes all that is called +beautiful, as its flower; and all that is not called beautiful, as its +stalk and roots. + +Indeed, when I go to the woods or the fields, or ascend to the hilltop, +I do not seem to be gazing upon beauty at all, but to be breathing it +like the air. I am not dazzled or astonished; I am in no hurry to look +lest it be gone. I would not have the litter and debris removed, or the +banks trimmed, or the ground painted. What I enjoy is commensurate +with the earth and sky itself. It clings to the rocks and trees; it is +kindred to the roughness and savagery; it rises from every tangle and +chasm; it perches on the dry oak-stubs with the hawks and buzzards; the +crows shed it from their wings and weave it into their nests of coarse +sticks; the fox barks it, the cattle low it, and every mountain path +leads to its haunts. I am not a spectator of, but a participator in it. +It is not an adornment; its roots strike to the centre of the earth. + +All true beauty in nature or in art is like the iridescent hue of +mother-of-pearl, which is intrinsic and necessary, being the result of +the arrangement of the particles,--the flowering of the mechanism of the +shell; or like the beauty of health which comes out of and reaches back +again to the bones and the digestion. There is no grace like the grace +of strength. What sheer muscular gripe and power lie back of the firm, +delicate notes of the great violinist! "Wit," says Heine,--and the same +thing is true of beauty,--"isolated, is worthless. It is only endurable +when it rests on a solid basis." + +In fact, beauty as a separate and distinct thing does not exist. Neither +can it be reached by any sorting or sifting or clarifying process. It is +an experience of the mind, and must be preceded by certain conditions, +just as light is an experience of the eye, and sound of the ear. + +To attempt to manufacture beauty is as vain as to attempt to manufacture +truth; and to give it to us in poems or any form of art, without a lion +of some sort, a lion of truth or fitness or power, is to emasculate it +and destroy its volition. + +But current poetry is, for the most part, an attempt to do this very +thing, to give us beauty without beauty's antecedents and foil. The +poets want to spare us the annoyance of the beast. Since beauty is +the chief attraction, why not have this part alone, pure and +unadulterated,--why not pluck the plumage from the bird, the flower +from its stalk, the moss from the rock, the shell from the shore, the +honey-bag from the bee, and thus have in brief what pleases us? Hence, +with rare exceptions, one feels, on opening the latest book of poems, +like exclaiming, Well, here is the beautiful at last divested of +everything else,--of truth, of power, of utility,--and one may add of +beauty, too. It charms as color, or flowers, or jewels, or perfume +charms--and that is the end of it. + +It is ever present to the true artist, in his attempt to report nature, +that every object as it stands in the circuit of cause and effect has +a history which involves its surroundings, and that the depth of the +interest which it awakens in us is in proportion as its integrity in +this respect is preserved. In nature we are prepared for any opulence +of color or of vegetation, or freak of form, or display of any kind, +because of the preponderance of the common, ever-present feature of the +earth. The foil is always at hand. In like manner in the master poems we +are never surfeited with mere beauty. + +Woe to any artist who disengages Beauty from the wide background of +rudeness, darkness, and strength,--and disengages her from absolute +nature! The mild and beneficent aspects of nature,--what gulfs and +abysses of power underlie them! The great shaggy, barbaric earth,--yet +the summing-up, the plenum, of all we know or can know of beauty! So the +orbic poems of the world have a foundation as of the earth itself, and +are beautiful because they are something else first. Homer chose for his +groundwork War, clinching, tearing, tugging war; in Dante, it is Hell; +in Milton, Satan and the Fall; in Shakespeare, it is the fierce Feudal +world, with its towering and kingly personalities; in Byron, it is +Revolt and diabolic passion. When we get to Tennyson, the lion is a good +deal tamed, but he is still there in the shape of the proud, haughty, +and manly Norman, and in many forms yet stimulates the mind. + +The perception of cosmical beauty comes by a vital original process. +It is in some measure a creative act, and those works that rest upon +it make demands--perhaps extraordinary ones--upon the reader or the +beholder. We regard mere surface glitter, or mere verbal sweetness, in +a mood entirely passive, and with a pleasure entirely profitless. The +beauty of excellent stage scenery seems much more obvious and easy of +apprehension than the beauty of trees and hills themselves, inasmuch as +the act of association in the mind is much easier and cheaper than the +act of original perception. + +Only the greatest works in any department afford any explanation of this +wonder we call nature, or aid the mind in arriving at correct +notions concerning it. To copy here and there a line or a trait is no +explanation; but to translate nature into another language--to bridge +it to us, to repeat in some sort the act of creation itself--is the +crowning triumph of poetic art. + + + +II + +After the critic has enumerated all the stock qualities of the poet, +as taste, fancy, melody, it remains to be said that unless there is +something in him that is _living identity,_ something analogous to the +growing, pushing, reproducing forces of nature, all the rest in the end +pass for but little. + +This is perhaps what the German critic, Lessing, really means by +_action,_ for true poems are more like deeds, expressive of something +behind, more like acts of heroism or devotion, or like personal +character, than like thoughts or intellections. + +All the master poets have in their work an interior, chemical, +assimilative property, a sort of gastric juice which dissolves thought +and form, and holds in vital fusion religions, times, races, and the +theory of their own construction, naming up with electric and defiant +power,--power without any admixture of resisting form, as in a living +organism. + +There are in nature two types or forms, the cell and the crystal. +One means the organic, the other the inorganic; one means growth, +development, life; the other means reaction, solidification, rest. The +hint and model of all creative works is the cell; critical, reflective, +and philosophical works are nearer akin to the crystal; while there +is much good literature that is neither the one nor the other +distinctively, but which in a measure touches and includes both. But +crystallic beauty or cut and polished gems of thought, the result of the +reflex rather than the direct action of the mind, we do not expect to +find in the best poems, though they may be most prized by specially +intellectual persons. In the immortal poems the solids are very few, or +do not appear at all as solids,--as lime and iron,--any more than they +do in organic nature, in the flesh of the peach or the apple. The main +thing in every living organism is the vital fluids: seven tenths of man +is water; and seven tenths of Shakespeare is passion, emotion,--fluid +humanity. Out of this arise his forms, as Venus arose out of the sea, +and as man is daily built up out of the liquids of the body. We cannot +taste, much less assimilate, a solid until it becomes a liquid; and your +great idea, your sermon or moral, lies upon your poem a dead, cumbrous +mass unless there is adequate heat and solvent, emotional power. Herein +I think Wordsworth's "Excursion" fails as a poem. It has too much +solid matter. It is an over-freighted bark that does not ride the waves +buoyantly and lifelike; far less so than Tennyson's "In Memoriam," which +is just as truly a philosophical poem as the "Excursion." (Wordsworth is +the fresher poet; his poems seem really to have been written in the open +air, and to have been brought directly under the oxygenating influence +of outdoor nature; while in Tennyson this influence seems tempered or +farther removed.) + +The physical cosmos itself is not a thought, but an act. Natural objects +do not affect us like well-wrought specimens or finished handicraft, +which have nothing to follow, but as living, procreating energy. Nature +is perpetual transition. Everything passes and presses on; there is no +pause, no completion, no explanation. To produce and multiply endlessly, +without ever reaching the last possibility of excellence, and without +committing herself to any end, is the law of Nature. + +These considerations bring us very near the essential difference +between prose and poetry, or rather between the poetic and the didactic +treatment of a subject. The essence of creative art is always the same; +namely, interior movement and fusion; while the method of the didactic +or prosaic treatment is fixity, limitation. The latter must formulate +and define; but the principle of the former is to flow, to suffuse, to +mount, to escape. We can conceive of life only as something constantly +_becoming._ It plays forever on the verge. It is never _in loco,_ but +always _in transitu._ Arrest the wind, and it is no longer the wind; +close your hands upon the light, and behold, it is gone. + +The antithesis of art in method is science, as Coleridge has intimated. +As the latter aims at the particular, so the former aims at the +universal. One would have truth of detail, the other truth of +_ensemble._ The method of science may be symbolized by the straight +line, that of art by the curve. The results of science, relatively to +its aim, must be parts and pieces; while art must give the whole +in every act; not quantitively of course, but qualitively,--by the +integrity of the spirit in which it works. + +The Greek mind will always be the type of the artist mind, mainly +because of its practical bent, its healthful objectivity. The Greek +never looked inward, but outward. Criticism and speculation were foreign +to him. His head shows a very marked predominance of the motive and +perceptive powers over the reflective. The expression of the face is +never what we call intellectual or thoughtful, but commanding. His gods +are not philosophers, but delight in deeds, justice, rulership. + +Among the differences between the modern and the classical aesthetic +mind is the greater precision and definiteness of the latter. The +modern genius is Gothic, and demands in art a certain vagueness and +spirituality like that of music, refusing to be grasped and formulated. +Hence for us (and this is undoubtedly an improvement) there must always +be something about a poem, or any work of art, besides the evident +intellect or plot of it, or what is on its surface, or what it tells. +This something is the Invisible, the Undefined, almost Unexpressed, +and is perhaps the best part of any work of art, as it is of a noble +personality. To amuse, to exhibit culture, to formulate the aesthetic, +or even to excite the emotions, is by no means all,--is not even the +deepest part. Beside these, and inclosing all, is the general impalpable +effect, like good air, or the subtle presence of good spirits, wordless +but more potent far than words. As, in the superbest person, it is not +merely what he says or knows or shows, or even how he behaves, but the +silent qualities, like gravitation, that insensibly but resistlessly +hold us; so in a good poem, or in any other expression of art. + + + + +IX EMERSON + +Wherein the race has so far lost and gained, in being transplanted from +Europe to the New England soil and climate, is well illustrated by the +writings of Emerson. There is greater refinement and sublimation of +thought, greater clearness and sharpness of outline, greater audacity of +statement, but, on the other hand, there is a loss of bulk, of unction, +of adipose tissue, and shall we say of power? + +Emerson is undoubtedly a master on the New England scale,--such a master +as the land and race are capable of producing. He stands out clear and +undeniable. The national type, as illustrated by that section of the +country, is the purest and strongest in him of any yet. He can never +suffer eclipse. Compared with the English or German master, he is +undoubtedly deficient in viscera, in moral and intellectual stomach; +but, on the other hand, he is of a fibre and quality hard to match +in any age or land. From first to last he strikes one as something +extremely pure and compact, like a nut or an egg. Great matters and +tendencies lie folded in him, or rather are summarized in his pages. He +writes short but pregnant chapters on great themes, as in his "English +Traits," a book like rich preserves put up pound for pound, a pound +of Emerson to every pound of John Bull. His chapter on Swedenborg in +"Representative Men" is a good sample of his power to abbreviate and +restate with added force. His mind acts like a sun-lens in gathering the +cold pale beams of that luminary to a focus which warms and stimulates +the reader in a surprising manner. The gist of the whole matter is here; +and how much weariness and dullness and plodding is left out! + +In fact, Emerson is an essence, a condensation; more so, perhaps, than +any other man who has appeared in literature. Nowhere else is there such +a preponderance of pure statement, of the very attar of thought, over +the bulkier, circumstantial, qualifying, or secondary elements. He gives +us net results. He is like those strong artificial fertilizers. A pinch +of him is equivalent to a page or two of Johnson, and he is pitched many +degrees higher as an essayist than even Bacon. He has had an immediate +stimulating effect upon all the best minds of the country; how deep or +lasting this influence will be remains to be seen. + +This point and brevity has its convenience and value especially in +certain fields of literature. I by no means would wish to water Emerson; +yet it will not do to lose sight of the fact that mass and inertia are +indispensable to the creator. Considering him as poet alone, I have +no doubt of his irremediable deficiency here. You cannot have broad, +massive effect, deep light and shade, or a torrent of power, with such +extreme refinement and condensation. The superphosphates cannot take the +place of the coarser, bulkier fertilizers. Especially in poetry do +we require pure thought to be well diluted with the human, emotional +qualities. In the writing most precious to the race, how little is +definition and intellectual formula, and how much is impulse, emotion, +will, character, blood, chyle! We must have liquids and gases and +solvents. We perhaps get more of them in Carlyle. Emerson's page +has more serene astral beauty than Carlyle's, but not that intense +blast-furnace heat that melts down the most obdurate facts and +characters into something plastic and poetical. Emerson's ideal is +always the scholar, the man of books and ready wit; Carlyle's hero is a +riding or striding ruler, or a master worker in some active field. + +The antique mind no doubt affords the true type of health and wholeness +in this respect. The Greek could see, and feel, and paint, and carve, +and speak nothing but emotional man. In nature he saw nothing but +personality,--nothing but human or superhuman qualities; to him the +elements all took the human shape. Of that vague, spiritual, abstract +something which we call Nature he had no conception. He had no +sentiment, properly speaking, but impulse and will-power. And the +master minds of the world, in proportion to their strength, their spinal +strength, have approximated to this type. Dante, Angelo, Shakespeare, +Byron, Goethe, saw mainly man, and him not abstractly but concretely. +And this is the charm of Burns and the glory of Scott. Carlyle has +written the best histories and biographies of modern times, because he +sees man with such fierce and steadfast eyes. Emerson sees him also, +but he is not interested in him as a man, but mainly as a spirit, as a +demigod, or as a wit or a philosopher. + +Emerson's quality has changed a good deal in his later writings. His +corn is no longer in the milk; it has grown hard, and we that read have +grown hard, too. He has now ceased to be an expansive, revolutionary +force, but he has not ceased to be a writer of extraordinary gripe and +unexpected resources of statement. His startling piece of advice, "Hitch +your wagon to a star," is typical of the man, as combining the most +unlike and widely separate qualities. Because not less marked than his +idealism and mysticism is his shrewd common sense, his practical bent, +his definiteness,--in fact, the sharp New England mould in which he is +cast. He is the master Yankee, the centennial flower of that thrifty and +peculiar stock. More especially in his later writings and speakings +do we see the native New England traits,--the alertness, eagerness, +inquisitiveness, thrift, dryness, archness, caution, the nervous energy +as distinguished from the old English unction and vascular force. How he +husbands himself,--what prudence, what economy, always spending up, as +he says, and not down! How alert, how attentive; what an inquisitor; +always ready with some test question, with some fact or idea to match +or to verify, ever on the lookout for some choice bit of adventure or +information, or some anecdote that has pith and point! No tyro basks and +takes his ease in his presence, but is instantly put on trial and must +answer or be disgraced. He strikes at an idea like a falcon at a bird. +His great fear seems to be lest there be some fact or point worth +knowing that will escape him. He is a close-browed miser of the +scholar's gains. He turns all values into intellectual coin. Every book +or person or experience is an investment that will or will not warrant +a good return in ideas. He goes to the Radical Club, or to the literary +gathering, and listens with the closest attention to every word that is +said, in hope that something will be said, some word dropped, that has +the ring of the true metal. Apparently he does not permit himself a +moment's indifference or inattention. His own pride is always to have +the ready change, to speak the exact and proper word, to give to every +occasion the dignity of wise speech. You are bartered with for your +best. There is no profit in life but in the interchange of ideas, and +the chief success is to have a head well filled with them. Hard cash at +that; no paper promises satisfy him; he loves the clink and glint of the +real coin. + +His earlier writings were more flowing and suggestive, and had reference +to larger problems; but now everything has got weighed and stamped and +converted into the medium of wise and scholarly conversation. It is of +great value; these later essays are so many bags of genuine coin, which +it has taken a lifetime to hoard; not all gold, but all good, and the +fruit of wise industry and economy. + +I know of no other writing that yields the reader so many strongly +stamped medallion-like sayings and distinctions. There is a perpetual +refining and recoining of the current wisdom of life and conversation. +It is the old gold or silver or copper, but how bright and new it looks +in his pages! Emerson loves facts, things, objects, as the workman his +tools. He makes everything serve. The stress of expression is so great +that he bends the most obdurate element to his purpose; as the bird, +under her keen necessity, weaves the most contrary and diverse +materials into her nest. He seems to like best material that is a little +refractory; it makes his page more piquant and stimulating. Within +certain limits he loves roughness, but not at the expense of harmony. +He has wonderful hardiness and push. Where else in literature is there +a mind, moving in so rare a medium, that gives one such a sense of +tangible resistance and force? It is a principle in mechanics that +velocity is twice as great as mass: double your speed and you double +your heat, though you halve your weight. In like manner this body we +are considering is not the largest, but its speed is great, and the +intensity of its impact with objects and experience is almost without +parallel. Everything about a man like Emerson is important. I find his +phrenology and physiognomy more than ordinarily typical and suggestive. +Look at his picture there,--large, strong features on a small face and +head,--no blank spaces; all given up to expression; a high predaceous +nose, a sinewy brow, a massive, benevolent chin. In most men there is +more face than feature, but here is a vast deal more feature than face, +and a corresponding alertness and emphasis of character. Indeed, the +man is made after this fashion. He is all type; his expression is +transcendent. His mind has the hand's pronounced anatomy,--its cords +and sinews and multiform articulations and processes, its opposing and +coordinating power. If his brain is small, its texture is fine and +its convolutions are deep. There have been broader and more catholic +natures, but few so towering and audacious in expression and so rich +in characteristic traits. Every scrap and shred of him is important +and related. Like the strongly aromatic herbs and simples,--sage, mint, +wintergreen, sassafras,--the least part carries the flavor of the whole. +Is there one indifferent or equivocal or unsympathizing drop of blood +in him? Where he is at all, he is entirely,--nothing extemporaneous; +his most casual word seems to have lain in pickle a long time, and is +saturated through and through with the Emersonian brine. Indeed, so +pungent and penetrating is his quality that even his quotations seem +more than half his own. + +He is a man who occupies every inch of his rightful territory; he is +there in proper person to the farthest bound. Not every man is himself +and his best self at all times and to his finger points. Many great +characters, perhaps the greatest, have more or less neutral or waste +ground. You must penetrate a distance before you reach the real quick. +Or there is a good wide margin of the commonplace which is sure to put +them on good terms with the mass of their fellow-citizens. And one would +think Emerson could afford to relax a little; that he had earned the +right to a dull page or two now and then. The second best or third best +word sometimes would make us appreciate his first best all the more. +Even his god-father Plato nods occasionally, but Emerson's good breeding +will not for a moment permit such a slight to the reader. + +Emerson's peculiar quality is very subtle, but very sharp and firm +and unmistakable. It is not analogous to the commoner, slower-going +elements, as heat, air, fire, water, but is nearer akin to that +elusive but potent something we call electricity. It is abrupt, freaky, +unexpected, and always communicates a little wholesome shock. It darts +this way and that, and connects the far and the near in every line. +There is always a leaping thread of light, and there is always a kind +of answering peal or percussion. With what quickness and suddenness +extremes are brought together! The reader is never prepared for what is +to come next; the spark will most likely leap from some source or +fact least thought of. His page seldom glows and burns, but there is a +never-ceasing crackling and discharge of moral and intellectual force +into the mind. + +His chief weapon, and one that he never lays down, is identical with +that of the great wits, namely, surprise. The point of his remark or +idea is always sprung upon the reader, never quietly laid before him. +He has a mortal dread of tameness and flatness, and would make the very +water we drink bite the tongue. + +He has been from the first a speaker and lecturer, and his style has +been largely modeled according to the demand of those sharp, heady New +England audiences for ceaseless intellectual friction and chafing. Hence +every sentence is braided hard, and more or less knotted, and, though +of silk, makes the mind tingle. He startles by overstatement, by +understatement, by paradox, by antithesis, and by synthesis. Into +every sentence enters the unexpected,--the congruous leaping from the +incongruous, the high coming down, the low springing up, likeness or +relation suddenly coming into view where before was only difference or +antagonism. How he delights to bring the reader up with a short turn, +to impale him on a knotty point, to explode one of his verbal bombshells +under his very nose! Yet there is no trickery or rhetorical legerdemain. +His heroic fibre always saves him. + +The language in which Taine describes Bacon applies with even more force +to Emerson:-- + +"Bacon," he says, "is a producer of conceptions and of sentences. The +matter being explored, he says to us: 'Such it is; touch it not on that +side; it must be approached from the other.' Nothing more; no proof, no +effort to convince; he affirms, and nothing more; he has thought in the +manner of artists and poets, and he speaks after the manner of prophets +and seers. 'Cogita et visa,'--this title of one of his books might be +the title of all. His process is that of the creators; it is intuition, +not reasoning.... There is nothing more hazardous, more like fantasy, +than this mode of thought when it is not checked by natural and good +strong common sense. This common sense, which is a kind of natural +divination, the stable equilibrium of an intellect always gravitating +to the true, like the needle to the north pole, Bacon possesses in the +highest degree. He has a preeminently practical, even an utilitarian +mind." + +It is significant, and is indeed the hidden seed or root out of which +comes the explanation of much, if not the main part, of his life and +writings, that Emerson comes of a long line of clergymen; that the blood +in his veins has been teaching, and preaching, and thinking, and +growing austere, these many generations. One wonders that it is still so +bounding and strong, so red with iron and quick with oxygen. But in +him seems to be illustrated one of those rare cases in the genealogy +of families where the best is carried forward each time, and steadily +recruited and intensified. It does not seem possible for any man to +become just what Emerson is from the stump, though perhaps great men +have been the fruit of one generation; but there is a quality in him, an +aroma of fine manners, a propriety, a chivalry in the blood, that dates +back, and has been refined and transmitted many times. Power is born +with a man, and is always first hand, but culture, genius, noble +instincts, gentle manners, or the easy capacity for these things, may +be, and to a greater or a lesser extent are, the contribution of the +past. Emerson's culture is radical and ante-natal, and never fails him. +The virtues of all those New England ministers and all those tomes of +sermons are in this casket. One fears sometimes that he has been too +much clarified, or that there is not enough savage grace or original +viciousness and grit in him to save him. How he hates the roysterers, +and all the rank, turbulent, human passions, and is chilled by the +thought that perhaps after all Shakespeare led a vulgar life! + +When Tyndall was here, he showed us how the dark, coarse, invisible heat +rays could be strained out of the spectrum; or, in other words, that +every solar beam was weighted with a vast, nether, invisible side, which +made it a lever of tremendous power in organic nature. After some such +analogy, one sees how the highest order of power in the intellectual +world draws upon and is nourished by those rude, primitive, barbaric +human qualities that our culture and pietism tend to cut off and strain +out. Our culture has its eye on the other end of the spectrum, where +the fine violet and indigo rays are; but all the lifting, rounding, +fructifying powers of the system are in the coarse, dark rays--the +black devil--at the base. The angel of light is yoked with the demon of +darkness, and the pair create and sustain the world. + +In rare souls like Emerson, the fruit of extreme culture, it is +inevitable that at least some of the heat rays should be lost, and we +miss them especially when we contrast him with the elder masters. The +elder masters did not seem to get rid of the coarse or vulgar in human +life, but royally accepted it, and struck their roots into it, and drew +from it sustenance and power: but there is an ever-present suspicion +that Emerson prefers the saints to the sinners; prefers the prophets and +seers to Homer, Shakespeare, and Dante. Indeed, it is to be distinctly +stated and emphasized, that Emerson is essentially a priest, and that +the key to all he has said and written is to be found in the fact +that his point of view is not that of the acceptor, the +creator,--Shakespeare's point of view,--but that of the refiner and +selector, the priest's point of view. He described his own state rather +than that of mankind when he said, "The human mind stands ever in +perplexity, demanding intellect, demanding sanctity, impatient equally +of each without the other." + +Much surprise has been expressed in literary circles in this country +that Emerson has not followed up his first off-hand indorsement of Walt +Whitman with fuller and more deliberate approval of that poet, but has +rather taken the opposite tack. But the wonder is that he should have +been carried off his feet at all in the manner he was; and it must +have been no ordinary breeze that did it. Emerson shares with his +contemporaries the vast preponderance of the critical and discerning +intellect over the fervid, manly qualities and faith. His power of +statement is enormous; his scope of being is not enormous. The prayer +he uttered many years ago for a poet of the modern, one who could see in +the gigantic materialism of the times the carnival of the same deities +we so much admire in Greece and Rome, seems to many to have even been +explicitly answered in Whitman; but Emerson is balked by the cloud of +materials, the din and dust of action, and the moving armies, in which +the god comes enveloped. + +But Emerson has his difficulties with all the poets. Homer is too +literal, Milton too literary, and there is too much of the whooping +savage in Whitman. He seems to think the real poet is yet to appear; a +poet on new terms, the reconciler, the poet-priest,--one who shall unite +the whiteness and purity of the saint with the power and unction of the +sinner; one who shall bridge the chasm between Shakespeare and St. John. +For when our Emerson gets on his highest horse, which he does only on +two or three occasions, he finds Shakespeare only a half man, and +that it would take Plato and Manu and Moses and Jesus to complete him. +Shakespeare, he says, rested with the symbol, with the festal beauty of +the world, and did not take the final step, and explore the essence +of things, and ask, "Whence? What? and Whither?" He was not wise for +himself; he did not lead a beautiful, saintly life, but ate, and drank, +and reveled, and affiliated with all manner of persons, and quaffed the +cup of life with gusto and relish. The elect, spotless souls will always +look upon the heat and unconscious optimism of the great poet with deep +regret. But if man would not become emasculated, if human life is to +continue, we must cherish the coarse as well as the fine, the root as +well as the top and flower. The poet-priest in the Emersonian sense +has never yet appeared, and what reason have we to expect him? The poet +means life, the whole of life,--all your ethics and philosophies, and +essences and reason of things, in vital play and fusion, clothed with +form and color, and throbbing with passion: the priest means a part, a +thought, a precept; he means suppression, expurgation, death. To have +gone farther than Shakespeare would have been to cease to be a poet, and +to become a mystic or a seer. + +Yet it would be absurd to say, as a leading British literary journal +recently did, that Emerson is not a poet. He is one kind of a poet. He +has written plenty of poems that are as melodious as the hum of a wild +bee in the air,--chords of wild aeolian music. + +Undoubtedly his is, on the whole, a bloodless kind of poetry. It +suggests the pale gray matter of the cerebrum rather than flesh and +blood. Mr. William Rossetti has made a suggestive remark about him. He +is not so essentially a poet, says this critic, as he is a Druid that +wanders among the bards, and strikes the harp with even more than bardic +stress. + +Not in the poetry of any of his contemporaries is there such a burden +of the mystery of things, nor are there such round wind-harp tones, nor +lines so tense and resonant, and blown upon by a breeze from the highest +heaven of thought. In certain respects he has gone beyond any other. He +has gone beyond the symbol to the thing signified. He has emptied poetic +forms of their meaning and made poetry of that. He would fain cut the +world up into stars to shine in the intellectual firmament. He is more +and he is less than the best. + +He stands among other poets like a pine-tree amid a forest of oak and +maple. He seems to belong to another race, and to other climes and +conditions. He is great in one direction, up; no dancing leaves, but +rapt needles; never abandonment, never a tossing and careering, never +an avalanche of emotion; the same in sun and snow, scattering his cones, +and with night and obscurity amid his branches. He is moral first and +last, and it is through his impassioned and poetic treatment of the +moral law that he gains such an ascendency over his reader. He says, as +for other things he makes poetry of them, but the moral law makes poetry +of him. He sees in the world only the ethical, but he sees it through +the aesthetic faculty. Hence his page has the double charm of the +beautiful and the good. + + + +II + +One of the penalties Emerson pays for his sharp decision, his mental +pertinence and resistance, is the curtailment of his field of vision and +enjoyment. He is one of those men whom the gods drive with blinders on, +so that they see fiercely in only a few directions. Supreme lover as he +is of poetry,--Herrick's poetry,--yet from the whole domain of what may +be called emotional poetry, the poetry of fluid humanity, tallied by +music, he seems to be shut out. This may be seen by his reference +to Shelley in his last book, "Letters and Social Aims," and by +his preference of the metaphysical poet throughout his writings. +Wordsworth's famous "Ode" is, he says, the high-water mark of English +literature. What he seems to value most in Shakespeare is the marvelous +wit, the pregnant sayings. He finds no poet in France, and in his +"English Traits" credits Tennyson with little but melody and color. (In +our last readings, do we not surely come to feel the manly and robust +fibre beneath Tennyson's silken vestments?) He demands of poetry that +it be a kind of spiritual manna, and is at last forced to confess that +there are no poets, and that when such angels do appear, Homer and +Milton will be tin pans. + +One feels that this will not do, and that health, and wholeness, and +the well-being of man are more in the keeping of Shakespeare than in the +hands of Zoroaster or any of the saints. I doubt if that rarefied air +will make good red blood and plenty of it. + +But Emerson makes his point plain, and is not indebted to any of his +teachers for it. It is the burden of all he writes upon the subject. The +long discourse that opens his last volume [footnote: _Letters and Social +Aims_] has numerous subheadings, as "Poetry," "Imagination," "Creation," +"Morals," and "Transcendency;" but it's all a plea for transcendency. I +am reminded of the story of an old Indian chief who was invited to some +great dinner where the first course was "succotash." When the second +course was ready the old Indian said he would have a little more +succotash, and when the third was ready he called for more succotash and +so with the fourth and fifth, and on to the end. In like manner Emerson +will have nothing but the "spiritual law" in poetry, and he has an +enormous appetite for that. Let him have it, but why should he be so +sure that mankind all want succotash? Mankind finally comes to care +little for what any poet has to _say,_ but only for what he has to +_sing._ We want the pearl of thought dissolved in the wine of life. How +much better are sound bones and a good digestion in poetry than all the +philosophy and transcendentalism in the world! + +What one comes at last to want is power, mastery; and, whether it be +mastery over the subtleties of the intellect, as in Emerson himself, or +over the passions and the springs of action, as in Shakespeare, or over +our terrors and the awful hobgoblins of hell and Satan, as in Dante, or +over vast masses and spaces of nature and the abysms of aboriginal man, +as in Walt Whitman, what matters it? Are we not refreshed by all? There +is one mastery in Burns, another in Byron, another in Rabelais, and in +Victor Hugo, and in Tennyson; and though the critic has his preferences, +though he affect one more than another, yet who shall say this one is +a poet and that one is not? "There may be any number of supremes," says +the master, and "one by no means contravenes another." Every gas is +a vacuum to every other gas, says Emerson, quoting the scientist; and +every great poet complements and leaves the world free to every other +great poet. + +Emerson's limitation or fixity is seen also in the fact that he has +taken no new step in his own direction, if indeed another step could be +taken in that direction and not step off. He is a prisoner on his +peak. He cannot get away from the old themes. His later essays are +upon essentially the same subjects as his first. He began by writing +on nature, greatness, manners, art, poetry, and he is still writing on +them. He is a husbandman who practices no rotation of crops, but submits +to the exhaustive process of taking about the same things from his soil +year after year. Some readers think they detect a falling off. It is +evident there is not the same spontaneity, and that the soil has to be +more and more stirred and encouraged, which is not at all to be wondered +at. + +But if Emerson has not advanced, he has not receded, at least in +conviction and will, which is always the great danger with our bold +prophets. The world in which he lives, the themes upon which he writes, +never become hackneyed to him. They are always fresh and new. He has +hardened, but time has not abated one jot or tittle his courage and +hope,--no cynicism and no relaxing of his hold, no decay of his faith, +while the nobleness of his tone, the chivalry of his utterance, is even +more marked than at first. Better a hundred-fold than his praise of fine +manners is the delicacy and courtesy and the grace of generous breeding +displayed on every page. Why does one grow impatient and vicious when +Emerson writes of fine manners and the punctilios of conventional life, +and feel like kicking into the street every divinity enshrined in the +drawing-room? It is a kind of insult to a man to speak the word in his +presence. Purify the parlors indeed by keeping out the Choctaws, the +laughers! Let us go and hold high carnival for a week, and split the +ears of the groundlings with our "contemptible squeals of joy." And when +he makes a dead set at praising eloquence, I find myself instantly on +the side of the old clergyman he tells of who prayed that he might never +be eloquent; or when he makes the test of a man an intellectual one, as +his skill at repartee, and praises the literary crack shot, and defines +manliness to be readiness, as he does in this last volume and in the +preceding one, I am filled with a perverse envy of all the confused and +stammering heroes of history. Is Washington faltering out a few broken +and ungrammatical sentences, in reply to the vote of thanks of the +Virginia legislature, less manly than the glib tongue in the court-room +or in the club that can hit the mark every time? The test of a wit or of +a scholar is one thing; the test of a man, I take it, is quite another. +In this and some other respects Emerson is well antidoted by Carlyle, +who lays the stress on the opposite qualities, and charges his hero to +hold his tongue. But one cheerfully forgives Emerson the way he puts his +thumb-nail on the bores. He speaks feelingly, and no doubt from as deep +an experience as any man in America. + +I really hold Emerson in such high esteem that I think I can safely +indulge myself in a little more fault-finding with him. + +I think it must be admitted that he is deficient in sympathy. This +accounts in a measure for his coolness, his self-possession, and that +kind of uncompromising rectitude or inflexibleness that marks his +career, and that he so lauds in his essays. No man is so little liable +to be warped or compromised in any way as the unsympathetic man. +Emerson's ideal is the man who stands firm, who is unmoved, who never +laughs, or apologizes, or deprecates, or makes concessions, or assents +through good-nature, or goes abroad; who is not afraid of giving +offense; "who answers you without supplication in his eye,"--in fact, +who stands like a granite pillar amid the slough of life. You may +wrestle with this man, he says, or swim with him, or lodge in the same +chamber with him, or eat at the same table, and yet he is a thousand +miles off, and can at any moment finish with you. He is a sheer +precipice, is this man, and not to be trifled with. You shrinking, +quivering, acquiescing natures, avaunt! You sensitive plants, you +hesitating, indefinite creatures, you uncertain around the edges, you +non-resisting, and you heroes, whose courage is quick, but whose wit is +tardy, make way, and let the human crustacean pass. Emerson is moulded +upon this pattern. It is no mush and milk that you get at this table. "A +great man is coming to dine with me; I do not wish to please him; I wish +that he should wish to please me." On the lecture stand he might be +of wood, so far as he is responsive to the moods and feelings of his +auditors. They must come to him; he will not go to them: but they do not +always come. Latterly the people have felt insulted, the lecturer showed +them so little respect. Then, before a promiscuous gathering, and in +stirring and eventful times like ours, what anachronisms most of his +lectures are, even if we take the high ground that they are pearls +before swine! The swine may safely demand some apology of him who offers +them pearls instead of corn. + +Emerson's fibre is too fine for large public uses. He is what he is, and +is to be accepted as such, only let us _know_ what he is. He does not +speak to universal conditions, or to human nature in its broadest, +deepest, strongest phases. His thought is far above the great sea level +of humanity, where stand most of the world's masters. He is like one of +those marvelously clear mountain lakes whose water-line runs above +all the salt seas of the globe. He is very precious, taken at his real +worth. Why find fault with the isolation and the remoteness in view of +the sky-like purity and depth? + +Still I must go on sounding and exploring him, reporting where I touch +bottom and where I do not. He reaps great advantage from his want of +sympathy. The world makes no inroads upon him through this channel. He +is not distracted by the throng or maybe the mob of emotions that find +entrance here. He shines like a star undimmed by current events. He +speaks as from out the interstellar spaces. 'T is vulgar sympathy makes +mortals of us all, and I think Emerson's poetry finally lacks just that +human coloring and tone, that flesh tint of the heart, which vulgar +sympathy with human life as such imparts. + +But after we have made all possible deductions from Emerson, there +remains the fact that he is a living force, and, tried by home +standards, a master. Wherein does the secret of his power lie? He is +the prophet and philosopher of young men. The old man and the man of the +world make little of him, but of the youth who is ripe for him he takes +almost an unfair advantage. One secret of his charm I take to be the +instant success with which he transfers our interest in the romantic, +the chivalrous, the heroic, to the sphere of morals and the intellect. +We are let into another realm unlooked for, where daring and imagination +also lead. The secret and suppressed heart finds a champion. To the +young man fed upon the penny precepts and staple Johnsonianism of +English literature, and upon what is generally doled out in the schools +and colleges, it is a surprise; it is a revelation. A new world opens +before him. The nebulae of his spirit are resolved or shown to be +irresolvable. The fixed stars of his inner firmament are brought +immeasurably near. He drops all other books. He will gaze and wonder. +From Locke or Johnson or Wayland to Emerson is like a change from the +school history to the Arabian Nights. There may be extravagances and +some jugglery, but for all that the lesson is a genuine one, and to us +of this generation immense. + +Emerson is the knight-errant of the moral sentiment. He leads, in +our time and country, one illustrious division, at least, in the holy +crusade of the affections and the intuitions against the usurpations of +tradition and theological dogma. He marks the flower, the culmination, +under American conditions and in the finer air of the New World, of the +reaction begun by the German philosophers, and passed along by later +French and English thinkers, of man against circumstance, of +spirit against form, of the present against the past. What splendid +affirmation, what inspiring audacity, what glorious egoism, what +generous brag, what sacred impiety! There is an _eclat_ about his words, +and a brave challenging of immense odds, that is like an army with +banners. It stirs the blood like a bugle-call: beauty, bravery, and a +sacred cause,--the three things that win with us always. The first essay +is a forlorn hope. See what the chances are: "The world exists for the +education of each man.... He should see that he can live all history in +his own person. He must sit solidly at home, and not suffer himself to +be bullied by kings or empires, but know that he is greater than all +the geography and all the government of the world; he must transfer the +point of view from which history is commonly read from Rome and Athens +and London to himself, and not deny his conviction that he is the court, +and, if England or Egypt have anything to say to him, he will try the +case; if not, let them forever be silent." In every essay that follows, +there are the same great odds and the same electric call to the youth +to face them. It is, indeed, as much a world of fable and romance that +Emerson introduces us to as we get in Homer or Herodotus. It is true, +all true,--true as Arthur and his knights, or Pilgrim's Progress, and I +pity the man who has not tasted its intoxication, or who can see nothing +in it. + +The intuitions are the bright band, without armor or shield, that +slay the mailed and bucklered giants of the understanding. Government, +institutions, religions, fall before the glance of the hero's eye. Art +and literature, Shakespeare, Angelo, Aeschylus, are humble suppliants +before you, the king. The commonest fact is idealized, and the whole +relation of man to the universe is thrown into a kind of gigantic +perspective. It is not much to say there is exaggeration; the very start +makes Mohammed's attitude toward the mountain tame. The mountain _shall_ +come to Mohammed, and, in the eyes of all born readers of Emerson, the +mountain does come, and comes with alacrity. + +Some shrewd judges apprehend that Emerson is not going to last; basing +their opinion upon the fact, already alluded to, that we outgrow him, or +pass through him as through an experience that we cannot repeat. He is +but a bridge to other things; he gets you over. He is an exceptional +fact in literature, say they, and does not represent lasting or +universal conditions. He is too fine for the rough wear and tear of +ages. True, we do not outgrow Dante, or Cervantes, or Bacon; and I doubt +if the Anglo-Saxon stock at least ever outgrows that king of romancers, +Walter Scott. These men and their like appeal to a larger audience, and +in some respects a more adult one, at least one more likely to be found +in every age and people. Their achievement was more from the common +level of human nature than are Emerson's astonishing paradoxes. Yet I +believe his work has the seal of immortality upon it as much as that +of any of them. No doubt he has a meaning to us now and in this country +that will be lost to succeeding time. His religious significance will +not be so important to the next generation. He is being or has been so +completely absorbed by his times, that readers and hearers hereafter +will get him from a thousand sources, or his contribution will become +the common property of the race. All the masters probably had some +peculiar import or tie to their contemporaries that we at a distance +miss. It is thought by scholars that we have lost the key, or one key, +to Dante, and Chaucer, and Shakespeare,--the key or the insight that +people living under the same roof get of each other. + +But, aside from and over and above everything else, Emerson _appeals +to youth and to genius._ If you have these, you will understand him and +delight in him; if not, or neither of them, you will make little of him. +And I do not see why this should not be just as true any time hence as +at present. + + + + +X THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE + + TO WALT WHITMAN + + "'I, thirty-six years old, in perfect health, begin, + Hoping to cease not till death.'" + CHANTS DEMOCRATIC. + + + "They say that thou art sick, art growing old, + Thou Poet of unconquerable health, + With youth far-stretching, through the golden wealth + Of autumn, to Death's frostful, friendly cold. + The never-blenching eyes, that did behold + Life's fair and foul, with measureless content, + And gaze ne'er sated, saddened as they bent + Over the dying soldier in the fold + Of thy large comrade love;--then broke the tear! + War-dream, field-vigil, the bequeathed kiss, + Have brought old age to thee; yet, Master, now, + Cease not thy song to us; lest we should miss + A death-chant of indomitable cheer, + Blown as a gale from God;--oh sing it thou!" + ARRAN LEIGH (England). + +I + +Whoever has witnessed the flight of any of the great birds, as the +eagle, the condor, the sea-gulls, the proud hawks, has perhaps felt that +the poetic suggestion of the feathered tribes is not all confined to the +sweet and tiny songsters,--the thrushes, canaries, and mockingbirds of +the groves and orchards, or of the gilded cage in my lady's chamber. +It is by some such analogy that I would indicate the character of the +poetry I am about to discuss, compared with that of the more popular and +melodious singer,--the poetry of the strong wing and the daring flight. + +Well and profoundly has a Danish critic said, in "For Ide og +Virkelighed" ("For the Idea and the Reality"), a Copenhagen magazine:-- + +"It may be candidly admitted that the American poet has not the +elegance, special melody, nor _recherche_ aroma of the accepted poets +of Europe or his own country; but his compass and general harmony are +infinitely greater. The sweetness and spice, the poetic _ennui,_ the +tender longings, the exquisite art-finish of those choice poets are +mainly unseen and unmet in him,--perhaps because he cannot achieve them, +more likely because he disdains them. But there is an electric _living +soul_ in his poetry, far more fermenting and bracing. His wings do not +glitter in their movement from rich and varicolored plumage, nor are his +notes those of the accustomed song-birds; but his flight is the flight +of the eagle." + +Yes, there is not only the delighting of the ear with the outpouring of +sweetest melody and its lessons, but there is the delighting of the eye +and soul through that soaring and circling in the vast empyrean of "a +strong bird on pinions free,"--lessons of freedom, power, grace, and +spiritual suggestion,--vast, unparalleled, _formless_ lessons. + +It is now upwards of twenty years since Walt Whitman printed (in 1855) +his first thin beginning volume of "Leaves of Grass;" and, holding him +to the test which he himself early proclaimed, namely, "that the proof +of the poet shall be sternly deferred till his country has absorb'd him +as affectionately as he has absorb'd it," he is yet on trial, yet +makes his appeal to an indifferent or to a scornful audience. That his +complete absorption, however, by his own country and by the world, is +ultimately to take place, is one of the beliefs that grows stronger and +stronger within me as time passes, and I suppose it is with a hope to +help forward this absorption that I write of him now. Only here and +there has he yet effected a lodgment, usually in the younger and +more virile minds. But considering the unparalleled audacity of his +undertaking, and the absence in most critics and readers of anything +like full-grown and robust aesthetic perception, the wonder really is +not that he should have made such slow progress, but that he should have +gained any foothold at all. The whole literary _technique_ of the race +for the last two hundred years has been squarely against him, laying, as +it does, the emphasis upon form and scholarly endowments instead of upon +aboriginal power and manhood. + +My own mastery of the poet, incomplete as it is, has doubtless been much +facilitated by contact--talks, meals, and jaunts--with him, stretching +through a decade of years, and by seeing how everything in his +_personnel_ was resumed and carried forward in his literary expression; +in fact, how the one was a living commentary upon the other. After the +test of time, nothing goes home like the test of actual intimacy; and to +tell me that Whitman is not a large, fine, fresh, magnetic personality, +making you love him and want always to be with him, were to tell me +that my whole past life is a deception, and all the impression of my +perceptive faculties a fraud. I have studied him as I have studied +the birds, and have found that the nearer I got to him the more I saw. +Nothing about a first-class man can be overlooked; he is to be studied +in every feature,--in his physiology and phrenology, in the shape of his +head, in his brow, his eye, his glance, his nose, his ear (the ear is +as indicative in a man as in a horse), his voice. In Whitman all these +things are remarkably striking and suggestive. His face exhibits a rare +combination of harmony and sweetness with strength,--strength like the +vaults and piers of the Roman architecture. Sculptor never carved a +finer ear or a more imaginative brow. Then his heavy-lidded, absorbing +eye, his sympathetic voice, and the impression which he makes of +starting from the broad bases of the universal human traits. (If Whitman +was grand in his physical and perfect health, I think him far more so +now (1877), cheerfully mastering paralysis, penury, and old age.) You +know, on seeing the man and becoming familiar with his presence, that, +if he achieve the height at all, it will be from where every man stands, +and not from some special genius, or exceptional and adventitious +point. He does not make the impression of the scholar or artist or +_litterateur,_ but such as you would imagine the antique heroes to +make,--that of a sweet-blooded, receptive, perfectly normal, catholic +man, with, further than that, a look about him that is best suggested by +the word elemental or cosmical. It was this, doubtless, that led Thoreau +to write, after an hour's interview, that he suggested "something a +little more than human." In fact, the main clew to Walt Whitman's life +and personality, and the expression of them in his poems, is to be found +in about the largest emotional element that has appeared anywhere. This, +if not controlled by a potent rational balance, would either have tossed +him helplessly forever, or wrecked him as disastrously as ever storm +and gale drove ship to ruin. These volcanic emotional fires appear +everywhere in his books; and it is really these, aroused to intense +activity and unnatural strain during the four years of the war and his +persistent labors in the hospitals, that have resulted in his illness +and paralysis since. + +It has been impossible, I say, to resist these personal impressions and +magnetisms, and impossible with me not to follow them up in the poems, +in doing which I found that his "Leaves of Grass" was really the _drama +of himself,_ played upon various and successive stages of nature, +history, passion, experience, patriotism, and that he had not made, +nor had he intended to make, mere excellent "poems," tunes, statues, or +statuettes, in the ordinary sense. + +Before the man's complete acceptance and assimilation by America, he +may have to be first passed down through the minds of critics and +commentators, and given to the people with some of his rank new quality +taken off,--a quality like that which adheres to objects in the open +air, and makes them either forbidding or attractive, as one's mood is +healthful and robust or feeble and languid. The processes are silently +at work. Already seen from a distance, and from other atmospheres and +surroundings, he assumes magnitude and orbic coherence; for in curious +contrast to the general denial of Whitman in this country (though he +has more lovers and admirers here than is generally believed) stands +the reception accorded him in Europe. The poets there, almost without +exception, recognize his transcendent quality, the men of science his +thorough scientific basis, the republicans his inborn democracy, and all +his towering picturesque personality and modernness. Professor Clifford +says he is more thoroughly in harmony with the spirit and letter of +advanced scientism than any other living poet. Professor Tyrrell and Mr. +Symonds find him eminently Greek, in the sense in which to be natural +and "self-regulated by the law of perfect health" is to be Greek. The +French "Revue des Deux Mondes" pronounces his war poems the most vivid, +the most humanly passionate, and the most modern, of all the verse of +the nineteenth century. Freiligrath translated him into German, and +hailed him as the founder of a new democratic and modern order of +poetry, greater than the old. But I do not propose to go over the whole +list here; I only wish to indicate that the absorption is well commenced +abroad, and that probably her poet will at last reach America by way of +those far-off, roundabout channels. The old mother will first masticate +and moisten the food which is still too tough for her offspring. + +When I first fell in with "Leaves of Grass," I was taken by isolated +passages scattered here and there through the poems; these I seized +upon, and gave myself no concern about the rest. Single lines in it +often went to the bottom of the questions that were vexing me. The +following, though less here than when encountered in the frame of mind +which the poet begets in you, curiously settled and stratified a certain +range of turbid, fluctuating inquiry:-- + + "There was never any more inception than there is now,-- + Nor any more youth or age than there is now; + And will never be any more perfection than there is now, + Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now." + +These lines, also, early had an attraction for me I could not define, +and were of great service:-- + + "Pleasantly and well-suited I walk, + Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good, + The whole universe indicates that it is good, + The past and the present indicate that it is good." + +In the following episode, too, there was to me something far deeper than +the words or the story:-- + + "The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside; + I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the wood-pile; + Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak, + And went where he sat on a log, and led him in, and assured him, + And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and + bruis'd feet, + And gave him a room that entered from my own, and gave him some + coarse clean clothes; + And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness, + And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles: + He stayed with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd North; + (I had him sit next me at table--my firelock lean'd in the corner.)" + +But of the book as a whole I could form no adequate conception, and +it was not for many years, and after I had known the poet himself, as +already stated, that I saw in it a teeming, rushing globe well worthy my +best days and strength to surround and comprehend. + +One thing that early took me in the poems was (as before alluded to) the +tremendous personal force back of them, and felt through them as the +sun through vapor; not merely intellectual grasp or push, but a warm, +breathing, towering, magnetic Presence that there was no escape from. + +Another fact I was quick to perceive, namely, that this man had almost +in excess a quality in which every current poet was lacking,--I mean the +faculty of being in entire sympathy with actual nature, and the objects; +and shows of nature, and of rude, abysmal man; and appalling directness +of utterance therefrom, at first hand, without any intermediate agency +or modification. + +The influence of books and works of art upon an author may be seen in +all respectable writers. If knowledge alone made literature, or culture +genius, there would be no dearth of these things among the moderns. But +I feel bound to say that there is something higher and deeper than the +influence or perusal of any or all books, or all other productions of +genius,--a quality of information which the masters can never impart, +and which all the libraries do not hold. This is the absorption by an +author, previous to becoming so, of the spirit of nature, through +the visible objects of the universe, and his affiliation with them +subjectively and objectively. Not more surely is the blood quickened and +purified by contact with the unbreathed air than is the spirit of man +vitalized and made strong by intercourse with the real things of the +earth. The calm, all-permitting, wordless spirit of nature,--yet so +eloquent to him who hath ears to hear! The sunrise, the heaving sea, +the woods and mountains, the storm and the whistling winds, the gentle +summer day, the winter sights and sounds, the night and the high dome of +stars,--to have really perused these, especially from childhood onward, +till what there is in them, so impossible to define, finds its full mate +and echo in the mind,--this only is the lore which breathes the breath +of life into all the rest. Without it, literary productions may have the +superb beauty of statues, but with it only can they have the beauty of +life. + +I was never troubled at all by what the critics called Whitman's want +of art, or his violation of art. I saw that he at once designedly swept +away all which the said critics have commonly meant by that term. The +dominant impression was of the living presence and voice. He would have +no curtains, he said, not the finest, between himself and his reader; +and in thus bringing me face to face with his subject I perceived he +not only did not escape conventional art, but I perceived an enlarged, +enfranchised art in this very abnegation of art. "When half-gods go, +whole gods arrive." It was obvious to me that the new style gained more +than it lost, and that in this fullest operatic launching forth of the +voice, though it sounded strange at first, and required the ear to get +used to it, there might be quite as much science, and a good deal more +power, than in the tuneful but constricted measures we were accustomed +to. + +To the eye the page of the new poet presented about the same contrast +with the page of the popular poets that trees and the free, unbidden +growths of nature do with a carefully clipped hedge; and to the spirit +the contrast was about the same. The hedge is the more studiedly and +obviously beautiful, but, ah! there is a kind of beauty and satisfaction +in trees that one would not care to lose. There are symmetry and +proportion in the sonnet, but to me there is something I would not +exchange for them in the wild swing and balance of many free and +unrhymed passages in Shakespeare; like the one, for instance, in which +these lines occur:-- + + "To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, + And blown with restless violence round + About the pendent world." + +Here is the spontaneous grace and symmetry of a forest tree, or a +soughing mass of foliage. + +And this passage from my poet I do not think could be improved by the +verse-maker's art:-- + + "This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded + heaven, + And I said to my Spirit, _When we become the enfolders of those orbs + and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be + fill'd and satisfied then?_ + And my Spirit said, No, _we but level that lift, to pass and continue + beyond."_ + +Such breaking with the routine poetic, and with the grammar of verse, +was of course a dangerous experiment, and threw the composer absolutely +upon his intrinsic merits, upon his innately poetic and rhythmic +quality. He must stand or fall by these alone, since he discarded all +artificial, all adventitious helps. If interior, spontaneous rhythm +could not be relied on, and the natural music and flexibility of +language, then there was nothing to shield the ear from the pitiless +hail of words,--not one softly padded verse anywhere. + +All poets, except those of the very first order, owe immensely to the +form, the art, the stereotyped metres, and stock figures they find ready +to hand. The form is suggestive,--it invites and aids expression, and +lends itself readily, like fashion, to conceal, or extenuate, or eke +out poverty of thought and feeling in the verse. The poet can "cut and +cover," as the farmer says, in a way the prose-writer never can, nor one +whose form is essentially prose, like Whitman's. + +I, too, love to see the forms worthily used, as they always are by the +master; and I have no expectation that they are going out of fashion +right away. A great deal of poetry that serves, and helps sweeten one's +cup, would be impossible without them,--would be nothing when separated +from them. It is for the ear, and for the sense of tune and of carefully +carved and modeled forms, and is not meant to arouse the soul with the +taste of power, and to start off on journeys for itself. But the great +inspired utterances, like the Bible,--what would they gain by being cast +in the moulds of metrical verse? In all that concerns art, viewed from +any high standpoint,--proportion, continence, self-control, unfaltering +adherence to natural standards, subordination of parts, perfect +adjustment of the means to the end, obedience to inward law, no +trifling, no levity, no straining after effect, impartially attending to +the back and loins as well as to the head, and even holding toward his +subject an attitude of perfect acceptance and equality,--principles +of art to which alone the great spirits are amenable,--in all these +respects, I say, this poet is as true as an orb in astronomy. + +To his literary expression pitched on scales of such unprecedented +breadth and loftiness, the contrast of his personal life comes in with a +foil of curious homeliness and simplicity. Perhaps never before has +the absolute and average _commonness of humanity_ been so steadily and +unaffectedly adhered to. I give here a glimpse of him in Washington on +a Navy Yard horse-car, toward the close of the war, one summer day at +sundown. The car is crowded and suffocatingly hot, with many passengers +on the rear platform, and among them a bearded, florid-faced man, +elderly but agile, resting against the dash, by the side of the young +conductor, and evidently his intimate friend. The man wears a broad-brim +white hat. Among the jam inside, near the door, a young Englishwoman, of +the working class, with two children, has had trouble all the way with +the youngest, a strong, fat, fretful, bright babe of fourteen or fifteen +months, who bids fair to worry the mother completely out, besides +becoming a howling nuisance to everybody. As the car tugs around Capitol +Hill the young one is more demoniac than ever, and the flushed and +perspiring mother is just ready to burst into tears with weariness and +vexation. The car stops at the top of the hill to let off most of the +rear platform passengers, and the white-hatted man reaches inside, and, +gently but firmly disengaging the babe from its stifling place in the +mother's arms, takes it in his own, and out in the air. The astonished +and excited child, partly in fear, partly in satisfaction at the change, +stops its screaming, and, as the man adjusts it more securely to his +breast, plants its chubby hands against him, and, pushing off as far +as it can, gives a good long look squarely in his face,--then, as if +satisfied, snuggles down with its head on his neck, and in less than a +minute is sound and peacefully asleep without another whimper, utterly +fagged out. A square or so more and the conductor, who has had an +unusually hard and uninterrupted day's work, gets off for his first +meal and relief since morning. And now the white-hatted man, holding +the slumbering babe, also acts as conductor the rest of the distance, +keeping his eye on the passengers inside, who have by this time thinned +out greatly. He makes a very good conductor, too, pulling the bell to +stop or to go on as needed, and seems to enjoy the occupation. The babe +meanwhile rests its fat cheeks close on his neck and gray beard, one of +his arms vigilantly surrounding it, while the other signals, from time +to time, with the strap; and the flushed mother inside has a good half +hour to breathe, and to cool and recover herself. + + + +II + +No poem of our day dates and locates itself as absolutely as "Leaves of +Grass;" but suppose it had been written three or four centuries ago, +and had located itself in mediaeval Europe, and was now first brought +to light, together with a history of Walt Whitman's simple and +disinterested life, can there be any doubt about the cackling that would +at once break out in the whole brood of critics over the golden egg that +had been uncovered? This reckon would be a favorite passage with all:-- + + "You sea! I resign myself to you also--I guess what you mean; + I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers; + I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me; + We must have a turn together--I undress--hurry me out of sight of + the land; + Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse; + Dash me with amorous wet--I can repay you. + + "Sea of stretch'd ground-swells! + Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths! + Sea of the brine of life! sea of unshovel'd yet always ready graves! + Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea! + I am integral with you--I too am of one phase, and of all phases." + +This other passage would afford many a text for the moralists and +essayists:-- + + "Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarship, + and the like; + To me, all that those persons have arrived at sinks away from them, + except as it results to their Bodies and Souls, + So that often, to me, they appear gaunt and naked, + And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and mocks himself + or herself, + And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness, is full of + the rotten excrement of maggots; + And often, to me, those men and women pass unwittingly the true + realities of life, and go toward false realities, + And often, to me, they are alive after what custom has served + them, but nothing more, + And often, to me, they are sad, hasty, unwaked somnambules, + walking the dusk." + +Ah, Time, you enchantress! what tricks you play with us! The old +is already proved,--the past and the distant hold nothing but the +beautiful. + +Or let us take another view. Suppose Walt Whitman had never existed, and +some bold essayist, like Mr. Higginson or Matthew Arnold, had projected +him in abstract, outlined him on a scholarly ideal background, +formulated and put in harmless critical periods the principles of art +which he illustrates, and which are the inevitable logic of his +poems,--said essayist would have won great applause. "Yes, indeed, that +were a poet to cherish; fill those shoes and you have a god." + +How different a critic's account of Shakespeare from Shakespeare +himself,--the difference between the hewn or sawed timber and the living +tree! A few years ago we had here a lecturer from over seas, who gave to +our well-dressed audiences the high, moral, and intellectual statement +of the poet Burns. It was very fine, and people were greatly pleased, +vastly more so, I fear, than they were with Burns himself. Indeed, I +could not help wondering how many of those appreciative listeners had +any original satisfaction in the Scotch poet at first hand, or would +have accepted him had he been their neighbor and fellow-citizen. But as +he filtered through the scholarly mind in trickling drops, oh, he was so +sweet! + +Everybody stirred with satisfaction as the lecturer said: "When +literature becomes dozy, respectable, and goes in the smooth grooves +of fashion, and copies and copies again, something must be done; and +to give life to that dying literature a man must be found _not educated +under its influence."_ I applauded with the rest, for it was a bold +saying; but I could not help thinking how that theory, brought home +to ourselves and illustrated in a living example, would have sent that +nodding millinery and faultless tailory flying downstairs, as at an +alarm of fire. + +One great service of Walt Whitman is that he exerts a tremendous +influence to bring the race up on this nether side,--to place the +emotional, the assimilative, the sympathetic, the spontaneous, intuitive +man, the man of the fluids and of the affections, flush with +the intellectual man. That we moderns have fallen behind here is +unquestionable, and we in this country more than the Old World peoples. +All the works of Whitman, prose and verse, are embosomed in a sea of +emotional humanity, and they float deeper than they show; there is far +more in what they necessitate and imply than in what they say. + +It is not so much of fatty degeneration that we are in danger in +America, but of calcareous. The fluids, moral and physical, are +evaporating; surfaces are becoming encrusted, there is a deposit of +flint in the veins and arteries, outlines are abnormally sharp and hard, +nothing is held in solution, all is precipitated in well-defined ideas +and opinions. + +But when I think of the type of character planted and developed by my +poet, I think of a man or a woman rich above all things in the genial +human attributes, one "nine times folded" in an atmosphere of tenderest, +most considerate humanity,--an atmosphere warm with the breath of a +tropic heart, that makes your buds of affection and of genius start and +unfold like a south wind in May. Your intercourse with such a character +is not merely intellectual; it is deeper and better than that. Walter +Scott carried such a fund of sympathy and goodwill that even the animals +found fellowship with him, and the pigs understood his great heart. + +It was the large endowment of Whitman, in his own character in this +respect, that made his services in the army hospitals during the war +so ministering and effective, and that renders his "Drum-Taps" the +tenderest and most deeply yearning and sorrowful expression of the human +heart in poetry that ever war called forth. Indeed, from my own point +of view, there is no false or dangerous tendency among us, in life or in +letters, that this poet does not offset and correct. Fret and chafe as +much as we will, we are bound to gravitate, more or less, toward this +mountain, and feel its bracing, rugged air. + +Without a certain self-surrender there is no greatness possible in +literature, any more than in religion, or in anything else. It is always +a trait of the master that he is not afraid of being compromised by +the company he keeps. He is the central and main fact in any company. +Nothing so lowly but he will do it reverence; nothing so high but he +can stand in its presence. His theme is the river, and he the ample and +willing channel. Little natures love to disparage and take down; they +do it in self-defense; but the master gives you all, and more than your +due. Whitman does not stand aloof, superior, a priest or a critic: he +abandons himself to all the strong human currents; he enters into and +affiliates with every phase of life; he bestows himself royally upon +whoever and whatever will receive him. There is no competition between +himself and his subject; he is not afraid of over-praising, or making +too much of the commonest individual. What exalts others exalts him. + +We have had great help in Emerson in certain ways,--first-class service. +He probes the conscience and the moral purpose as few men have done, and +gives much needed stimulus there. But, after him, the need is all the +more pressing for a broad, powerful, opulent, human personality to +absorb these ideals, and to make something more of them than fine +sayings. With Emerson alone we are rich in sunlight, but poor in +rain and dew,--poor, too, in soil, and in the moist, gestating earth +principle. Emerson's tendency is not to broaden and enrich, but to +concentrate and refine. + +Then, is there not an excessive modesty, without warrant in philosophy +or nature, dwindling us in this country, drying us up in the viscera? Is +there not a decay--a deliberate, strange abnegation and dread--of sane +sexuality, of maternity and paternity, among us, and in our literary +ideals and social types of men and women? For myself, I welcome any +evidence to the contrary, or any evidence that deeper and counteracting +agencies are at work, as unspeakably precious. I do not know where this +evidence is furnished in such ample measure as in the pages of +Walt Whitman. The great lesson of nature, I take it, is that a sane +sensuality must be preserved at all hazards, and this, it seems to me, +is also the great lesson of his writings. The point is fully settled in +him that, however they may have been held in abeyance or restricted to +other channels, there is still sap and fecundity, and depth of virgin +soil in the race, sufficient to produce a man of the largest mould and +the most audacious and unconquerable egotism, and on a plane the last to +be reached by these qualities; a man of antique stature, of Greek fibre +and gripe, with science and the modern added, without abating one jot or +tittle of his native force, adhesiveness, Americanism, and democracy. + +As I have already hinted, Whitman has met with by far his amplest +acceptance and appreciation in Europe. There is good reason for this, +though it is not what has been generally claimed, namely, that the +cultivated classes of Europe are surfeited with respectability, half +dead with _ennui_ and routine, and find an agreeable change in the +daring unconventionality of the new poet. For the fact is, it is not the +old and jaded minds of London, or Paris, or Dublin, or Copenhagen, that +have acknowledged him, but the fresh, eager, young minds. Nine tenths of +his admirers there are the sturdiest men in the fields of art, science, +and literature. + +In many respects, as a race, we Americans have been pampered and +spoiled; we have been brought up on sweets. I suppose that, speaking +literally, no people under the sun consume so much confectionery, so +much pastry and cake, or indulge in so many gassy and sugared drinks. +The soda-fountain, with its syrups, has got into literature, and +furnishes the popular standard of poetry. The old heroic stamina of our +ancestors, that craved the bitter but nourishing home-brewed, has died +out, and in its place there is a sickly cadaverousness that must be +pampered and cosseted. Among educated people here there is a mania for +the bleached, the double-refined,--white houses, white china, white +marble, and white skins. We take the bone and sinew out of the flour +in order to have white bread, and are bolting our literature as fast as +possible. + +It is for these and kindred reasons that Walt Whitman is more read +abroad than in his own country. It is on the rank, human, and +emotional side--sex, magnetism, health, physique,--that he is so +full. Then his receptivity and assimilative powers are enormous, and +he demands these in his reader. In fact, his poems are physiological as +much as they are intellectual. They radiate from his entire being, +and are charged to repletion with that blended quality of mind and +body--psychic and physiologic--which the living form and presence send +forth. Never before in poetry has the body received such ennoblement. +The great theme is IDENTITY, and identity comes through the body; and +all that pertains to the body, the poet teaches, is entailed upon +the spirit. In his rapt gaze, the body and the soul are one, and what +debases the one debases the other. Hence he glorifies the body. Not more +ardently and purely did the great sculptors of antiquity carve it in the +enduring marble than this poet has celebrated it in his masculine and +flowing lines. The bearing of his work in this direction is invaluable. +Well has it been said that the man or the woman who has "Leaves of +Grass" for a daily companion will be under the constant, invisible +influence of sanity, cleanliness, strength, and a gradual severance from +all that corrupts and makes morbid and mean. + +In regard to the unity and construction of the poems, the reader +sooner or later discovers the true solution to be, that the dependence, +cohesion, and final reconciliation of the whole are in the Personality +of the poet himself. As in Shakespeare everything is strung upon the +plot, the play, and loses when separated from it, so in this poet every +line and sentence refers to and necessitates the Personality behind it, +and derives its chief significance therefrom. In other words, "Leaves of +Grass" is essentially a dramatic poem, a free representation of man in +his relation to the outward world,--the play, the interchanges between +him and it, apart from social and artificial considerations,--in which +we discern the central purpose or thought to be for every man and woman +his or her Individuality, and around that, Nationality. To show rather +than to tell,--to body forth as in a play how these arise and blend; how +the man is developed and recruited, his spirit's descent; how he walks +through materials absorbing and conquering them; how he confronts the +immensities of time and space; where are the true sources of his power, +the soul's real riches,--that which "adheres and goes forward and is not +dropped by death;" how he is all defined and published and made certain +through his body; the value of health and physique; the great solvent, +Sympathy,--to show the need of larger and fresher types in art and in +life, and then how the state is compacted, and how the democratic idea +is ample and composite, and cannot fail us,--to show all this, I +say, not as in a lecture or a critique, but suggestively and +inferentially,--to work it out freely and picturesquely, with endless +variations, with person and picture and parable and adventure, is the +lesson and object of "Leaves of Grass." From the first line, where the +poet says, + + "I loafe and invite my Soul," + +to the last, all is movement and fusion,--all is clothed in flesh and +blood. The scene changes, the curtain rises and falls, but the theme is +still Man,--his opportunities, his relations, his past, his future, his +sex, his pride in himself, his omnivorousness, his "great hands," his +yearning heart, his seething brain, the abysmal depths that underlie him +and open from him, all illustrated in the poet's own character,--he the +chief actor always. His personality directly facing you, and with its +eye steadily upon you, runs through every page, spans all the details, +and rounds and completes them, and compactly holds them. This gives the +form and the art conception, and gives homogeneousness. + +When Tennyson sends out a poem, it is perfect, like an apple or a peach; +slowly wrought out and dismissed, it drops from his boughs holding +a conception or an idea that spheres it and makes it whole. It is +completed, distinct, and separate,--might be his, or might be any man's. +It carries his quality, but it is a thing of itself, and centres and +depends upon itself. Whether or not the world will hereafter consent, +as in the past, to call only beautiful creations of this sort _poems,_ +remains to be seen. But this is certainly not what Walt Whitman does, +or aims to do, except in a few cases. He completes no poems apart and +separate from himself, and his pages abound in hints to that effect:-- + + "Let others finish specimens--I never finish specimens; + I shower them by exhaustless laws, as Nature does, fresh + and modern continually." + +His lines are pulsations, thrills, waves of force, indefinite dynamics, +formless, constantly emanating from the living centre, and they carry +the quality of the author's personal presence with them in a way that is +unprecedented in literature. + +Occasionally there is a poem or a short piece that detaches itself, +and assumes something like ejaculatory and statuesque proportion, as +"O Captain, my Captain," "Pioneers," "Beat, Beat, Drums," and others in +"Drum-Taps;" but all the great poems, like "Walt Whitman," "Song of +the Open Road," "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "To Working Men," +"Sleep-Chasings," etc., are out-flamings, out-rushings, of the pent +fires of the poet's soul. The first-named poem, which is the seething, +dazzling sun of his subsequent poetic system, shoots in rapid succession +waves of almost consuming energy. It is indeed a central orb of fiercest +light and heat, swept by wild storms of emotion, but at the same time +of sane and beneficent potentiality. Neither in it nor in either of +the others is there the building-up of a fair verbal structure, +a symmetrical piece of mechanism, whose last stone is implied and +necessitated in the first. + +"The critic's great error," says Heine, "lies in asking, 'What ought +the artist to do?' It would be far more correct to ask, 'What does the +artist intend?'" + +It is probably partly because his field is so large, his demands +so exacting, his method so new (necessarily so), and from the whole +standard of the poems being what I may call an astronomical one, that +the critics complain so generally of want of form in him. And the +critics are right enough, as far as their objection goes. There is no +deliberate form here, any more than there is in the forces of nature. +Shall we say, then, that nothing but the void exists? The void is filled +by a Presence. There is a controlling, directing, overarching will +in every page, every verse, that there is no escape from. Design and +purpose, natural selection, growth, culmination, are just as pronounced +as in any poet. + +There is a want of form in the unfinished statue, because it is +struggling into form; it is nothing without form; but there is no want +of form in the elemental laws and effusions,--in fire, or water, or +rain, or dew, or the smell of the shore or the plunging waves. And may +there not be the analogue of this in literature,--a potent, quickening, +exhilarating quality in words, apart from and without any consideration +of constructive form? Under the influence of the expansive, creative +force that plays upon me from these pages, like sunlight or gravitation, +the question of form never comes up, because I do not for one moment +escape the eye, the source from which the power and action emanate. + +I know that Walt Whitman has written many passages with reference far +more to their position, interpretation, and scanning ages hence, than +for current reading. Much of his material is too near us; it needs time. +Seen through the vista of long years, perhaps centuries, it will assume +quite different hues. Perhaps those long lists of trades, tools, and +occupations would not be so repellent if we could read them, as we read +Homer's catalogue of the ships, through the retrospect of ages. They are +justified in the poem aside from their historic value, because they +are alive and full of action,--panoramas of the whole mechanical and +industrial life of America, north, east, south, west,--bits of scenery, +bird's-eye views, glimpses of moving figures, caught as by a flash, +characteristic touches indoors and out, all passing in quick succession +before you. They have in the fullest measure what Lessing demands in +poetry,--the quality of ebbing and flowing action, as distinct from the +dead water of description; they are thoroughly dramatic, fused, pliant, +and obedient to the poet's will. No glamour is thrown over them, no wash +of sentiment; and if they have not the charm of novelty and distance, +why, that is an accident that bars them in a measure to us, but not to +the future. Very frequently in these lists or enumerations of objects, +actions, shows, there are sure to occur lines of perfect description:-- + + "Where the heifers browse--where geese nip their food with short + jerks; + Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome + prairie; + Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles + far and near; + Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon; + Where the katydid works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree + over the well." + + "Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown + apprentices, + The swing of their axes on the square-hew'd log, shaping it toward + the shape of a mast, + The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, + The butter-color'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, + The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes." + + "Always these compact lands--lands tied at the hips with the belt + stringing the huge oval lakes." + + "Far breath'd land! Arctic braced! Mexican breez'd!--the diverse! + the compact!" + +Tried by the standards of the perfect statuesque poems, these pages will +indeed seem strange enough; but viewed as a part of the poetic +compend of America, the swift gathering-in, from her wide-spreading, +multitudinous, material life, of traits and points and suggestions that +belong here and are characteristic, they have their value. The poet +casts his great seine into events and doings and material progress, +and these are some of the fish, not all beautiful by any means, but all +terribly alive, and all native to these waters. + +In the "Carol of Occupations" occur, too, those formidable inventories +of the more heavy and coarsegrained trades and tools that few if any +readers have been able to stand before, and that have given the scoffers +and caricaturists their favorite weapons. If you detach a page of these +and ask, "Is it poetry? have the 'hog-hook,' the 'killing-hammer,' 'the +cutter's cleaver,' 'the packer's maul,' met with a change of heart, and +been converted into celestial cutlery?" I answer, No, they are as barren +of poetry as a desert is of grass; but in their place in the poem, and +in the collection, they serve as masses of shade or neutral color in +pictures, or in nature, or in character,--a negative service, but still +indispensable. The point, the moral of the poem, is really backed up +and driven home by this list. The poet is determined there shall be +no mistake about it. He will not put in the dainty and pretty things +merely,--he will put in the coarse and common things also, and he swells +the list till even his robust muse begins to look uneasy. Remember, too, +that Whitman declaredly writes the lyrics of America, of the masses, +of democracy, and of the practical labor of mechanics, boatmen, and +farmers:-- + + "The sum of all known reverence I add up in you, whoever you are; + All doctrines, all politics and civilization, exude from you; + All sculpture and monuments, and anything inscribed anywhere, are + tallied in you; + The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records + reach, is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same: + If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they + all be? + The most renown'd poems would be ashes, orations and plays would + be vacuums. + + "All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it; + (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of + the arches and cornices?) + + "All music is what awakens from you when you are reminded by the + instruments; + It is not the violins and the cornets--it is not the oboe, nor + the beating drums--nor the score of the baritone singer singing + his sweet romanza--nor that of the men's chorus, nor that of + the women's chorus, + It is nearer and farther than they." + +Out of this same spirit of reverence for man and all that pertains +essentially to him, and the steady ignoring of conventional and social +distinctions and prohibitions, and on the same plane as the universal +brotherhood of the poems, come those passages in "Leaves of Grass" that +have caused so much abuse and fury,--the allusions to sexual acts and +organs,--the momentary contemplation of man as the perpetuator of his +species. Many good judges, who have followed Whitman thus far, stop here +and refuse their concurrence. But if the poet has failed in this part, +he has failed in the rest. It is of a piece with the whole. He has felt +in his way the same necessity as that which makes the anatomist or +the physiologist not pass by, or neglect, or falsify, the loins of his +typical personage. All the passages and allusions that come under this +head have a scientific coldness and purity, but differ from science, as +poetry always must differ, in being alive and sympathetic, instead of +dead and analytic. There is nothing of the forbidden here, none of those +sweet morsels that we love to roll under the tongue, such as are found +in Byron and Shakespeare, and even in austere Dante. If the fact is not +lifted up and redeemed by the solemn and far-reaching laws of maternity +and paternity, through which the poet alone contemplates it, then it +is irredeemable, and one side of our nature is intrinsically vulgar and +mean. + +Again: Out of all the full-grown, first-class poems, no matter what +their plot or theme, emerges a sample of Man, each after its kind, its +period, its nationality, its antecedents. The vast and cumbrous Hindu +epics contribute their special types of both man and woman, impossible +except from far-off Asia and Asian antiquity. Out of Homer, after all +his gorgeous action and events, the distinct personal identity, the +heroic and warlike chieftain of Hellas only permanently remains. In the +same way, when the fire and fervor of Shakespeare's plots and passions +subside, the special feudal personality, as lord or gentleman, still +towers in undying vitality. Even the Sacred Writings themselves, +considered as the first great poems, leave on record, out of all the +rest, the portraiture of a characteristic Oriental Man. Far different +from these (and yet, as he says, "the same old countenance pensively +looking forth," and "the same red running blood"), "Leaves of Grass" +and "Two Rivulets" also bring their contribution; nay, behind every page +_that_ is the main purport,--to outline a New World Man and a New +World Woman, modern, complete, democratic, not only fully and nobly +intellectual and spiritual, but in the same measure physical, emotional, +and even fully and nobly carnal. + +An acute person once said to me, "As I read and re-read these poems, I +more and more think their inevitable result in time must be to produce + + 'A race of splendid and savage _old men,_' + +of course dominated by moral and spiritual laws, but with volcanoes of +force always alive beneath the surface." + +And still again: One of the questions to be put to any poem assuming a +first-class importance among us--and I especially invite this inquiry +toward "Leaves of Grass"--is, How far is this work consistent with, and +the outcome of, that something which secures to the race ascendency, +empire, and perpetuity? There is in every dominant people a germ, a +quality, an expansive force, that, no matter how it is overlaid, gives +them their push and their hold upon existence,--writes their history +upon the earth, and stamps their imprint upon the age. To what extent is +your masterpiece the standard-bearer of this quality,--helping the race +to victory? helping me to be more myself than I otherwise would? + + + +III + +Not the least of my poet's successes is in his thorough assimilation of +the modern sciences, transmuting them into strong poetic nutriment, and +in the extent to which all his main poems are grounded in the deepest +principles of modern philosophical inquiry. + +Nearly all the old literatures may be said to have been founded upon +fable, and upon a basis and even superstructure of ignorance, that, +however charming it may be, we have not now got, and could not keep if +we had. The bump of wonder and the feeling of the marvelous,--a kind +of half-pleasing fear, like that of children in the dark or in the +woods,--were largely operative with the old poets, and I believe are +necessary to any eminent success in this field; but they seem nearly to +have died out of the modern mind, like organs there is no longer any +use for. The poetic temperament has not yet adjusted itself to the new +lights, to science, and to the vast fields and expanses opened up in +the physical cosmos by astronomy and geology, and in the spiritual or +intellectual world by the great German metaphysicians. The staple of +a large share of our poetic literature is yet mainly the result of the +long age of fable and myth that now lies behind us. "Leaves of Grass" +is, perhaps, the first serious and large attempt at an expression in +poetry of a knowledge of the earth as one of the orbs, and of man as +a microcosm of the whole, and to give to the imagination these new and +true fields of wonder and romance. In it fable and superstition are at +an end, priestcraft is at an end, skepticism and doubt are at an end, +with all the misgivings and dark forebodings that have dogged the human +mind since it began to relax its hold upon tradition and the past; and +we behold man reconciled, happy, ecstatic, full of reverence, awe, and +wonder, reinstated in Paradise,--the paradise of perfect knowledge and +unrestricted faith. + +It needs but a little pondering to see that the great poet of the future +will not be afraid of science, but will rather seek to plant his feet +upon it as upon a rock. He knows that, from an enlarged point of view, +there is no feud between Science and Poesy, any more than there is +between Science and Religion, or between Science and Life. He sees that +the poet and the scientist do not travel opposite but parallel roads, +that often approach each other very closely, if they do not at times +actually join. The poet will always pause when he finds himself in +opposition to science; and the scientist is never more worthy the name +than when he escapes from analysis into synthesis, and gives us living +wholes. And science, in its present bold and receptive mood, may be said +to be eminently creative, and to have made every first-class thinker and +every large worker in any aesthetic or spiritual field immeasurably +its debtor. It has dispelled many illusions, but it has more than +compensated the imagination by the unbounded vistas it has opened up +on every hand. It has added to our knowledge, but it has added to our +ignorance in the same measure: the large circle of light only reveals +the larger circle of darkness that encompasses it, and life and being +and the orbs are enveloped in a greater mystery to the poet to-day than +they were in the times of Homer or Isaiah. Science, therefore, does not +restrict the imagination, but often compels it to longer flights. +The conception of the earth as an orb shooting like a midnight meteor +through space, a brand cast by the burning sun with the fire at its +heart still unquenched, the sun itself shooting and carrying the whole +train of worlds with it, no one knows whither,--what a lift has science +given the imagination in this field! Or the tremendous discovery of the +correlation and conservation of forces, the identity and convertibility +of heat and force and motion, and that no ounce of power is lost, +but forever passed along, changing form but not essence, is a poetic +discovery no less than a scientific one. The poets have always felt +that it must be so, and, when the fact was authoritatively announced by +science, every profound poetic mind must have felt a thrill of pleasure. +Or the nebular hypothesis of the solar system,--it seems the conception +of some inspired madman, like William Blake, rather than the cool +conclusion of reason, and to carry its own justification, as great +power always does. Indeed, our interest in astronomy and geology is +essentially a poetic one,--the love of the marvelous, of the sublime, +and of grand harmonies. The scientific conception of the sun is +strikingly Dantesque, and appalls the imagination. Or the hell of fire +through which the earth has passed, and the aeons of monsters from which +its fair forms have emerged,--from which of the seven circles of the +Inferno did the scientist get his hint? Indeed, science everywhere +reveals a carnival of mightier gods than those that cut such fantastic +tricks in the ancient world. Listen to Tyndall on light, or to Youmans +on the chemistry of a sunbeam, and see how fable pales its ineffectual +fires, and the boldest dreams of the poets are eclipsed. + +The vibratory theory of light and its identity with the laws of sound, +the laws of the tides and the seasons, the wonders of the spectroscope, +the theory of gravitation, of electricity, of chemical affinity, the +deep beneath deep of the telescope, the world within world of the +microscope,--in these and many other fields it is hard to tell whether +it is the scientist or the poet we are listening to. What greater magic +than that you can take a colorless ray of light, break it across a +prism, and catch upon a screen all the divine hues of the rainbow? + +In some respects science has but followed out and confirmed the dim +foreshadowings of the human breast. Man in his simplicity has called the +sun father and the earth mother. Science shows this to be no fiction, +but a reality; that we are really children of the sun, and that every +heart-beat, every pound of force we exert, is a solar emanation. The +power with which you now move and breathe came from the sun just as +literally as the bank-notes in your pocket came from the bank. + +The ancients fabled the earth as resting upon the shoulders of Atlas, +and Atlas as standing upon a turtle; but what the turtle stood upon was +a puzzle. An acute person says that science has but changed the terms +of the equation, but that the unknown quantity is the same as ever. The +earth now rests upon the sun,--in his outstretched palm; the sun rests +upon some other sun, and that upon some other; but what they all finally +rest upon, who can tell? Well may Tennyson speak of the "fairy tales of +science," and well may Walt Whitman say:-- + + "I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the + reasons of things; + They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen." + +But, making all due acknowledgments to science, there is one danger +attending it that the poet alone can save us from,--the danger that +science, absorbed with its great problems, will forget Man. Hence the +especial office of the poet with reference to science is to endow +it with a human interest. The heart has been disenchanted by having +disclosed to it blind, abstract forces where it had enthroned personal +humanistic divinities. In the old time, man was the centre of the +system; everything was interested in him, and took sides for or against +him. There were nothing but men and gods in the universe. But in the +results of science the world is more and more, and man is less and +less. The poet must come to the rescue, and place man again at the top, +magnify him, exalt him, reinforce him, and match these wonders from +without with equal wonders from within. Welcome to the bard who is not +appalled by the task, and who can readily assimilate and turn into +human emotions these vast deductions of the savants! The minor poets do +nothing in this direction; only men of the largest calibre and the most +heroic fibre are adequate to the service. Hence one finds in Tennyson a +vast deal more science than he would at first suspect; but it is under +his feet; it is no longer science, but faith, or reverence, or poetic +nutriment. It is in "Locksley Hall," "The Princess," "In Memoriam," +"Maud," and in others of his poems. Here is a passage from "In +Memoriam:"-- + + "They say, + The solid earth whereon we tread + + "In tracts of fluent heat began, + And grew to seeming-random forms, + The seeming prey of cyclic storms, + Till at the last arose the man; + + "Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime, + The herald of a higher race, + And of himself in higher place + If so he type this work of time + + "Within himself, from more to more; + Or, crown'd with attributes of woe, + Like glories, move his course, and show + That life is not as idle ore, + + "But iron dug from central gloom, + And heated hot with burning fears, + And dipt in baths of hissing tears, + And batter'd with the shocks of doom + + "To shape and use. Arise and fly + The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; + Move upward, working out the beast, + And let the ape and tiger die." + +Or in this stanza behold how the science is disguised or turned into the +sweetest music:-- + + "Move eastward, happy earth, and leave + Yon orange sunset waning slow; + From fringes of the faded eve, + O happy planet, eastward go; + Till over thy dark shoulder glow + Thy silver sister-world, and rise + To glass herself in dewy eyes + That watch me from the glen below." + +A recognition of the planetary system, and of the great fact that +the earth moves eastward through the heavens, in a soft and tender +love-song! + +But in Walt Whitman alone do we find the full, practical absorption, and +re-departure therefrom, of the astounding idea that the earth is a star +in the heavens like the rest, and that man, as the crown and finish, +carries in his moral consciousness the flower, the outcome, of all this +wide field of turbulent unconscious nature. Of course in his handling it +is no longer science, or rather it is science dissolved in the fervent +heat of the poet's heart, and charged with emotion. "The words of true +poems," he says, "are the tufts and final applause of science." Before +Darwin or Spencer he proclaimed the doctrine of evolution:-- + + "I am stuccoed with quadrupeds and birds all over, + And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons, + And call anything close again when I desire it. + + "In vain the speeding and shyness; + In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach; + In vain the mastodon retreats beneath his own powder'd bones; + In vain objects stand leagues off, and assume manifold shapes; + In vain the ocean settling in hollows, and the great monsters + lying low." + +In the following passage the idea is more fully carried out, and man +is viewed through a vista which science alone has laid open; yet how +absolutely a work of the creative imagination is revealed:-- + + "I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I am incloser of things + to be. + My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs; + On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the + steps; + All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount. + + "Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me; + Afar down I see the huge first Nothing--I know I was even there; + I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, + And took my time, and took no hurt from the foetid carbon. + + "Long I was hugg'd close--long and long, + Immense have been the preparations for me, + Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me, + Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful + boatmen; + For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings; + They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. + + "Before I was born out of my mother, generations guided me; + My embryo has never been torpid--nothing could overlay it, + For it the nebula cohered to an orb, + The long low strata piled to rest it on, + Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, + Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths, and deposited + it with care; + All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight + me: + Now on this spot I stand with my robust Soul." + +I recall no single line of poetry in the language that fills my +imagination like that beginning the second stanza:-- + + "Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me." + +One seems to see those huge Brocken shadows of the past sinking and +dropping below the horizon like mountain peaks, as he presses onward on +his journey. Akin to this absorption of science is another quality in +my poet not found in the rest, except perhaps a mere hint of it now and +then in Lucretius,--a quality easier felt than described. It is a tidal +wave of emotion running all through the poems, which is now and then +crested with such passages as this:-- + + "I am he that walks with the tender and growing night; + I call to the earth and sea, half held by the night. + + "Press close, bare-bosom'd night! Press close, magnetic, + nourishing night! + Night of south winds! night of the large, few stars! + Still, nodding night! mad, naked, summer night. + + "Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath'd earth! + Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! + Earth of departed sunset! Earth of the mountains, misty topt! + Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with + blue! + Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river! + Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my + sake! + Far-swooping, elbow'd earth! rich, apple-blossom'd earth! + Smile, for your lover comes!" + +Professor Clifford calls it "cosmic emotion,"--a poetic thrill and +rhapsody in contemplating the earth as a whole,--its chemistry and +vitality, its bounty, its beauty, its power, and the applicability +of its laws and principles to human, aesthetic, and art products. It +affords the key to the theory of art upon which Whitman's poems are +projected, and accounts for what several critics call their sense of +magnitude,--"something of the vastness of the succession of objects in +Nature." + + "I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those + of the earth! + I swear there can be no theory of any account, unless it corroborate + the theory of the earth! + No politics, art, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account, + unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth, + Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude + of the earth." + +Or again, in his "Laws for Creation:"-- + + "All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the + compact truth of the world, + There shall be no subject too pronounced--All works shall illustrate + the divine law of indirections." + +Indeed, the earth ever floats in this poet's mind as his mightiest +symbol,--his type of completeness and power. It is the armory from which +he draws his most potent weapons. See, especially, "To the Sayers of +Words," "This Compost," "The Song of the Open Road," and "Pensive on her +Dead gazing I heard the Mother of all." + +The poet holds essentially the same attitude toward cosmic humanity, +well illustrated in "Salut au Monde:"-- + + "My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the + whole earth; + I have look'd for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me + in all lands; + I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them. + + "O vapors! I think I have risen with you and moved away to distant + continents, and fallen down there for reasons; + I think I have blown with you, O winds; + O waters, I have finger'd every shore with you." + +Indeed, the whole book is leavened with vehement Comradeship. Not only +in the relations of individuals to each other shall loving good-will +exist and be cultivated,--not only between the different towns and +cities, and all the States of this indissoluble, compacted Union,--but +it shall make a tie of fraternity and fusion holding all the races and +peoples and countries of the whole earth. + +Then the National question. As Whitman's completed works now stand, in +their two volumes, it is certain they could only have grown out of the +Secession War; and they will probably go to future ages as in literature +the most characteristic identification of that war,--risen from +and portraying it, representing its sea of passions and progresses, +partaking of all its fierce movements and perturbed emotions, and yet +sinking the mere military parts of that war, great as those were, below +and with matters far greater, deeper, more human, more expanding, and +more enduring. + +I must not close this paper without some reference to Walt Whitman's +prose writings, which are scarcely less important than his poems. Never +has Patriotism, never has the antique Love of Country, with even +doubled passion and strength, been more fully expressed than in these +contributions. They comprise two thin volumes,--now included in "Two +Rivulets,"--called "Democratic Vistas" and "Memoranda during the War;" +the former exhibiting the personality of the poet in more vehement +and sweeping action even than do the poems, and affording specimens of +soaring vaticination and impassioned appeal impossible to match in the +literature of our time. The only living author suggested is Carlyle; but +so much is added, the _presence_ is so much more vascular and human, and +the whole page so saturated with faith and love and democracy, that even +the great Scotchman is overborne. Whitman, too, radiates belief, while +at the core of Carlyle's utterances is despair. The style here is +eruptive and complex, or what Jeremy Taylor calls _agglomerative,_ and +puts the Addisonian models utterly to rout,--a style such as only the +largest and most Titanic workman could effectively use. A sensitive lady +of my acquaintance says reading the "Vistas" is like being exposed to +a pouring hailstorm,--the words fairly bruise her mind. In its literary +construction the book is indeed a shower, or a succession of showers, +multitudinous, wide-stretching, down-pouring,--the wrathful bolt and the +quick veins of poetic fire lighting up the page from time to time. I +can easily conceive how certain minds must be swayed and bent by some +of these long, involved, but firm and vehement passages. I cannot deny +myself the pleasure of quoting one or two pages. The writer is referring +to the great literary relics of past times:-- + +"For us, along the great highways of time, those monuments stand,--those +forms of majesty and beauty. For us those beacons burn through all the +nights. Unknown Egyptians, graving hieroglyphs; Hindus, with hymn and +apothegm and endless epic; Hebrew prophet, with spirituality, as in +flames of lightning, conscience like red-hot iron, plaintive songs and +screams of vengeance for tyrannies and enslavement; Christ, with bent +head, brooding love and peace, like a dove; Greek, creating eternal +shapes of physical and aesthetic proportion; Roman, lord of satire, the +sword, and the codex,--of the figures, some far off and veiled, others +near and visible; Dante, stalking with lean form, nothing but fibre, +not a grain of superfluous flesh; Angelo, and the great painters, +architects, musicians; rich Shakespeare, luxuriant as the sun, artist +and singer of Feudalism in its sunset, with all the gorgeous colors, +owner thereof, and using them at will;--and so to such as German Kant +and Hegel, where they, though near us, leaping over the ages, sit again, +impassive, imperturbable, like the Egyptian gods. Of these, and the like +of these, is it too much, indeed, to return to our favorite figure, +and view them as orbs, moving in free paths in the spaces of that other +heaven, the cosmic intellect, the Soul? + +"Ye powerful and resplendent ones! ye were, in your atmospheres, grown +not for America, but rather for her foes, the Feudal and the old--while +our genius is democratic and modern. Yet could ye, indeed, but breathe +your breath of life into our New World's nostrils--not to enslave us as +now, but, for our needs, to breed a spirit like your own--perhaps (dare +we to say it?) to dominate, even destroy what you yourselves have left! +On your plane, and no less, but even higher and wider, will I mete and +measure for our wants to-day and here. I demand races of orbic bards, +with unconditional, uncompromising sway. Come forth, sweet democratic +despots of the west!" + +Here is another passage of a political cast, but showing the same great +pinions and lofty flight:-- + +"It seems as if the Almighty had spread before this nation charts of +imperial destinies, dazzling as the sun, yet with lines of blood, and +many a deep intestine difficulty, and human aggregate of cankerous +imperfection,--saying, Lo! the roads, the only plans of development, +long, and varied with all terrible balks and ebullitions. You said in +your soul, I will be empire of empires, overshadowing all else, past and +present, putting the history of Old World dynasties, conquests, behind +me as of no account,--making a new history, the history of Democracy, +making old history a dwarf,--I alone inaugurating largeness, culminating +time. If these, O lands of America, are indeed the prizes, the +determinations of your Soul, be it so. But behold the cost, and already +specimens of the cost. Behold the anguish of suspense, existence itself +wavering in the balance, uncertain whether to rise or fall; already, +close behind you and around you, thick winrows of corpses on +battlefields, countless maimed and sick in hospitals, treachery among +Generals, folly in the Executive and Legislative departments, schemers, +thieves everywhere,--cant, credulity, make-believe everywhere. Thought +you greatness was to ripen for you, like a pear? If you would have +greatness, know that you must conquer it through ages, centuries,--must +pay for it with a proportionate price. For you, too, as for all lands, +the struggle, the traitor, the wily person in office, scrofulous wealth, +the surfeit of prosperity, the demonism of greed, the hell of passion, +the decay of faith, the long postponement, the fossil-like lethargy, the +ceaseless need of revolutions, prophets, thunder-storms, deaths, births, +new projections, and invigorations of ideas and men." + +The "Memoranda during the War" is mainly a record of personal +experiences, nursing the sick and wounded soldiers in the hospitals: +most of it is in a low key, simple, unwrought, like a diary kept for +one's self; but it reveals the large, tender, sympathetic soul of the +poet even more than his elaborate works, and puts in practical form that +unprecedented and fervid comradeship which is his leading element. It is +printed almost verbatim, just as the notes were jotted down at the time +and on the spot. It is impossible to read it without the feeling of +tears, while there is elsewhere no such portrayal of the common soldier, +and such appreciation of him, as is contained in its pages. It is +heart's blood, every word of it, and along with "Drum-Taps" is the only +literature of the war thus far entirely characteristic and worthy of +serious mention. There are in particular two passages in the "Memoranda" +that have amazing dramatic power, vividness, and rapid action, like some +quick painter covering a large canvas. I refer to the account of +the assassination of President Lincoln, and to that of the scenes in +Washington after the first battle of Bull Run. What may be called +the mass-movement of Whitman's prose style--the rapid marshaling +and grouping together of many facts and details, gathering up, and +recruiting, and expanding as the sentences move along, till the force +and momentum become like a rolling flood, or an army in echelon on the +charge--is here displayed with wonderful effect. + +Noting and studying what forces move the world, the only sane +explanation that comes to me of the fact that such writing as these +little volumes contain has not, in this country especially, met with its +due recognition and approval, is that, like all Whitman's works, they +have really never yet been published at all in the true sense,--have +never entered the arena where the great laurels are won. They have been +printed by the author, and a few readers have found them out, but to all +intents and purposes they are unknown. + +I have not dwelt on Whitman's personal circumstances, his age (he is +now, 1877, entering his fifty-ninth year), paralysis, seclusion, and the +treatment of him by certain portions of the literary classes, although +these have all been made the subjects of wide discussion of late, both +in America and Great Britain, and have, I think, a bearing under the +circumstances on his character and genius. It is an unwritten tragedy +that will doubtless always remain unwritten. I will but mention an +eloquent appeal of the Scotch poet, Robert Buchanan, published in London +in March, 1876, eulogizing and defending the American bard, in his +old age, illness, and poverty, from the swarms of maligners who still +continue to assail him. The appeal has this fine passage:-- + +"He who wanders through the solitudes of far-off Uist or lonely Donegal +may often behold the Golden Eagle sick to death, worn with age or +famine, or with both, passing with weary waft of wing from promontory +to promontory, from peak to peak, pursued by a crowd of rooks and crows, +which fall back screaming whenever the noble bird turns his indignant +head, and which follow frantically once more, hooting behind him, +whenever he wends again upon his way." + +Skipping many things I should yet like to touch upon,--for this paper is +already too long,--I will say in conclusion that, if any reader of mine +is moved by what I have here written to undertake the perusal of "Leaves +of Grass," or the later volume, "Two Rivulets," let me yet warn him +that he little suspects what is before him. Poetry in the Virgilian, +Tennysonian, or Lowellian sense it certainly is not. Just as the living +form of man in its ordinary garb is less beautiful (yet more beautiful) +than the marble statue; just as the living woman and child that may have +sat for the model is less beautiful (yet more so) than one of Raphael's +finest Madonnas, or just as a forest of trees addresses itself less +directly to the feeling of what is called art and form than the house or +other edifice built from them; just as you, and the whole spirit of our +current times, have been trained to feed on and enjoy, not Nature or +Man, or the aboriginal forces, or the actual, but pictures, books, art, +and the selected and refined,--just so these poems will doubtless first +shock and disappoint you. Your admiration for the beautiful is never the +feeling directly and chiefly addressed in them, but your love for the +breathing flesh, the concrete reality, the moving forms and shows of the +universe. A man reaches and moves you, not an artist. Doubtless, too, a +certain withholding and repugnance has first to be overcome, analogous +to a cold sea plunge; and it is not till you experience the reaction, +the after-glow, and feel the swing and surge of the strong waves, +that you know what Walt Whitman's pages really are. They don't give +themselves at first,--like the real landscape and the sea, they are all +indirections. You may have to try them many times; there is something +of Nature's rudeness and forbiddingness, not only at the first, but +probably always. But after you have mastered them by resigning yourself +to them, there is nothing like them anywhere in literature for vital +help and meaning. The poet says:-- + + "The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections, + That scorn the best I can do to relate them." + +And the press of your mind to these pages will certainly start new and +countless problems that poetry and art have never before touched, and +that afford a perpetual stimulus and delight. + +It has been said that the object of poetry and the higher forms of +literature is to escape from the tyranny of the real into the freedom of +the ideal; but what is the ideal unless ballasted and weighted with the +real? All these poems have a lofty ideal background; the great laws +and harmonies stretch unerringly above them, and give their vista +and perspective. It is because Whitman's ideal is clothed with rank +materiality, as the soul is clothed with the carnal body, that his poems +beget such warmth and desire in the mind, and are the reservoirs of so +much power. No one can feel more than I how absolutely necessary it is +that the facts of nature and experience be born again in the heart +of the bard, and receive the baptism of the true fire before they be +counted poetical; and I have no trouble on this score with the author +of "Leaves of Grass." He never fails to ascend into spiritual meanings. +Indeed, the spirituality of Walt Whitman is the chief fact after all, +and dominates every page he has written. + +Observe that this singer and artist makes no _direct_ attempt to be +poetical, any more than he does to be melodious or rhythmical. He +approaches these qualities and results as it were from beneath, and +always indirectly; they are drawn to him, not he to them; and if they +appear absent from his page at first, it is because we have been looking +for them in the customary places on the outside, where he never puts +them, and have not yet penetrated the interiors. As many of the fowls +hide their eggs by a sort of intuitive prudery and secretiveness, +Whitman always half hides, or more than half hides, his thought, his +glow, his magnetism, his most golden and orbic treasures. + +Finally, as those men and women respect and love Walt Whitman best who +have known him longest and closest personally, the same rule will apply +to "Leaves of Grass" and the later volume, "Two Rivulets." It is indeed +neither the first surface reading of those books, nor perhaps even the +second or third, that will any more than prepare the student for the +full assimilation of the poems. Like Nature, and like the Sciences, they +suggest endless suites of chambers opening and expanding more and more +and continually. + + +INDEX + + [Transcribist's note: Index has been shortened to names + of authors and to birds, with scientific names.] + + Aeschylus + Akers, Elizabeth. + Apuleius. + Audubon, John Jaines. + + Bacon, Francis. + Benton, Myron. + Bible. + Bittern, American (_Botaurus lentiginosus_). + Bjoernson, Bjoernstjerne. + Blackbird, cow, or cowbird (_Molothrus ater_). + Blackbird, European. + Bluebird (_Sialia sialis_). + Bobolink (_Dolichonyx oryzivorus_). + Bryant, William Cullen. + Buchanan, Robert. + Bunting, snow, or snowflake (_Passerina nivalis_). + Burke, Edmund. + Burns, Robert. + Byron, Lord. + + Cardinal. See Grosbeak, cardinal. + Carlyle, Thomas. + Cedar-bird, or cedar waxwing (_Ampelis cedrorum_). + Chat, yellow-breasted (_Icteria virens_). + Chewink, or towhee (_Pipilo erythrophthalmus_). + Chickadee (_Parus atricapillus_). + Cicada. + Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. + Cowper, William. + Crow, American (_Corvis brachyrhynchos_). + Cuckoo, American. + Cuckoo, European. + Dante. + Darwin, Charles. + Dove, mourning (_Zenaidura macroura_). + + Eagle. + Emerson, Ralph Waldo. + Everett, Edward. + + Flagg, Wilson. + Flicker. See High-hole. + Flycatcher, great crested (_Myiarchus crinitus_). + Frogs. See Hyla. + + Gilder, Richard Watson. + Grasshopper of Greek poetry. + Grosbeak, cardinal, or cardinal (_Cardinalis cardinalis_). + Grosbeak, pine (_Pinicola enucleator leucura_). + Grouse, ruffed (_Bonasa umbellus_). + + Hamerton, Philip Gilbert. + Hawk. + High-hole, or yellow-hammer, or golden-shafted woodpecker, or + flicker (_Colaptes auratus luteus_). + Hogg, James. + Homer. + Hood, Thomas. + Hornets, black. + Hudson River valley. + Hummingbird, ruby-throated (_Trochilus colubris_). + Hyla, green. + Hyla, Pickering's. + + Ingelow, Jean. + + Jefferson, Thomas. + Jonson, Ben. + + Keats, John. + Kingbird (_Tyrannus tyrannus_). + + Lamb, Charles. + Lark. See Skylark. + Lark, shore or horned (_Otocoris alpestris_). + Lathrop, George Parson. + Lincoln, Abraham. + Lizard. + Locust. + Logan, John. + Loon (_Gavia imber_). + Lowell, James Russell. + Lyly, John. + + Macaulay, Thomas Babington. + Meadowlark (_Sturnella magna_). + Michael Angelo. + Milton, John. + Mockingbird (_Mimus polyglottos_). + + Oriole, Baltimore (_Icterus galbula_). + Oven-bird, or golden-crowned thrush (_Seiurus aurocapillus_). + Owl. + + Partridge. See Grouse, ruffed. + Pewee, wood (_Contopus virens_). + Phaedrus. + Phoebe-bird (_Sayornis phoebe_). + Pigeon, passenger (_Ectopistes migratorius_). + Pipit, American, or titlark (_Anthus pensilvanicus_). + Pipit, Sprague's (_Anthus spragueii_). + Pope, Alexander. + + Quail, or bob-white (_Colinus virginianus_). + + Redpoll (_Acanthis linaria_). + Robin, American (_Merula migratoria_). + + Sandpiper, spotted, or "tip-up" (_Actitis macularia_). + Sandpipers. + Shelley, Percy Bysshe. + + Snake. + Snake, garter. + Socrates. + Solomon. + Sparrow, social or chipping (_Spizella socialis_). + Sparrow, song (_Melospiza cinerea melodia_). + Sparrow, tree or Canada (_Spizella monticola_). + Sparrow, vesper (_Pooecetes gramineus_). + Sparrow, white-crowned (_Zonotrichia leucophrys_). + Sparrow, white-throated (_Zonotrichia albicollis_). + Spenser. + Strawberry. + Sugar-berry. + Swallow, barn (_Hirundo erythrogastra_). + Swallow, chimney, or chimney swift (_Chaetura pelagica_). + Swallow, cliff (Petrochellidon lunifrons). + Swift, chimney. See Swallow. + + Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe. + Tennyson, Alfred. + Thaxter, Celia. + Thomson, James. + Thoreau, Henry D.. + Thrasher, brown, or long-tailed thrush (_Toxostoma rufum_). + Thrush, golden-crowned. See Ovenbird. + Thrush, hermit (_Hylocichla guttata pallasii_). + Thrush, wood (_Hylocichla mustelina_). + Tip-up. See Sandpiper, spotted. + Titlark. See Pipit, American. + Townee. See Chewink. + Trowbridge, John T. + Turgenieff. + Turner, J. M. W. + Turtles. + + Warbler, pine (_Dendroica vigorsii_). + Water-thrush. + Whip-poor-will (_Antrostomus vociferous_). + Whitman, Walt. + Whittier, John Greenleaf. + Wilde, Richard Henry. + Wilson, Alexander. + Woodchuck. + Woodpecker, downy (_Dryobates pubescens medianus_). + Woodpecker, golden-shafted. See High-hole. + Woodpecker, hairy (_Dryobates villosus_). + Woodpecker, red-headed (_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_). + Wordsworth, William. + Wren, house (_Troglodytes aedon_). + + Yellow-hammer. See High-hole. + Yellow-throat, Maryland, or northern yellow-throat (_Geothlypis + trichas brachidactyla_). + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds and Poets, by John Burroughs + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS AND POETS *** + +***** This file should be named 5177.txt or 5177.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/7/5177/ + +Produced by Jack Eden + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Birds and Poets + +Author: John Burroughs + +Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5177] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on May 29, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BIRDS AND POETS *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by Jack Eden. + + + +This etext was produced by Jack Eden <jackeden@yahoo.com> + +[For those interested, there is a note at the end of +this document that details the adaptations made to this +work to fit it into plain ASCII text] + + + + + + +THE WRITINGS OF JOHN BURROUGHS +WITH PORTRAITS AND MANY ILLUSTRATIONS + + +VOLUME III + +BIRDS AND POETS +WITH OTHER PAPERS + + + + +PREFACE + +I have deliberated a long time about coupling some of my sketches +of outdoor nature with a few chapters of a more purely literary +character, and thus confiding to my reader what absorbs and +delights me inside my four walls, as well as what pleases and +engages me outside those walls; especially since I have aimed to +bring my outdoor spirit and method within, and still to look upon +my subject with the best naturalist's eye I could command. + +I hope, therefore, he will not be scared away when I boldly +confront him in the latter portions of my book with this name of +strange portent, Walt Whitman, for I assure him that in this +misjudged man he may press the strongest poetic pulse that has yet +beaten in America, or perhaps in modern times. +Then, these chapters are a proper supplement or continuation of my +themes and their analogy in literature, because in them we shall +"follow out these lessons of the earth and air," and behold their +application to higher matters. + +It is not an artificially graded path strewn with roses that +invites us in this part, but, let me hope, something better, a +rugged trail through the woods or along the beach where we shall +now and then get a whiff of natural air, or a glimpse of something +to + + "Make the wild blood start + In its mystic springs." + +ESOPUS-ON-HUDSON, March, 1877. + + + +CONTENTS + I. BIRDS AND POETS + II. TOUCHES OF NATURE + III. A BIRD MEDLEY + IV. APRIL + V. SPRING POEMS + VI. OUR RURAL DIVINITY + VII. BEFORE GENIUS +VIII. BEFORE BEAUTY + IX. EMERSON + X. THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE + INDEX + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS +BARN SWALLOW (colored) + From a drawing by L. A. Fuertes +EMERSON'S HOUSE IN CONCORD + From a photograph by Herbert W. Gleason +A RIVER VIEW IN APRIL + From a drawing by Charles H. Woodbury +FLICKER + From a drawing by L. A. Fuertes Cows +IN RURAL LANDSCAPE + From a photograph by Herbert W. Gleason +VIEW FROM A HILLTOP + From a photograph by Herbert W. Gleason + + + + +BIRDS AND POETS + +I + +BIRDS AND POETS + + "In summer, when the shawes be shene, + And leaves be large and long, + It is full merry in fair forest + To hear the fowlés' song. + The wood-wele sang, and wolde not cease, + Sitting upon the spray; + So loud, it wakened Robin Hood + In the greenwood where he lay." + +It might almost be said that the birds are all birds of the poets +and of no one else, because it is only the poetical temperament +that fully responds to them. So true is this, that all the great +ornithologists--original namers and biographers of the birds--have +been poets in deed if not in word. Audubon is a notable case in +point, who, if he had not the tongue or the pen of the poet, +certainly had the eye and ear and heart--"the fluid and attaching +character"--and the singleness of purpose, the enthusiasm, the +unworldliness, the love, that characterize the true and divine race +of bards. + +So had Wilson, though perhaps not in as large a measure; yet he +took fire as only a poet can. While making a journey on foot to +Philadelphia, shortly after landing in this country, he caught +sight of the red-headed woodpecker flitting among the trees,--a +bird that shows like a tricolored scarf among the foliage,--and it +so kindled his enthusiasm that his life was devoted to the pursuit +of the birds from that day. It was a lucky hit. Wilson had already +set up as a poet in Scotland, and was still fermenting when the +bird met his eye and suggested to his soul a new outlet for its +enthusiasm. + +The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A +bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense +is his life,--large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame +charged with buoyancy and his heart with song. The beautiful +vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and +knowing no bounds,--how many human aspirations are realized in +their free, holiday lives, and how many suggestions to the poet in +their flight and song! + +Indeed, is not the bird the original type and teacher of the poet, +and do we not demand of the human lark or thrush that he "shake out +his carols" in the same free and spontaneous manner as his winged +prototype? Kingsley has shown how surely the old minnesingers and +early ballad-writers have learned of the birds, taking their key- +note from the blackbird, or the wood-lark, or the throstle, and +giving utterance to a melody as simple and unstudied. Such things +as the following were surely caught from the fields or the woods:-- + + "She sat down below a thorn, + Fine flowers in the valley, + And there has she her sweet babe borne, + And the green leaves they grow rarely." + +Or the best lyric pieces, how like they are to certain bird-songs! +--clear, ringing, ecstatic, and suggesting that challenge and +triumph which the outpouring of the male bird contains. (Is not the +genuine singing, lyrical quality essentially masculine?) Keats and +Shelley, perhaps more notably than any other English poets, have +the bird organization and the piercing wild-bird cry. This, of +course, is not saying that they are the greatest poets, but that +they have preëminently the sharp semi-tones of the sparrows and the +larks. + +But when the general reader thinks of the birds of the poets, he +very naturally calls to mind the renowned birds, the lark and the +nightingale, Old World melodists, embalmed in Old World poetry, but +occasionally appearing on these shores, transported in the verse of +some callow singer. + +The very oldest poets, the towering antique bards, seem to make +little mention of the song-birds. They loved better the soaring, +swooping birds of prey, the eagle, the ominous birds, the vultures, +the storks and cranes, or the clamorous sea-birds and the screaming +hawks. These suited better the rugged, warlike character of the +times and the simple, powerful souls of the singers themselves. +Homer must have heard the twittering of the swallows, the cry of +the plover, the voice of the turtle, and the warble of the +nightingale; but they were not adequate symbols to express what he +felt or to adorn his theme. Aeschylus saw in the eagle "the dog of +Jove," and his verse cuts like a sword with such a conception. + +It is not because the old bards were less as poets, but that they +were more as men. To strong, susceptible characters, the music of +nature is not confined to sweet sounds. The defiant scream of the +hawk circling aloft, the wild whinny of the loon, the whooping of +the crane, the booming of the bittern, the vulpine bark of the +eagle, the loud trumpeting of the migratory geese sounding down out +of the midnight sky; or by the seashore, the coast of New Jersey or +Long Island, the wild crooning of the flocks of gulls, repeated, +continued by the hour, swirling sharp and shrill, rising and +falling like the wind in a storm, as they circle above the beach or +dip to the dash of the waves,--are much more welcome in certain +moods than any and all mere bird-melodies, in keeping as they are +with the shaggy and untamed features of ocean and woods, and +suggesting something like the Richard Wagner music in the +ornithological orchestra. + + "Nor these alone whose notes + Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain, + But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime + In still repeated circles, screaming loud, + The jay, the pie, and even the boding owl, + That hails the rising moon, have charms for me," + +says Cowper. "I never hear," says Burns in one of his letters, "the +loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild +mixing cadence of a troop of gray plovers in an autumnal morning, +without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of +devotion or poetry." + +Even the Greek minor poets, the swarm of them that are represented +in the Greek Anthology, rarely make affectionate mention of the +birds, except perhaps Sappho, whom Ben Jonson makes speak of the +nightingale as-- + + "The dear glad angel of the spring." + +The cicada, the locust, and the grasshopper are often referred to, +but rarely by name any of the common birds. That Greek grasshopper +must have been a wonderful creature. He was a sacred object in +Greece, and is spoken of by the poets as a charming songster. What +we would say of birds the Greek said of this favorite insect. When +Socrates and Phaedrus came to the fountain shaded by the plane- +tree, where they had their famous discourse, Socrates said: +"Observe the freshness of the spot, how charming and very +delightful it is, and how summer-like and shrill it sounds from the +choir of grasshoppers." One of the poets in the Anthology finds a +grasshopper struggling in a spider's web, which he releases with +the words:-- + + "Go safe and free with your sweet voice of song." + +Another one makes the insect say to a rustic who had captured him:-- + + "Me, the Nymphs' wayside minstrel whose sweet note + O'er sultry hill is heard, and shady grove to float." + +Still another sings how a grasshopper took the place of a broken +string on his lyre, and "filled the cadence due." + + "For while six chords beneath my fingers cried, + He with his tuneful voice the seventh supplied; + The midday songster of the mountain set + His pastoral ditty to my canzonet; + And when he sang, his modulated throat + Accorded with the lifeless string I smote." + +While we are trying to introduce the lark in this country, why not +try this Pindaric grasshopper also? + +It is to the literary poets and to the minstrels of a softer age +that we must look for special mention of the song-birds and for +poetical rhapsodies upon them. The nightingale is the most general +favorite, and nearly all the more noted English poets have sung her +praises. To the melancholy poet she is melancholy, and to the +cheerful she is cheerful. Shakespeare in one of his sonnets speaks +of her song as mournful, while Martial calls her the "most +garrulous" of birds. Milton sang:-- + + "Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, + Most musical, most melancholy, + Thee, chantress, oft the woods among + I woo, to hear thy evening song." + +To Wordsworth she told another story:-- + + "O nightingale! thou surely art + A creature of ebullient heart; + These notes of thine,--they pierce and pierce,-- + Tumultuous harmony and fierce! + Thou sing'st as if the god of wine + Had helped thee to a valentine; + A song in mockery and despite + Of shades, and dews, and silent night, + And steady bliss, and all the loves + Now sleeping in these peaceful groves." + +In a like vein Coleridge sang:-- + + "'T is the merry nightingale + That crowds and hurries and precipitates + With fast, thick warble his delicious notes." + +Keats's poem on the nightingale is doubtless more in the spirit of +the bird's strain than any other. It is less a description of the +song and more the song itself. Hood called the nightingale + + "The sweet and plaintive Sappho of the dell." + +I mention the nightingale only to point my remarks upon its +American rival, the famous mockingbird of the Southern States, +which is also a nightingale,--a night-singer,--and which no doubt +excels the Old World bird in the variety and compass of its powers. +The two birds belong to totally distinct families, there being no +American species which answers to the European nightingale, as +there are that answer to the robin, the cuckoo, the blackbird, and +numerous others. Philomel has the color, manners, and habits of a +thrush,--our hermit thrush,--but it is not a thrush at all, but a +warbler. I gather from the books that its song is protracted and +full rather than melodious,--a capricious, long-continued warble, +doubling and redoubling, rising and falling, issuing from the +groves and the great gardens, and associated in the minds of the +poets with love and moonlight and the privacy of sequestered walks. +All our sympathies and attractions are with the bird, and we do not +forget that Arabia and Persia are there back of its song. + +_Our_ nightingale has mainly the reputation of the caged bird, and +is famed mostly for its powers of mimicry, which are truly +wonderful, enabling the bird to exactly reproduce and even improve +upon the notes of almost any other songster. But in a state of +freedom it has a song of its own which is infinitely rich and +various. It is a garrulous polyglot when it chooses to be, and +there is a dash of the clown and the buffoon in its nature which +too often flavors its whole performance, especially in captivity; +but in its native haunts, and when its love-passion is upon it, the +serious and even grand side of its character comes out. In Alabama +and Florida its song may be heard all through the sultry summer +night, at times low and plaintive, then full and strong. A friend +of Thoreau and a careful observer, who has resided in Florida, +tells me that this bird is a much more marvelous singer than it has +the credit of being. He describes a habit it has of singing on the +wing on moonlight nights, that would be worth going South to hear. +Starting from a low bush, it mounts in the air and continues its +flight apparently to an altitude of several hundred feet, remaining +on the wing a number of minutes, and pouring out its song with the +utmost clearness and abandon,--a slowly rising musical rocket that +fills the night air with harmonious sounds. Here are both the lark +and nightingale in one; and if poets were as plentiful down South +as they are in New England, we should have heard of this song long +ago, and had it celebrated in appropriate verse. But so far only +one Southern poet, Wilde, has accredited the bird this song. This +he has done in the following admirable sonnet:-- + + TO THE MOCKINGBIRD + + Winged mimic of the woods! thou motley fool! + Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe? + Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule + Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe. + Wit--sophist--songster--Yorick of thy tribe, + Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school, + To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, + Arch scoffer, and mad Abbot of Misrule! + For such thou art by day--but all night long + Thou pour'st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, + As if thou didst in this, thy moonlight song, + Like to the melancholy Jaques, complain, + Musing on falsehood, violence, and wrong, + And sighing for thy motley coat again. + +Aside from this sonnet, the mockingbird has got into poetical +literature, so far as I know, in only one notable instance, and +that in the page of a poet where we would least expect to find +him,--a bard who habitually bends his ear only to the musical surge +and rhythmus of total nature, and is as little wont to turn aside +for any special beauties or points as the most austere of the +ancient masters. I refer to Walt Whitman's "Out of the cradle +endlessly rocking," in which the mockingbird plays a part. The +poet's treatment of the bird is entirely ideal and eminently +characteristic. That is to say, it is altogether poetical and not +at all ornithological; yet it contains a rendering or free +translation of a bird-song--the nocturne of the mockingbird, +singing and calling through the night for its lost mate--that I +consider quite unmatched in our literature:-- + + Once, Paumanok, + When the snows had melted, and the Fifth-month grass was growing, + Up this seashore, in some briers, + Two guests from Alabama--two together, + And their nest, and four light green eggs, spotted with brown, + And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand, + And every day the she-bird, crouched on her nest, silent, with bright + eyes, + And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, + Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. + + _Shine! Shine! Shine! + Pour down your warmth, great Sun! + While we bask--we two together._ + + _Two together! + Winds blow South, or winds blow North, + Day come white, or night come black, + Home, or rivers and mountains from home, + Singing all time, minding no time, + If we two but keep together._ + + Till of a sudden, + Maybe killed unknown to her mate, + One forenoon the she-bird crouched not on the nest, + Nor returned that afternoon, nor the next, + Nor ever appeared again. + + And thenceforward all summer, in the sound of the sea, + And at night, under the full of the moon, in calmer weather, + Over the hoarse surging of the sea, + Or flitting from brier to brier by day, + I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one, the he-bird, + The solitary guest from Alabama. + + _Blow! blow! blow! + Blow up, sea-winds, along Paumanok's shore! + I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me._ + + Yes, when the stars glistened, + All night long, on the prong of a moss-scalloped stake, + Down, almost amid the slapping waves, + Sat the lone singer, wonderful, causing tears. + + He called on his mate: + He poured forth the meanings which I, of all men, know. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + + _Soothe! soothe! soothe! + Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, + And again another behind, embracing and lapping, every one close, + But my love soothes not me, not me._ + + _Low hangs the moon--it rose late. + Oh it is lagging--oh I think it is heavy with love, with love._ + + _Oh madly the sea pushes, pushes upon the land, + With love--with love._ + + _O night! do I not see my love fluttering out there among the breakers! + What is that little black thing I see there in the white?_ + + _Loud! loud! loud! + Loud I call to you, my love! + High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves: + Surely you must know who is here, is here; + You must know who I am, my love._ + + _Low-hanging moon! + What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow? + Oh it is the shape, the shape of my mate! + O moon, do not keep her from me any longer._ + + _Land! land! O land! + Whichever way I turn, oh I think you could give my mate back again, + if you only would; + For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look._ + + _O rising stars! + Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you._ + + _O throat! O trembling throat! + Sound clearer through the atmosphere! + Pierce the woods, the earth; + Somewhere listening to catch you, must be the one I want._ + + _Shake out, carols! + Solitary here--the night's carols! + Carols of lonesome love! Death's carols! + Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon! + Oh, under that moon, where she droops almost down into the sea! + O reckless, despairing carols._ + + _But soft! sink low! Soft! let me just murmur; + And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea; + For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me, + So faint--I must be still, be still to listen! + But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately + to me._ + + _Hither, my love! + Here I am! Here! + With this just-sustained note I announce myself to you; + This gentle call is for you, my love, for you._ + + _Do not be decoyed elsewhere! + That is the whistle of the wind--it is not my voice; + That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray; + Those are the shadows of leaves._ + + _O darkness! Oh in vain! + Oh I am very sick and sorrowful._ + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +The bird that occupies the second place to the nightingale in +British poetical literature is the skylark, a pastoral bird as the +Philomel is an arboreal,-- a creature of light and air and motion, +the companion of the plowman, the shepherd, the harvester,--whose +nest is in the stubble and whose tryst is in the clouds. Its life +affords that kind of contrast which the imagination loves,--one +moment a plain pedestrian bird, hardly distinguishable from the +ground, the next a soaring, untiring songster, reveling in the +upper air, challenging the eye to follow him and the ear to +separate his notes. + +The lark's song is not especially melodious, but is blithesome, +sibilant, and unceasing. Its type is the grass, where the bird +makes its home, abounding, multitudinous, the notes nearly all +alike and all in the same key, but rapid, swarming, prodigal, +showering down as thick and fast as drops of rain in a summer +shower. + +Many noted poets have sung the praises of the lark, or been kindled +by his example. Shelley's ode and Wordsworth's "To a Skylark" are +well known to all readers of poetry, while every schoolboy will +recall Hogg's poem, beginning:-- + + "Bird of the wilderness, + Blithesome and cumberless, + Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! + Emblem of happiness, + Blest is thy dwelling-place-- + Oh to abide in the desert with thee!" + +I heard of an enthusiastic American who went about English fields +hunting a lark with Shelley's poem in his hand, thinking no doubt +to use it as a kind of guide-book to the intricacies and harmonies +of the song. He reported not having heard any larks, though I have +little doubt they were soaring and singing about him all the time, +though of course they did not sing to his ear the song that Shelley +heard. The poets are the best natural historians, only you must +know how to read them. They translate the facts largely and freely. +A celebrated lady once said to Turner, "I confess I cannot see in +nature what you do." "Ah, madam," said the complacent artist, +"don't you wish you could!" + +Shelley's poem is perhaps better known, and has a higher reputation +among literary folk, than Wordsworth's; it is more lyrical and +lark-like; but it is needlessly long, though no longer than the +lark's song itself, but the lark can't help it, and Shelley can. I +quote only a few stanzas:-- + + "In the golden lightning + Of the sunken sun, + O'er which clouds are bright'ning + Thou dost float and run, + Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. + + "The pale purple even + Melts around thy flight; + Like a star of heaven, + In the broad daylight + Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, + + "Keen as are the arrows + Of that silver sphere, + Whose intense lamp narrows + In the white dawn clear, + Until we hardly see--we feel that it is there; + + "All the earth and air + With thy voice is loud, + As, when Night is bare, + From one lonely cloud + The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed." + +Wordsworth has written two poems upon the lark, in one of which he +calls the bird "pilgrim of the sky." This is the one quoted by +Emerson in "Parnassus." Here is the concluding stanza:-- + + "Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; + A privacy of glorious light is thine, + Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood + Of harmony, with instinct more divine; + Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam, + True to the kindred points of heaven and home." + +The other poem I give entire:-- + + "Up with me! up with me into the clouds! + For thy song, Lark, is strong; + Up with me, up with me into the clouds! + Singing, singing, + With clouds and sky about thee ringing, + Lift me, guide me till I find + That spot which seems so to thy mind! + + "I have walked through wilderness dreary, + And to-day my heart is weary; + Had I now the wings of a Faery + Up to thee would I fly. + There is madness about thee, and joy divine + In that song of thine; + Lift me, guide me high and high + To thy banqueting-place in the sky. + + "Joyous as morning + Thou art laughing and scorning; + Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest, + And, though little troubled with sloth, + Drunken Lark! thou wouldst be loth + To be such a traveler as I. + Happy, happy Liver! + With a soul as strong as a mountain river, + Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, + Joy and jollity be with us both! + + "Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven, + Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind; + But hearing thee, or others of thy kind, + As full of gladness and as free of heaven, + I, with my fate contented, will plod on, + And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done." + + +But better than either--better and more than a hundred pages--is +Shakespeare's simple line,-- + + "Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings," + +or John Lyly's, his contemporary,-- + + "Who is't now we hear? + None but the lark so shrill and clear; + Now at heaven's gate she claps her wings, + The morn not waking till she sings." + +We have no well-known pastoral bird in the Eastern States that +answers to the skylark. The American pipit or titlark and the shore +lark, both birds of the far north, and seen in the States only in +fall and winter, are said to sing on the wing in a similar strain. +Common enough in our woods are two birds that have many of the +habits and manners of the lark--the water-thrush and the golden- +crowned thrush, or oven-bird. They are both walkers, and the latter +frequently sings on the wing up aloft after the manner of the lark. +Starting from its low perch, it rises in a spiral flight far above +the tallest trees, and breaks out in a clear, ringing, ecstatic +song, sweeter and more richly modulated than the skylark's, but +brief, ceasing almost before you have noticed it; whereas the +skylark goes singing away after you have forgotten him and returned +to him half a dozen times. + +But on the Great Plains, of the West there; is a bird whose song +resembles the skylark's quite closely and is said to be not at all +inferior. This is Sprague's pipit, sometimes called the Missouri +skylark, an excelsior songster, which from far up in the +transparent blue rains down its notes for many minutes together. It +is, no doubt, destined to figure in the future poetical literature +of the West. + +Throughout the northern and eastern parts of the Union the lark +would find a dangerous rival in the bobolink, a bird that has no +European prototype, and no near relatives anywhere, standing quite +alone, unique, and, in the qualities of hilarity and musical +tintinnabulation, with a song unequaled. He has already a secure +place in general literature, having been laureated by no less a +poet than Bryant, and invested with a lasting human charm in the +sunny page of Irving, and is the only one of our songsters, I +believe, that the mockingbird cannot parody or imitate. He affords +the most marked example of exuberant pride, and a glad, rollicking, +holiday spirit, that can be seen among our birds. Every note +expresses complacency and glee. He is a beau of the first pattern, +and, unlike any other bird of my acquaintance, pushes his gallantry +to the point of wheeling gayly into the train of every female that +comes along, even after the season of courtship is over and the +matches are all settled; and when she leads him on too wild a +chase, he turns, lightly about and breaks out with a song is +precisely analogous to a burst of gay and self-satisfied laughter, +as much as to say, _"Ha! ha! ha! I must have my fun, Miss +Silverthimble, thimble, thimble, if I break every heart in the +meadow, see, see, see!"_ + +At the approach of the breeding season the bobolink undergoes a +complete change; his form changes, his color changes, his flight +changes. From mottled brown or brindle he becomes black and white, +earning, in some localities, the shocking name of "skunk bird;" his +small, compact form becomes broad and conspicuous, and his ordinary +flight is laid aside for a mincing, affected gait, in which he +seems to use only the very tips of his wings. It is very noticeable +what a contrast he presents to his mate at this season, not only in +color but in manners, she being as shy and retiring as he is +forward and hilarious. Indeed, she seems disagreeably serious and +indisposed to any fun or jollity, scurrying away at his approach, +and apparently annoyed at every endearing word and look. It is +surprising that all this parade of plumage and tinkling of cymbals +should be gone through with and persisted in to please a creature +so coldly indifferent as she really seems to be. If Robert +O'Lincoln has been stimulated into acquiring this holiday uniform +and this musical gift by the approbation of Mrs. Robert, as Darwin, +with his sexual selection principle, would have us believe, then +there must have been a time when the females of this tribe were not +quite so chary of their favors as they are now. Indeed, I never +knew a female bird of any kind that did not appear utterly +indifferent to the charms of voice and plumage that the male birds +are so fond of displaying. But I am inclined to believe that the +males think only of themselves and of outshining each other, and +not at all of the approbation of their mates, as, in an analogous +case in a higher species, it is well known whom the females dress +for, and whom they want to kill with envy! + +I know of no other song-bird that expresses so much self- +consciousness and vanity, and comes so near being an ornithological +coxcomb. The red-bird, the yellowbird, the indigo-bird, the oriole, +the cardinal grosbeak, and others, all birds of brilliant plumage +and musical ability, seem quite unconscious of self, and neither by +tone nor act challenge the admiration of the beholder. + +By the time the bobolink reaches the Potomac, in September, he has +degenerated into a game-bird that is slaughtered by tens of +thousands in the marshes. I think the prospects now are of his +gradual extermination, as gunners and sportsmen are clearly on the +increase, while the limit of the bird's productivity in the North +has no doubt been reached long ago. There are no more meadows to be +added to his domain there, while he is being waylaid and cut off +more and more on his return to the South. It is gourmand eat +gourmand, until in half a century more I expect the blithest and +merriest of our meadow songsters will have disappeared before the +rapacity of human throats. + +But the poets have had a shot at him in good time, and have +preserved some of his traits. Bryant's poem on this subject does +not compare with his lines "To a Water-Fowl,"--a subject so well +suited to the peculiar, simple, and deliberate motion of his mind; +at the same time it is fit that the poet who sings of "The Planting +of the Apple-Tree" should render into words the song of "Robert of +Lincoln." I subjoin a few stanzas:-- + + ROBERT OF LINCOLN + + Merrily swinging on brier and weed, + Near to the nest of his little dame, + Over the mountain-side or mead, + Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: + Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, + Spink, spank, spink: + Snug and safe is that nest of ours, + Hidden among the summer flowers. + Chee, chee, chee. + + Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, + Wearing a bright black wedding-coat, + White are his shoulders and white his crest, + Hear him call in his merry note: + Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, + Spink, spank, spink: + Look what a nice new coat is mine, + Sure there was never a bird so fine. + Chee, chee, chee. + + Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, + Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, + Passing at home a patient life, + Broods in the grass while her husband sings. + Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, + Spink, spank, spink: + Brood, kind creature; you need not fear + Thieves and robbers while I am here. + Chee, chee, chee. + + +But it has been reserved for a practical ornithologist, Mr. Wilson +Flagg, to write by far the best poem on the bobolink that I have +yet seen. It is much more in the mood and spirit of the actual song +than Bryant's poem:-- + + THE O'LINCOLN FAMILY + + A flock of merry singing-birds were sporting in the grove; + Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love: + There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,-- + A livelier set was never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle,-- + Crying, "Phew, shew, Wadolincon, see, see, Bobolincon, + Down among the tickletops, hiding in the buttercups! + I know the saucy chap, I see his shining cap + Bobbing in the clover there--see, see, see!" + + Up flies Bobolincon, perching on an apple-tree, + Startled by his rival's song, quickened by his raillery. + Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curveting in the air, + And merrily he turns about, and warns him to beware! + "'T is you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O! + But wait a week, till flowers are cheery,--wait a week,and, + ere you marry, + Be sure of a house wherein to tarry! + Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!" + + Every one's a funny fellow; every one's a little mellow; + Follow, follow, follow, follow, o'er the hill and in the hollow! + Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly; + They cross and turn, and in and out, and down in the middle, + and wheel about,-- + With a "Phew, shew, Wadolincon! listen to me, Bobolincon!-- + Happy's the wooing that's speedily doing, that's speedily doing, + That's merry and over with the bloom of the clover! + Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me!" + + +Many persons, I presume, have admired Wordsworth's poem on the +cuckoo, without recognizing its truthfulness, or how thoroughly, in +the main, the description applies to our own species. If the poem +had been written in New England or New York, it could not have +suited our case better:-- + + "O blithe New-comer! I have heard, + I hear thee and rejoice, + O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, + Or but a wandering Voice? + + "While I am lying on the grass, + Thy twofold shout I hear, + From hill to hill it seems to pass, + At once far off, and near. + + "Though babbling only to the Vale, + Of sunshine and of flowers, + Thou bringest unto me a tale + Of visionary hours. + + "Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! + Even yet thou art to me + No bird, but an invisible thing, + A voice, a mystery; + + "The same whom in my schoolboy days + I listened to; that Cry + Which made me look a thousand ways + In bush, and tree, and sky. + + "To seek thee did I often rove + Through woods and on the green; + And thou wert still a hope, a love; + Still longed for, never seen. + + "And I can listen to thee yet; + Can lie upon the plain + And listen, till I do beget + That golden time again. + + "O blesséd Bird! the earth we pace + Again appears to be + An unsubstantial, faery place; + That is fit home for thee!" + +Logan's stanzas, "To the Cuckoo," have less merit both as poetry +and natural history, but they are older, and doubtless the latter +poet benefited by them. Burke admired them so much that, while on a +visit to Edinburgh, he sought the author out to compliment him:-- + + "Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove! + Thou messenger of spring! + Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, + And woods thy welcome sing. + + "What time the daisy decks the green, + Thy certain voice we hear; + Hast thou a star to guide thy path, + Or mark the rolling year? + + . . . . . . . . + + "The schoolboy, wandering through the wood + To pull the primrose gay, + Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, + And imitates thy lay. + + . . . . . . . . + + "Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, + Thy sky is ever clear; + Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, + No winter in thy year." + +The European cuckoo is evidently a much gayer bird than ours, and +much more noticeable. + + "Hark, how the jolly cuckoos sing + 'Cuckoo!' to welcome in the spring," + +says John Lyly three hundred years agone. Its note is easily +imitated, and boys will render it so perfectly as to deceive any +but the shrewdest ear. An English lady tells me its voice reminds +one of children at play, and is full of gayety and happiness. It is +a persistent songster, and keeps up its call from morning to night. +Indeed, certain parts of Wordsworth's poem--those that refer to the +bird as a mystery, a wandering, solitary voice--seem to fit our +bird better than the European species. Our cuckoo is in fact a +solitary wanderer, repeating its loud, guttural call in the depths +of the forest, and well calculated to arrest the attention of a +poet like Wordsworth, who was himself a kind of cuckoo, a solitary +voice, syllabling the loneliness that broods over streams and +woods,-- + + "And once far off, and near." + +Our cuckoo is not a spring bird, being seldom seen or heard in the +North before late in May. He is a great devourer of canker-worms, +and, when these pests appear, he comes out of his forest seclusion +and makes excursions through the orchards stealthily and quietly, +regaling himself upon those pulpy, fuzzy titbits. His coat of deep +cinnamon brown has a silky gloss and is very beautiful. His note or +call is not musical but loud, and has in a remarkable degree the +quality of remoteness and introvertedness. It is like a vocal +legend, and to the farmer bodes rain. + +It is worthy of note, and illustrates some things said farther +back, that birds not strictly denominated songsters, but criers +like the cuckoo, have been quite as great favorites with the poets, +and have received as affectionate treatment at their hands, as have +the song-birds. One readily recalls Emerson's "Titmouse," +Trowbridge's "Pewee," Celia Thaxter's "Sandpiper," and others of a +like character. + +It is also worthy of note that the owl appears to be a greater +favorite with the poets than the proud, soaring hawk. The owl is +doubtless the more human and picturesque bird; then he belongs to +the night and its weird effects. Bird of the silent wing and +expansive eye, grimalkin in feathers, feline, mousing, haunting +ruins" and towers, and mocking the midnight stillness with thy +uncanny cry! The owl is the great bugaboo of the feathered tribes. +His appearance by day is hailed by shouts of alarm and derision +from nearly every bird that flies, from crows down to sparrows. +They swarm about him like flies, and literally mob him back into +his dusky retreat. Silence is as the breath of his nostrils to him, +and the uproar that greets him when he emerges into the open day +seems to alarm and confuse him as it does the pickpocket when +everybody cries Thief. + +But the poets, I say, have not despised him:-- + + "The lark is but a bumpkin fowl; + He sleeps in his nest till morn; + But my blessing upon the jolly owl + That all night blows his horn." + +Both Shakespeare and Tennyson have made songs about him. This is +Shakespeare's, from "Love's Labor's Lost," and perhaps has +reference to the white or snowy owl:-- + + "When icicles hang by the wall, + And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, + And Tom bears logs into the hall, + And milk comes frozen home in pail; + When blood is nipped and ways be foul, + Then nightly sings the staring owl, + Tu-whoo! + Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note, + While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. + + "When all aloud the wind doth blow, + And coughing drowns the parson's saw, + And birds sit brooding in the snow, + And Marian's nose looks red and raw; + When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, + Then nightly sings the staring owl, + Tu-whoo! + Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! a merry note, + While greasy Joan doth keel the pot." + +There is, perhaps, a slight reminiscence of this song in Tennyson's +"Owl:"-- + + "When cats run home and light is come, + And dew is cold upon the ground, + And the far-off stream is dumb, + And the whirring sail goes round, + And the whirring sail goes round; + Alone and warming his five wits, + The white owl in the belfry sits. + + "When merry milkmaids click the latch, + And rarely smells the new-mown hay, + And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch + Twice or thrice his roundelay, + Twice or thrice his roundelay; + Alone and warming his five wits, + The white owl in the belfry sits." + +Tennyson has not directly celebrated any of the more famous birds, +but his poems contain frequent allusions to them. The + + "Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, + Rings Eden through the budded quicks, + Oh, tell me where the senses mix, + Oh, tell me where the passions meet," + +of "In Memoriam," is doubtless the nightingale. And here we have +the lark:-- + + "Now sings the woodland loud and long, + And distance takes a lovelier hue, + And drowned in yonder living blue + The lark becomes a sightless song." + +And again in this from "A Dream of Fair Women:"-- + + "Then I heard + A noise of some one coming through the lawn, + And singing clearer than the crested bird + That claps his wings at dawn." + +The swallow is a favorite bird with Tennyson, and is frequently +mentioned, beside being the principal figure in one of those +charming love-songs in "The Princess." His allusions to the birds, +as to any other natural feature, show him to be a careful observer, +as when he speaks of + + "The swamp, where hums the dropping snipe." + +His single bird-poem, aside from the song I have quoted, is "The +Blackbird," the Old World prototype of our robin, as if our bird +had doffed the aristocratic black for a more democratic suit on +reaching these shores. In curious contrast to the color of its +plumage is its beak, which is as yellow as a kernel of Indian corn. +The following are the two middle stanzas of the poem:-- + + "Yet, though I spared thee all the spring, + Thy sole delight is, sitting still, + With that gold dagger of thy bill + To fret the summer jenneting. + + "A golden bill! the silver tongue + Cold February loved is dry; + Plenty corrupts the melody + That made thee famous once, when young." + +Shakespeare, in one of his songs, alludes to the blackbird as the +ouzel-cock; indeed, he puts quite a flock of birds in this song:-- + + "The ouzel-cock so black of hue, + With orange tawny bill; + The throstle with his note so true, + The wren with little quill; + The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, + The plain song cuckoo gray, + Whose note full many a man doth mark, + And dares not answer nay." + +So far as external appearances are concerned,--form, plumage, grace +of manner,--no one ever had a less promising subject than had +Trowbridge in the "Pewee." This bird, if not the plainest dressed, +is the most unshapely in the woods. It is stiff and abrupt in its +manners and sedentary in its habits, sitting around all day, in the +dark recesses of the woods, on the dry twigs and branches, uttering +now and then its plaintive cry, and "with many a flirt and flutter" +snapping up its insect game. + +The pewee belongs to quite a large family of birds, all of whom +have strong family traits, and who are not the most peaceable and +harmonious of the sylvan folk. They are pugnacious, harsh-voiced, +angular in form and movement, with flexible tails and broad, flat, +bristling beaks that stand to the face at the angle of a turn-up +nose, and most of them wear a black cap pulled well down over their +eyes. Their heads are large, neck and legs short, and elbows sharp. +The wild Irishman of them all is the great crested flycatcher, a +large, leather-colored or sandy-complexioned bird that prowls +through the woods, uttering its harsh, uncanny note and waging +fierce warfare upon its fellows. +The exquisite of the family, and the braggart of the orchard, is +the kingbird, a bully that loves to strip the feathers off its more +timid neighbors such as the bluebird, that feeds on the stingless +bees of the hive, the drones, and earns the reputation of great +boldness by teasing large hawks, while it gives a wide berth to +little ones. + +The best beloved of them all is the phoebe-bird, one of the +firstlings of the spring, of whom so many of our poets have made +affectionate mention. + +The wood pewee is the sweetest voiced, and, notwithstanding the +ungracious things I have said of it and of its relations, merits to +the full all Trowbridge's pleasant fancies. His poem is indeed a +very careful study of the bird and its haunts, and is good poetry +as well as good ornithology:-- + + "The listening Dryads hushed the woods; + The boughs were thick, and thin and few + The golden ribbons fluttering through; + Their sun-embroidered, leafy hoods + The lindens lifted to the blue; + Only a little forest-brook + The farthest hem of silence shook; + When in the hollow shades I heard-- + Was it a spirit or a bird? + Or, strayed from Eden, desolate, + Some Peri calling to her mate, + Whom nevermore her mate would cheer? + 'Pe-ri! pe-ri! peer!' + + . . . . . . . . + + "To trace it in its green retreat + I sought among the boughs in vain; + And followed still the wandering strain, + So melancholy and so sweet, + The dim-eyed violets yearned with pain. + 'T was now a sorrow in the air, + Some nymph's immortalized despair + Haunting the woods and waterfalls; + And now, at long, sad intervals, + Sitting unseen in dusky shade, + His plaintive pipe some fairy played, + With long-drawn cadence thin and clear,-- + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!' + + "Long-drawn and clear its closes were-- + As if the hand of Music through + The sombre robe of Silence drew + A thread of golden gossamer; + So pure a flute the fairy blew. + Like beggared princes of the wood, + In silver rags the birches stood; + The hemlocks, lordly counselors, + Were dumb; the sturdy servitors, + In beechen jackets patched and gray, + Seemed waiting spellbound all the day + That low, entrancing note to hear,-- + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!' + + "I quit the search, and sat me down + Beside the brook, irresolute, + And watched a little bird in suit + Of sober olive, soft and brown, + Perched in the maple branches, mute; + With greenish gold its vest was fringed, + Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged, + With ivory pale its wings were barred, + And its dark eyes were tender-starred. + "Dear bird," I said, "what is thy name?" + And thrice the mournful answer came, + So faint and far, and yet so near,-- + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!' + + "For so I found my forest bird,-- + The pewee of the loneliest woods, + Sole singer in these solitudes, + Which never robin's whistle stirred, + Where never bluebird's plume intrudes. + Quick darting through the dewy morn, + The redstart trilled his twittering horn + And vanished in thick boughs; at even, + Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven, + The high notes of the lone wood thrush + Fell on the forest's holy hush; + But thou all day complainest here,-- + 'Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!'" + +Emerson's best natural history poem is the "Humble-Bee,"--a poem as +good in its way as Burns's poem on the mouse; but his later poem, +"The Titmouse," has many of the same qualities, and cannot fail to +be acceptable to both poet and naturalist. + +The chickadee is indeed a truly Emersonian bird, and the poet shows +him to be both a hero and a philosopher. Hardy, active, social, a +winter bird no less than a summer, a defier of both frost and heat, +lover of the pine-tree, and diligent searcher after truth in the +shape of eggs and larvae of insects, preëminently a New England +bird, clad in black and ashen gray, with a note the most cheering +and reassuring to be heard in our January woods,--I know of none +other of our birds so well calculated to captivate the Emersonian +muse. + +Emerson himself is a northern hyperborean genius,--a winter bird +with a clear, saucy, cheery call, and not a passionate summer +songster. His lines have little melody to the ear, but they have +the vigor and distinctness of all pure and compact things. They are +like the needles of the pine--"the snow loving pine"--more than the +emotional foliage of the deciduous trees, and the titmouse becomes +them well:-- + + "Up and away for life! be fleet!-- + The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, + Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, + Curdles the blood to the marble bones, + Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, + And hems in life with narrowing fence. + Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,-- + The punctual stars will vigil keep,-- + Embalmed by purifying cold; + The wind shall sing their dead march old, + The snow is no ignoble shroud, + The moon thy mourner, and the cloud. + + "Softly,--but this way fate was pointing, + 'T was coming fast to such anointing, + When piped a tiny voice hard by, + Gay and polite, a cheerful cry, + _Chick-chickadeedee!_ saucy note, + Out of sound heart and merry throat, + As if it said 'Good day, good sir! + Fine afternoon, old passenger! + Happy to meet you in these places, + Where January brings few faces.' + + "This poet, though he lived apart, + Moved by his hospitable heart, + Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort, + To do the honors of his court, + As fits a feathered lord of land; + Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hands + Hopped on the bough, then darting low, + Prints his small impress on the snow, + Shows feats of his gymnastic play, + Head downward, clinging to the spray. + + "Here was this atom in full breath, + Hurling defiance at vast death; + This scrap of valor just for play + Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray, + As if to shame my weak behavior; + I greeted loud my little savior, + 'You pet! what dost here? and what for? + In these woods, thy small Labrador, + At this pinch, wee San Salvador! + What fire burns in that little chest, + So frolic, stout, and self-possest? + Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine; + Ashes and jet all hues outshine. + Why are not diamonds black and gray, + To ape thy dare-devil array? + And I affirm, the spacious North + Exists to draw thy virtue forth. + I think no virtue goes with size; + The reason of all cowardice + Is, that men are overgrown, + And, to be valiant, must come down + To the titmouse dimension.' + + . . . . . . . . + + "I think old Caesar must have heard + In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, + And, echoed in some frosty wold, + Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold. + And I will write our annals new + And thank thee for a better clew. + I, who dreamed not when I came here + To find the antidote of fear, + Now hear thee say in Roman key, + _Poean! Veni, vidi, vici."_ + +A late bird-poem, and a good one of its kind, is Celia Thaxter's +"Sandpiper," which recalls Bryant's "Water-Fowl" in its successful +rendering of the spirit and atmosphere of the scene, and the +distinctness with which the lone bird, flitting along the beach, is +brought before the mind. It is a woman's or a feminine poem, as +Bryant's is characteristically a man's. + +The sentiment or feeling awakened by any of the aquatic fowls is +preëminently one of loneliness. The wood duck which your approach +starts from the pond or the marsh, the loon neighing down out of +the April sky, the wild goose, the curlew, the stork, the bittern, +the sandpiper, awaken quite a different train of emotions from +those awakened by the land-birds. They all have clinging to them +some reminiscence and suggestion of the sea. Their cries echo its +wildness and desolation; their wings are the shape of its billows. + +Of the sandpipers there are many varieties, found upon the coast +and penetrating inland along the rivers and water-courses, one of +the most interesting of the family, commonly called the "tip-up," +going up all the mountain brooks and breeding in the sand along +their banks; but the characteristics are the same in all, and the +eye detects little difference except in size. + +The walker on the beach sees it running or flitting before him, +following up the breakers and picking up the aquatic insects left +on the sands; and the trout-fisher along the farthest inland stream +likewise intrudes upon its privacy. Flitting along from stone to +stone seeking its food, the hind part of its body "teetering" up +and down, its soft gray color blending it with the pebbles and the +rocks, or else skimming up or down the stream on its long, convex +wings, uttering its shrill cry, the sandpiper is not a bird of the +sea merely; and Mrs. Thaxter's poem is as much for the dweller +inland as for the dweller upon the coast:-- + + THE SANDPIPER + + Across the narrow beach we flit, + One little sandpiper and I; + And fast I gather, bit by bit, + The scattered driftwood bleached and dry. + The wild waves reach their hands for it, + The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, + As up and down the beach we flit,-- + One little sandpiper and I. + + Above our heads the sullen clouds + Scud black and swift across the sky; + Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds + Stand out the white lighthouses high. + Almost as far as eye can reach + I see the close-reefed vessels fly, + As fast we flit along the beach,-- + One little sandpiper and I. + + I watch him as he skims along, + Uttering his sweet and mournful cry; + He starts not at my fitful song, + Or flash of fluttering drapery; + He has no thought of any wrong; + He scans me with a fearless eye. + Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong, + The little sandpiper and I. + + Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night + When the loosed storm breaks furiously? + My driftwood fire will burn so bright! + To what warm shelter canst thou fly? + I do not fear for thee, though wroth + The tempest rushes through the sky; + For are we not God's children both, + Thou, little sandpiper, and I? + +Others of our birds have been game for the poetic muse, but in most +cases the poets have had some moral or pretty conceit to convey, +and have not loved the bird first. Mr. Lathrop preaches a little in +his pleasant poem, "The Sparrow," but he must some time have looked +upon the bird with genuine emotion to have written the first two +stanzas:-- + + "Glimmers gay the leafless thicket + Close beside my garden gate, + Where, so light, from post to wicket, + Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate: + Who, with meekly folded wing, + Comes to sun himself and sing. + + "It was there, perhaps, last year, + That his little house he built; + For he seems to perk and peer, + And to twitter, too, and tilt + The bare branches in between, + With a fond, familiar mien." + +The bluebird has not been overlooked, and Halleek, Longfellow, and +Mrs. Sigourney have written poems upon him, but from none of them +does there fall that first note of his in early spring,--a note +that may be called the violet of sound, and as welcome to the ear, +heard above the cold, damp earth; as is its floral type to the eye +a few weeks later Lowell's two lines come nearer the mark:-- + + "The bluebird, shifting his light load of song + From post to post along the cheerless fence." + +Or the first swallow that comes twittering up the southern valley, +laughing a gleeful, childish laugh, and awakening such memories in +the heart, who has put him in a poem? So the hummingbird, too, +escapes through the finest meshes of rhyme. + +The most melodious of our songsters, the wood thrush and the hermit +thrush,--birds whose strains, more than any others, express harmony +and serenity,--have not yet, that I am aware, had reared to them +their merited poetic monument, unless, indeed, Whitman has done +this service for the hermit thrush in his "President Lincoln's +Burial Hymn." Here the threnody is blent of three chords, the +blossoming lilac, the evening star, and the hermit thrush, the +latter playing the most prominent part throughout the composition. +It is the exalting and spiritual utterance of the "solitary singer" +that calms and consoles the poet when the powerful shock of the +President's assassination comes upon him, and he flees from the +stifling atmosphere and offensive lights and conversation of the +house,-- + + "Forth to hiding, receiving night that talks not, +Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, +To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still." + +Numerous others of our birds would seem to challenge attention by +their calls and notes. There is the Maryland yellowthroat, for +instance, standing in the door of his bushy tent, and calling out +as you approach, _"which way, sir! which way, sir!"_ If he says +this to the ear of common folk, what would he not say to the poet? +One of the peewees says _"stay there!"_ with great emphasis. The +cardinal grosbeak calls out _"what cheer" "what cheer;"" the +bluebird says _"purity," "purity," "purity;"_ the brown thrasher, +or ferruginous thrush, according to Thoreau, calls out to the +farmer planting his corn, _"drop it," "drop it," "cover it up," +"cover it up"_ The yellow-breasted chat says _"who," "who"_ and +_"tea-boy"_ What the robin says, caroling that simple strain from +the top of the tall maple, or the crow with his hardy haw-haw, or +the pedestrain meadowlark sounding his piercing and long-drawn note +in the spring meadows, the poets ought to be able to tell us. I +only know the birds all have a language which is very expressive, +and which is easily translatable into the human tongue. + + + + +II TOUCHES OF NATURE + +I + +WHEREVER Nature has commissioned one creature to prey upon another, +she has preserved the balance by forewarning that other creature of +what she has done. Nature says to the cat, "Catch the mouse," and +she equips her for that purpose; but on the selfsame day she says +to the mouse, "Be wary,--the cat is watching for you." Nature takes +care that none of her creatures have smooth sailing, the whole +voyage at least. Why has she not made the mosquito noiseless and +its bite itchless? Simply because in that case the odds would be +too greatly in its favor. She has taken especial pains to enable +the owl to fly softly and silently, because the creatures it preys +upon are small and wary, and never venture far from their holes. +She has not shown the same caution in the case of the crow, because +the crow feeds on dead flesh, or on grubs and beetles, or fruit and +grain, that do not need to be approached stealthily. The big fish +love to cat up the little fish, and the little fish know it, and, +on the very day they are hatched, seek shallow water, and put +little sandbars between themselves and their too loving parents. + +How easily a bird's tail, or that of any fowl, or in fact any part +of the plumage, comes out when the hold of its would-be capturer is +upon this alone; and how hard it yields in the dead bird! No doubt +there is relaxation in the former case. Nature says to the pursuer, +"Hold on," and to the pursued, "Let your tail go." What is the +tortuous, zigzag course of those slow-flying moths for but to make +it difficult for the birds to snap them up? The skunk is a slow, +witless creature, and the fox and lynx love its meat; yet it +carries a bloodless weapon that neither likes to face. + +I recently heard of an ingenious method a certain other simple and +slow-going creature has of baffling its enemy. A friend of mine was +walking in the fields when he saw a commotion in the grass a few +yards off. Approaching the spot, he found a snake--the common +garter snake--trying to swallow a lizard. And how do you suppose +the lizard was defeating the benevolent designs of the snake? By +simply taking hold of its own tail and making itself into a hoop. +The snake went round and round, and could find neither beginning +nor end. Who was the old giant that found himself wrestling with +Time? This little snake had a tougher customer the other day in the +bit of eternity it was trying to swallow. + +The snake itself has not the same wit, because I lately saw a black +snake in the woods trying to swallow the garter snake, and he had +made some headway, though the little snake was fighting every inch +of the ground, hooking his tail about sticks and bushes, and +pulling back with all his might, apparently not liking the look of +things down there at all. I thought it well to let him have a good +taste of his own doctrines, when I put my foot down against further +proceedings. + +This arming of one creature against another is often cited as an +evidence of the wisdom of Nature, but it is rather an evidence of +her impartiality. She does not care a fig more for one creature +than for another, and is equally on the side of both, or perhaps it +would be better to say she does not care a fig for either. Every +creature must take its chances, and man is no exception. We can +ride if we know how and are going her way, or we can be run over if +we fall or make a mistake. Nature does not care whether the hunter +slay the beast or the beast the hunter; she will make good compost +of them both, and her ends are prospered whichever succeeds. + + "If the red slayer think he slays, + Or if the slain think he is slain, + They know not well the subtle ways + I keep, and pass, and turn again." + +What is the end of Nature? Where is the end of a sphere? The +sphere balances at any and every point. So everything in Nature is +at the top, and yet no _one_ thing is at the top. + +She works with reference to no measure of time, no limit of space, +and with an abundance of material, not expressed by exhaustless. +Did you think Niagara a great exhibition of power? What is that, +then, that withdraws noiseless and invisible in the ground about, +and of which Niagara is but the lifting of the finger? + +Nature is thoroughly selfish, and looks only to her own ends. One +thing she is bent upon, and that is keeping up the supply, +multiplying endlessly and scattering as she multiplies. Did Nature +have in view our delectation when she made the apple, the peach, +the plum, the cherry? Undoubtedly; but only as a means to her own +private ends. What a bribe or a wage is the pulp of these +delicacies to all creatures to come and sow their seed! And Nature +has taken care to make the seed indigestible, so that, though the +fruit be eaten, the germ is not, but only planted. + +God made the crab, but man made the pippin; but the pippin cannot +propagate itself, and exists only by violence and usurpation. Bacon +says, "It is easier to deceive Nature than to force her," but it +seems to me the nurserymen really force her. They cut off the head +of a savage and clap on the head of a fine gentleman, and the crab +becomes a Swaar or a Baldwin. Or is it a kind of deception +practiced upon Nature, which succeeds only by being carefully +concealed? If we could play the same tricks upon her in the human +species, how the great geniuses could be preserved and propagated, +and the world stocked with them! But what a frightful condition of +things that would be! No new men, but a tiresome and endless +repetition of the old ones,--a world perpetually stocked with +Newtons and Shakespeares! + +We say Nature knows best, and has adapted this or that to our wants +or to our constitution,--sound to the ear, light and color to the +eye; but she has not done any such thing, but has adapted man to +these things. The physical cosmos is the mould, and man is the +molten metal that is poured into it. The light fashioned the eye, +the laws of sound made the ear; in fact, man is the outcome of +Nature and not the reverse. Creatures that live forever in the +dark have no eyes; and would not any one of our senses perish and +be shed, as it were, in a world where it could not be used? + + + +II + +It is well to let down our metropolitan pride a little. Man thinks +himself at the top, and that the immense display and prodigality of +Nature are for him. But they are no more for him than they are for +the birds and beasts, and he is no more at the top than they are. +He appeared upon the stage when the play had advanced to a certain +point, and he will disappear from the stage when the play has +reached another point, and the great drama will go on without him. +The geological ages, the convulsions and parturition throes of the +globe, were to bring him forth no more than the beetles. Is not all +this wealth of the seasons, these solar and sidereal influences, +this depth and vitality and internal fire, these seas, and rivers, +and oceans, and atmospheric currents, as necessary to the life of +the ants and worms we tread under foot as to our own? And does the +sun shine for me any more than for yon butterfly? What I mean to +say is, we cannot put our finger upon this or that and say, Here is +the end of Nature. The Infinite cannot be measured. The plan of +Nature is so immense,--but she has no plan, no scheme, but to go on +and on forever. What is size, what is time, distance, to the +Infinite? Nothing. The Infinite knows no time, no space, no +great, no small, no beginning, no end. + +I sometimes think that the earth and the worlds are a kind of +nervous ganglia in an organization of which we can form no +conception, or less even than that. If one of the globules of blood +that circulate in our veins were magnified enough million times, we +might see a globe teeming with life and power. Such is this earth +of ours, coursing in the veins of the Infinite. Size is only +relative, and the imagination finds no end to the series either +way. + + + +III + +Looking out of the car window one day, I saw the pretty and unusual +sight of an eagle sitting upon the ice in the river, surrounded by +half a dozen or more crows. The crows appeared as if looking up to +the noble bird and attending his movements. "Are those its young?" +asked a gentleman by my side. How much did that man know--not +about eagles, but about Nature? If he had been familiar with geese +or hens, or with donkeys, he would not have asked that question. +The ancients had an axiom that he who knew one truth knew all +truths; so much else becomes knowable when one vital fact is +thoroughly known. You have a key, a standard, and cannot be +deceived. Chemistry, geology, astronomy, natural history, all +admit one to the same measureless interiors. + +I heard a great man say that he could see how much of the theology +of the day would fall before the standard of him who had got even +the insects. And let any one set about studying these creatures +carefully, and he will see the force of the remark. We learn the +tremendous doctrine of metamorphosis from the insect world; and +have not the bee and the ant taught man wisdom from the first? I +was highly edified the past summer by observing the ways and doings +of a colony of black hornets that established themselves under one +of the projecting gables of my house. This hornet has the +reputation of being a very ugly customer, but I found it no trouble +to live on the most friendly terms with her. She was as little +disposed to quarrel as I was. She is indeed the eagle among +hornets, and very noble and dignified in her bearing. She used to +come freely into the house and prey upon the flies. You would hear +that deep, mellow hum, and see the black falcon poising on wing, or +striking here and there at the flies, that scattered on her +approach like chickens before a hawk. When she had caught one, she +would alight upon some object and proceed to dress and draw her +game. The wings were sheared off, the legs cut away, the bristles +trimmed, then the body thoroughly bruised and broken. When the work +was completed, the fly was rolled up into a small pellet, and with +it under her arm the hornet flew to her nest, where no doubt in due +time it was properly served up on the royal board. Every dinner +inside these paper walls is a state dinner, for the queen is always +present. + +I used to mount the ladder to within two or three feet of the nest +and observe the proceedings. I at first thought the workshop must +be inside,--a place where the pulp was mixed, and perhaps treated +with chemicals; for each hornet, when she came with her burden of +materials, passed into the nest, and then, after a few moments, +emerged again and crawled to the place of building. But I one day +stopped up the entrance with some cotton, when no one happened to +be on guard, and then observed that, when the loaded hornet could +not get inside, she, after some deliberation, proceeded to the +unfinished part and went forward with her work. Hence I inferred +that maybe the hornet went inside to report and to receive orders, +or possibly to surrender her material into fresh hands. Her career +when away from the nest is beset with dangers; the colony is never +large, and the safe return of every hornet is no doubt a matter of +solicitude to the royal mother. + +The hornet was the first paper-maker, and holds the original +patent. The paper it makes is about like that of the newspaper; +nearly as firm, and made of essentially the same material,--woody +fibres scraped from old rails and boards. And there is news on it, +too, if one could make out the characters. + +When I stopped the entrance with cotton, there was no commotion or +excitement, as there would have been in the case of yellow-jackets. +Those outside went to pulling, and those inside went to pushing and +chewing. Only once did one of the outsiders come down and look me +suspiciously in the face, and inquire very plainly what my business +might be up there. I bowed my head, being at the top of a twenty- +foot ladder, and had nothing to say. + +The cotton was chewed and moistened about the edges till every +fibre was loosened, when the mass dropped. But instantly the +entrance was made smaller, and changed so as to make the feat of +stopping it more difficult. + + + +IV + +There are those who look at Nature from the standpoint of +conventional and artificial life,-- from parlor windows and through +gilt-edged poems,--the. sentimentalists. At the other extreme are +those who do not look at Nature at all, but are a grown part of +her, and look away from her toward the other class,--the +backwoodsmen and pioneers, and all rude and simple persons. Then +there are those in whom the two are united or merged,--the great +poets and artists. In them the sentimentalist is corrected and +cured, and the hairy and taciturn frontiersman has had experience +to some purpose. The true poet knows more about Nature than the +naturalist because he carries her open secrets in his heart. +Eckermann could instruct Goethe in ornithology, but could not +Goethe instruct Eckermann in the meaning and mystery of the bird? +It is my privilege to number among my friends a man who has passed +his life in cities amid the throngs of men, who never goes to the +woods or to the country, or hunts or fishes, and yet he is the true +naturalist. I think he studies the orbs. I think day and night and +the stars, and the faces of men and women, have taught him all +there is worth knowing. + +We run to Nature because we are afraid of man. Our artists paint +the landscape because they cannot paint the human face. If we could +look into the eyes of a man as coolly as we can into the eyes of an +animal, the products of our pens and brushes would be quite +different from what they are. + + + +V + +But I suspect, after all, it makes but little difference to which +school you go, whether to the woods or to the city. A sincere man +learns pretty much the same things in both places. The differences +are superficial, the resemblances deep and many. The hermit is a +hermit, and the poet a poet, whether he grow up in the town or the +country. I was forcibly reminded of this fact recently on opening +the works of Charles Lamb after I had been reading those of our +Henry Thoreau. Lamb cared nothing for nature, Thoreau for little +else. One was as attached to the city and the life of the street +and tavern as the other to the country and the life of animals and +plants. Yet they are close akin. They give out the same tone and +are pitched in about the same key. Their methods are the same; so +are their quaintness and scorn of rhetoric. Thoreau has the drier +humor, as might be expected, and is less stomachic. There is more +juice and unction in Lamb, but this he owes to his nationality. +Both are essayists who in a less reflective age would have been +poets pure and simple. Both were spare, high-nosed men, and I fancy +a resemblance even in their portraits. Thoreau is the Lamb of New +England fields and woods, and Lamb is the Thoreau of London streets +and clubs. There was a willfulness and perversity about Thoreau, +behind which he concealed his shyness and his thin skin, and there +was a similar foil in Lamb, though less marked, on account of his +good-nature; that was a part of his armor, too. + + + +VI + +Speaking of Thoreau's dry humor reminds me how surely the old +English unctuous and sympathetic humor is dying out or has died out +of our literature. Our first notable crop of authors had it,-- +Paulding, Cooper, Irving, and in a measure Hawthorne,--but our +later humorists have it not at all, but in its stead an +intellectual quickness and perception of the ludicrous that is not +unmixed with scorn. + +One of the marks of the great humorist, like Cervantes, or Sterne, +or Scott, is that he approaches his subject, not through his head +merely, but through his heart, his love, his humanity. His humor is +full of compassion, full of the milk of human kindness, and does +not separate him from his subject, but unites him to it by vital +ties. How Sterne loved Uncle Toby and sympathized with him, and +Cervantes his luckless knight! I fear our humorists would have made +fun of them, would have shown them up and stood aloof superior, and +"laughed a laugh of merry scorn." Whatever else the great humorist +or poet, or any artist, may be or do, there is no contempt in his +laughter. And this point cannot be too strongly insisted on in +view of the fact that nearly all our humorous writers seem +impressed with the conviction that their own dignity and self- +respect require them to _look down_ upon what they portray. But it +is only little men who look down upon anything or speak down to +anybody. One sees every day how clear it is that specially fine, +delicate, intellectual persons cannot portray satisfactorily +coarse, common, uncultured characters. Their attitude is at once +scornful and supercilious. The great man, like Socrates, or Dr. +Johnson, or Abraham Lincoln, is just as surely coarse as he is +fine, but the complaint I make with our humorists is that they are +fine and not coarse in any healthful and manly sense. A great part +of the best literature and the best art is of the vital fluids, the +bowels, the chest, the appetites, and is to be read and judged only +through love and compassion. Let us pray for unction, which is the +marrowfat of humor, and for humility, which is the badge of +manhood. + +As the voice of the American has retreated from his chest to his +throat and nasal passages, so there is danger that his contribution +to literature will soon cease to imply any blood or viscera, or +healthful carnality, or depth of human and manly affection, and +will be the fruit entirely of our toploftical brilliancy and +cleverness. + +What I complain of is just as true of the essayists and the critics +as of the novelists. The prevailing tone here also is born of a +feeling of immense superiority. How our lofty young men, for +instance, look down upon Carlyle, and administer their masterly +rebukes to him! But see how Carlyle treats Burns, or Scott, or +Johnson, or Novalis, or any of his heroes. Ay, there's the rub; he +makes heroes of them, which is not a trick of small natures. He can +say of Johnson that he was "moonstruck," but it is from no lofty +height of fancied superiority, but he uses the word as a naturalist +uses a term to describe an object he loves. + +What we want, and perhaps have got more of than I am ready to +admit, is a race of writers who affiliate with their subjects, and +enter into them through their blood, their sexuality and manliness, +instead of standing apart and criticising them and writing about +them through mere intellectual cleverness and "smartness." + + + +VII + +There is a feeling in heroic poetry, or in a burst of eloquence, +that I sometimes catch in quite different fields. I caught it this +morning, for instance, when I saw the belated trains go by, and +knew how they had been battling with storm, darkness, and distance, +and had triumphed. They were due at my place in the night, but did +not pass till after eight o'clock in the morning. Two trains +coupled together,--the fast mail and the express,--making an +immense line of coaches hauled by two engines. They had come from +the West, and were all covered with snow and ice, like soldiers +with the dust of battle upon them. They had massed their forces, +and were now moving with augmented speed, and with a resolution +that was epic and grand. Talk about the railroad dispelling the +romance from the landscape; if it does, it brings the heroic +element in. The moving train is a proud spectacle, especially on +stormy and tempestuous nights. When I look out and see its light, +steady and unflickering as the planets, and hear the roar of its +advancing tread, or its sound diminishing in the distance, I am +comforted and made stout of heart. O night, where is thy stay! O +space, where is thy victory! Or to see the fast mail pass in the +morning is as good as a page of Homer. It quickens one's pulse for +all day. It is the Ajax of trains. I hear its defiant, warning +whistle, hear it thunder over the bridges, and its sharp, rushing +ring among the rocks, and in the winter mornings see its glancing, +meteoric lights, or in summer its white form bursting through the +silence and the shadows, its plume of smoke lying flat upon its +roofs and stretching far behind,--a sight better than a battle. It +is something of the same feeling one has in witnessing any wild, +free careering in storms, and in floods in nature; or in beholding +the charge of an army; or in listening to an eloquent man, or to a +hundred instruments of music in full blast,--it is triumph, +victory. What is eloquence but mass in motion,--a flood, a +cataract, an express train, a cavalry charge? We are literally +carried away, swept from our feet, and recover our senses again as +best we can. + +I experienced the same emotion when I saw them go by with the +sunken steamer. The procession moved slowly and solemnly. It was +like a funeral cortege,--a long line of grim floats and barges and +boxes, with their bowed and solemn derricks, the pall-bearers; and +underneath in her watery grave, where she had been for six months, +the sunken steamer, partially lifted and borne along. Next day the +procession went back again, and the spectacle was still more +eloquent. The steamer had been taken to the flats above and raised +till her walking-beam was out of water; her bell also was exposed +and cleaned and rung, and the wreckers' Herculean labor seemed +nearly over. But that night the winds and the storms held high +carnival. It looked like preconcerted action on the part of tide, +tempest, and rain to defeat these wreckers, for the elements all +pulled together and pulled till cables and hawser snapped like +threads. Back the procession started, anchors were dragged or +lost, immense new cables were quickly taken ashore and fastened to +trees; but no use: trees were upturned, the cables stretched till +they grew small and sang like harp-strings, then parted; back, back +against the desperate efforts of the men, till within a few feet of +her old grave, when there was a great commotion among the craft, +floats were overturned, enormous chains parted, colossal timbers +were snapped like pipestems, and, with a sound that filled all the +air, the steamer plunged to the bottom again in seventy feet of +water. + + + +VIII + +I am glad to observe that all the poetry of the midsummer +harvesting has not gone out with the scythe and the whetstone. The +line of mowers was a pretty sight, if one did not sympathize too +deeply with the human backs turned up there to the sun, and the +sound of the whetstone, coming up from the meadows in the dewy +morning, was pleasant music. But I find the sound of the mowing- +machine and the patent reaper is even more in tune with the voices +of Nature at this season. The characteristic sounds of midsummer +are the sharp, whirring crescendo of the cicada or harvest fly, and +the rasping, stridulous notes of the nocturnal insects. The mowing- +machine repeats and imitates these sounds. 'T is like the hum of a +locust or the shuffling of a mighty grasshopper. More than that, +the grass and the grain at this season have become hard. The +timothy stalk is like a file; the rye straw is glazed with flint; +the grasshoppers snap sharply as they fly up in front of you; the +bird-songs have ceased; the ground crackles under foot; the eye of +day is brassy and merciless; and in harmony with all these things +is the rattle of the mower and the hay-tedder. + + + +IX + +'T is an evidence of how directly we are related to Nature, that we +more or less sympathize with the weather, and take on the color of +the day. Goethe said he worked easiest on a high barometer. One is +like a chimney that draws well some days and won't draw at all on +others, and the secret is mainly in the condition of the +atmosphere. Anything positive and decided with the weather is a +good omen. A pouring rain may be more auspicious than a sleeping +sunshine. When the stove draws well, the fogs and fumes will leave +your mind. +I find there is great virtue in the bare ground, and have been much +put out at times by those white angelic days we have in winter, +such as Whittier has so well described in these lines:-- + + "Around the glistening wonder bent + The blue walls of the firmament; + No cloud above, no earth below, + A universe of sky and snow." + +On such days my spirit gets snow-blind; all things take on the same +color, or no color; my thought loses its perspective; the inner +world is a blank like the outer, and all my great ideals are +wrapped in the same monotonous and expressionless commonplace. The +blackest of black days are better. + +Why does snow so kill the landscape and blot out our interest in +it? Not merely because it is cold, and the symbol of death,--for I +imagine as many inches of apple blossoms would have about the same +effect,--but because it expresses nothing. White is a negative; a +perfect blank. The eye was made for color, and for the earthy +tints, and, when these are denied it, the mind is very apt to +sympathize and to suffer also. + +Then when the sap begins to mount in the trees, and the spring +languor comes, does not one grow restless indoors? The sun puts out +the fire, the people say, and the spring sun certainly makes one's +intellectual light grow dim. Why should not a man sympathize with +the seasons and the moods and phases of Nature? He is an apple upon +this tree, or rather he is a babe at this breast, and what his +great mother feels affects him also. + + + +X + +I have frequently been surprised, in late fall and early winter, to +see how unequal or irregular was the encroachment of the frost upon +the earth. If there is suddenly a great fall in the mercury, the +frost lays siege to the soil and effects a lodgment here and there, +and extends its conquests gradually. At one place in the field you +can easily run your staff through into the soft ground, when a few +rods farther on it will be as hard as a rock. A little covering of +dry grass or leaves is a great protection. The moist places hold +out long, and the spring runs never freeze. You find the frost has +gone several inches into the plowed ground, but on going to the +woods, and poking away the leaves and debris under the hemlocks and +cedars, you find there is no frost at all. The Earth freezes her +ears and toes and naked places first, and her body last. + +If heat were visible, or if we should represent it say by smoke, +then the December landscape would present a curious spectacle. We +should see the smoke lying low over the meadows, thickest in the +hollows and moist places, and where the turf is oldest and densest. +It would cling to the fences and ravines. Under every evergreen +tree we should see the vapor rising and filling the branches, while +the woods of pine and hemlock would be blue with it long after it +had disappeared from the open country. It would rise from the tops +of the trees, and be carried this way and that with the wind. The +valleys of the great rivers, like the Hudson, would overflow with +it. Large bodies of water become regular magazines in which heat is +stored during the summer, and they give it out again during the +fall and early winter. The early frosts keep well back from the +Hudson, skulking behind the ridges, and hardly come over in sight +at any point. But they grow bold as the season advances, till the +river's fires, too, I are put out and Winter covers it with his +snows. + + + +XI + +One of the strong and original strokes of Nature was when she made +the loon. It is always refreshing to contemplate a creature so +positive and characteristic. He is the great diver and flyer under +water. The loon is the genius loci of the wild northern lakes, as +solitary as they are. Some birds represent the majesty of nature, +like the eagles; others its ferocity, like the hawks; others its +cunning, like the crow; others its sweetness and melody, like the +song-birds. The loon represents its wildness and solitariness. It +is cousin to the beaver. It has the feathers of a bird and the fur +of an animal, and the heart of both. It is as quick and cunning as +it is bold and resolute. It dives with such marvelous quickness +that the shot of the gunner get there just in time "to cut across a +circle of descending tail feathers and a couple of little jets of +water flung upward by the web feet of the loon." When disabled so +that it can neither dive nor fly, it is said to face its foe, look +him in the face with its clear, piercing eye, and fight resolutely +till death. The gunners say there is something in its wailing, +piteous cry, when dying, almost human in its agony. The loon is, in +the strictest sense, an aquatic fowl. It can barely walk upon the +land, and one species at least cannot take flight from the shore. +But in the water its feet are more than feet, and its wings more +than wings. It plunges into this denser air and flies with +incredible speed. Its head and beak form a sharp point to its +tapering neck. Its wings are far in front and its legs equally far +in the rear, and its course through the crystal depths is like the +speed of an arrow. In the northern lakes it has been taken forty +feet under water upon hooks baited for the great lake trout. I had +never seen one till last fall, when one appeared on the river in +front of my house. I knew instantly it was the loon. Who could +not tell a loon a half mile or more away, though he had never seen +one before? The river was like glass, and every movement of the +bird as it sported about broke the surface into ripples, that +revealed it far and wide. Presently a boat shot out from shore, +and went ripping up the surface toward the loon. The creature at +once seemed to divine the intentions of the boatman, and sidled +off obliquely, keeping a sharp lookout as if to make sure it was +pursued. A steamer came down and passed between them, and when the +way was again clear, the loon was still swimming on the surface. +Presently it disappeared under the water, and the boatman pulled +sharp and hard. In a few moments the bird reappeared some rods +farther on, as if to make an observation. Seeing it was being +pursued, and no mistake, it dived quickly, and, when it came up +again, had gone many times as far as the boat had in the same space +of time. Then it dived again, and distanced its pursuer so easily +that he gave over the chase and rested upon his oars. But the bird +made a final plunge, and, when it emerged upon the surface again, +it was over a mile away. Its course must have been, and doubtless +was, an actual flight under water, and half as fast as the crow +flies in the air. + +The loon would have delighted the old poets. Its wild, demoniac +laughter awakens the echoes on the solitary lakes, and its ferity +and hardiness are kindred to those robust spirits. + + + +XII + +One notable difference between man and the four-footed animals +which has often occurred to me is in the eye, and the greater +perfection, or rather supremacy, of the sense of sight in the human +species. All the animals--the dog, the fox, the wolf, the deer, the +cow, the horse--depend mainly upon the senses of hearing and smell. +Almost their entire powers of discrimination are confined to these +two senses. The dog picks his master out of the crowd by smell, and +the cow her calf out of the herd. Sight is only partial +recognition. The question can only be settled beyond all doubt by +the aid of the nose. The fox, alert and cunning as he is, will pass +within a few yards of the hunter and not know him from a stump. A +squirrel will run across your lap, and a marmot between your feet, +if you are motionless. When a herd of cattle see a strange object, +they are not satisfied till each one has sniffed it; and the horse +is cured of his fright at the robe, or the meal-bag, or other +object, as soon as he can be induced to smell it. There is a great +deal of speculation in the eye of an animal, but very little +science. Then you cannot catch an animal's eye; he looks at you, +but not into your eye. The dog directs his gaze toward your face, +but, for aught you can tell, it centres upon your mouth or nose. +The same with your horse or cow. Their eye is vague and indefinite. + +Not so with the birds. The bird has the human eye in its clearness, +its power, and its supremacy over the other senses. How acute their +sense of smell may be is uncertain; their hearing is sharp enough, +but their vision is the most remarkable. A crow or a hawk, or any +of the larger birds, will not mistake you for a stump or a rock, +stand you never so still amid the bushes. But they cannot separate +you from your horse or team. A hawk reads a man on horseback as one +animal, and reads it as a horse. None of the sharp-scented animals +could be thus deceived. + +The bird has man's brain also in its size. The brain of a song-bird +is even much larger in proportion than that of the greatest human +monarch, and its life is correspondingly intense and high-strung. +But the bird's eye is superficial. It is on the outside of his +head. It is round, that it may take in a full circle at a glance. + +All the quadrupeds emphasize their direct forward gaze by a +corresponding movement of the ears, as if to supplement and aid one +sense with another. But man's eye seldom needs the confirmation of +his ear, while it is so set, and his head so poised, that his look +is forcible and pointed without being thus seconded. + + + +XIII + +I once saw a cow that had lost her cud. How forlorn and desolate +and sick at heart that cow looked! No more rumination, no more of +that second and finer mastication, no more of that sweet and juicy +reverie under the spreading trees, or in the stall. Then the farmer +took an elder and scraped the bark and put something with it, and +made the cow a cud, and, after due waiting, the experiment took, a +response came back, and the mysterious machinery was once more in +motion, and the cow was herself again. + +Have you, O poet, or essayist, or story-writer, never lost your +cud, and wandered about days and weeks without being able to start +a single thought or an image that tasted good,--your literary +appetite dull or all gone, and the conviction daily growing that it +was all over with you in that direction? A little elder-bark, +something fresh and bitter from the woods, is about the best thing +you can take. + + + +XIV + +Notwithstanding what I have elsewhere said about the desolation of +snow, when one looks closely it is little more than a thin veil +after all, and takes and repeats the form of whatever it covers. +Every path through the fields is just as plain as before. On every +hand the ground sends tokens, and the curves and slopes are not of +the snow, but of the earth beneath. In like manner the rankest +vegetation hides the ground less than we think. Looking across a +wide valley in the month of July, I have noted that the fields, +except the meadows, had a ruddy tinge, and that corn, which near at +hand seemed to completely envelop the soil, at that distance gave +only a slight shade of green. The color of the ground everywhere +predominated, and I doubt not that, if we could see the earth from +a point sufficiently removed, as from the moon, its ruddy hue, like +that of Mars, would alone be visible. + +What is a man but a miniature earth, with many disguises in the way +of manners, possessions, dissemblances? Yet through all--through +all the work of his hands and all the thoughts of his mind--how +surely the ground quality of him, the fundamental hue, whether it +be this or that, makes itself felt and is alone important! + + + +XV + +Men follow their noses, it is said. I have wondered why the Greek +did not follow his nose in architecture,--did not copy those arches +that spring from it as from a pier, and support his brow,--but +always and everywhere used the post and the lintel. There was +something in that face that has never reappeared in the human +countenance. I am thinking especially of that straight, strong +profile. Is it really godlike, or is this impression the result of +association? But any suggestion or reminiscence of it in the +modern face at once gives one the idea of strength. It is a face +strong in the loins, or it suggests a high, elastic instep. It is +the face of order and proportion. Those arches are the symbols of +law and self-control. The point of greatest interest is the union +of the nose with the brow,--that strong, high embankment; it makes +the bridge from the ideal to the real sure and easy. All the +Greek's ideas passed readily into form. In the modern face the +arches are more or less crushed, and the nose is severed from the +brow,--hence the abstract and the analytic; hence the preponderance +of the speculative intellect over creative power. + + + +XVI + +I have thought that the boy is the only true lover of Nature, and +that we, who make such a dead set at studying and admiring her, +come very wide of the mark. "The nonchalance of a boy who is sure +of his dinner," says our Emerson, "is the healthy attitude of +humanity." The boy is a part of Nature; he is as indifferent, as +careless, as vagrant as she. He browses, he digs, he hunts, he +climbs, he halloes, he feeds on roots and greens and mast. He uses +things roughly and without sentiment. The coolness with which boys +will drown dogs or cats, or hang them to trees, or murder young +birds, or torture frogs or squirrels, is like Nature's own +mercilessness. + +Certain it is that we often get some of the best touches of nature +from children. Childhood is a world by itself, and we listen to +children when they frankly speak out of it with a strange interest. +There is such a freedom from responsibility and from worldly +wisdom,--it is heavenly wisdom. There is no sentiment in children, +because there is no ruin; nothing has gone to decay about them +yet,--not a leaf or a twig. Until he is well into his teens, and +sometimes later, a boy is like a bean-pod before the fruit has +developed,--indefinite, succulent, rich in possibilities which are +only vaguely outlined. He is a pericarp merely. How rudimental are +all his ideas! I knew a boy who began his school composition on +swallows by saying there were two kinds of swallows,--chimney +swallows and swallows. + +Girls come to themselves sooner; are indeed, from the first, more +definite and "translatable." + + + +XVII + +Who will write the natural history of the boy? One of the first +points to be taken account of is his clannishness. The boys of one +neighborhood are always pitted against those of an adjoining +neighborhood, or of one end of the town against those of the other +end. A bridge, a river, a railroad track, are always boundaries of +hostile or semi-hostile tribes. The boys that go up the road from +the country school hoot derisively at those that go down the road, +and not infrequently add the insult of stones; and the down-roaders +return the hooting and the missiles with interest. + +Often there is open war, and the boys meet and have regular +battles. A few years since, the boys of two rival towns on opposite +sides of the Ohio River became so belligerent that the authorities +had to interfere. Whenever an Ohio boy was caught on the West +Virginia side of the river, he was unmercifully beaten; and when a +West Virginia boy was discovered on the Ohio side, he was pounced +upon in the same manner. One day a vast number of boys, about one +hundred and fifty on a side, met by appointment upon the ice and +engaged in a pitched battle. Every conceivable missile was used, +including pistols. The battle, says the local paper, raged with +fury for about two hours. One boy received a wound behind the ear, +from the effects of which he died the next morning. More recently +the boys of a large manufacturing town of New Jersey were divided +into two hostile clans that came into frequent collision. One +Saturday both sides mustered their forces, and a regular fight +ensued, one boy here also losing his life from the encounter. + +Every village and settlement is at times the scene of these +youthful collisions When a new boy appears in the village, or at +the country school, how the other boys crowd around him and take +his measure, or pick at him and insult him to try his mettle! + +I knew a boy, twelve or thirteen years old, who was sent to help a +drover with some cattle as far as a certain village ten miles from +his home. After the place was reached, and while the boy was +eating his cracker and candies, he strolled about the village, and +fell in with some other boys playing upon a bridge. In a short +time a large number of children of all sizes had collected upon the +bridge. The new-comer was presently challenged by the boys of his +own age to jump with them. This he readily did, and cleared their +farthest mark. Then he gave them a sample of his stone-throwing, +and at this pastime he also far surpassed his competitors. Before +long, the feeling of the crowd began to set against him, showing +itself first in the smaller fry, who began half playfully to throw +pebbles and lumps of dry earth at him. Then they would run up +slyly and strike him with sticks. Presently the large ones began +to tease him in like manner, till the contagion of hostility +spread, and the whole pack was arrayed against the strange boy. He +kept them at bay for a few moments with his stick, till, the +feeling mounting higher and higher, he broke through their ranks, +and fled precipitately toward home, with the throng of little and +big at his heels. Gradually the girls and smaller boys dropped +behind, till at the end of the first fifty rods only two boys of +about his own size, with wrath and determination in their faces, +kept up the pursuit. But to these he added the final insult of +beating them at running also, and reached, much blown, a point +beyond which they refused to follow. + +The world the boy lives in is separate and distinct from the world +the man lives in. It is a world inhabited only by boys. No events +are important or of any moment save those affecting boys. How they +ignore the presence of their elders on the street, shouting out +their invitations, their appointments, their pass-words from our +midst, as from the veriest solitude! They have peculiar calls, +whistles, signals, by which they communicate with each other at +long distances, like birds or wild creatures. And there is as +genuine a wildness about these notes and calls as about those of a +fox or a coon. + +The boy is a savage, a barbarian, in his taste,--devouring roots, +leaves, bark, unripe fruit; and in the kind of music or discord he +delights in,--of harmony he has no perception. He has his fashions +that spread from city to city. In one of our large cities the rage +at one time was an old tin can with a string attached, out of which +they tortured the most savage and ear-splitting discords. The +police were obliged to interfere and suppress the nuisance. On +another occasion, at Christmas, they all came forth with tin horns, +and nearly drove the town distracted with the hideous uproar. + +Another savage trait of the boy is his untruthfulness. Corner him, +and the chances are ten to one he will lie his way out. Conscience +is a plant of slow growth in the boy. If caught in one lie, he +invents another. I know a boy who was in the habit of eating apples +in school. His teacher finally caught him in the act, and, without +removing his eye from him, called him to the middle of the floor. + +"I saw you this time," said the teacher. + +"Saw me what?" said the boy innocently. + +"Bite that apple," replied the teacher. + +"No, sir," said the rascal. + +"Open your mouth;" and from its depths the teacher, with his thumb +and finger, took out the piece of apple. + +"Did n't know it was there," said the boy, unabashed. + +Nearly all the moral sentiment and graces are late in maturing in +the boy. He has no proper self-respect till past his majority. Of +course there are exceptions, but they are mostly windfalls. The +good boys die young. We lament the wickedness and thoughtlessness +of the young vagabonds at the same time that we know it is mainly +the acridity and bitterness of the unripe fruit that we are +lamenting. + + + + +III A BIRD MEDLEY + +People who have not made friends with the birds do not know how +much they miss. Especially to one living in the country, of strong +local attachments and an observing turn of mind, does an +acquaintance with the birds form a close and invaluable tie. The +only time I saw Thomas Carlyle, I remember his relating, apropos of +this subject, that in his earlier days he was sent on a journey to +a distant town on some business that gave him much bother and +vexation, and that on his way back home, forlorn and dejected, he +suddenly heard the larks singing all about him,--soaring and +singing, just as they did about his father's fields, and it +comforted him and cheered him up amazingly. + +Most lovers of the birds can doubtless recall similar experiences +from their own lives. Nothing wonts me to a new place more than the +birds. I go, for instance, to take up my abode in the country,--to +plant myself upon unfamiliar ground. I know nobody, and nobody +knows me. The roads, the fields, the hills, the streams, the woods, +are all strange. I look wistfully upon them, but they know me not. +They give back nothing to my yearning gaze. But there, on every +hand, are the long-familiar birds,--the same ones I left behind me, +the same ones I knew in my youth,--robins, sparrows, swallows, +bobolinks, crows, hawks, high-holes, meadowlarks, all there before +me, and ready to renew and perpetuate the old associations. Before +my house is begun, theirs is completed; before I have taken root at +all, they are thoroughly established. I do not yet know what kind +of apples my apple-trees bear, but there, in the cavity of a +decayed limb, the bluebirds are building a nest, and yonder, on +that branch, the social sparrow is busy with hairs and straws. The +robins have tasted the quality of my cherries, and the cedar-birds +have known every red cedar on the place these many years. While my +house is yet surrounded by its scaffoldings, the phoebe-bird has +built her exquisite mossy nest on a projecting stone beneath the +eaves, a robin has filled a niche in the wall with mud and dry +grass, the chimney swallows are going out and in the chimney, and a +pair of house wrens are at home in a snug cavity over the door, +and, during an April snowstorm, a number of hermit thrushes have +taken shelter in my unfinished chambers. Indeed, I am in the midst +of friends before I fairly know it. The place is not so new as I +had thought. It is already old; the birds have supplied the +memories of many decades of years. + +There is something almost pathetic in the fact that the birds +remain forever the same. You grow old, your friends die or move to +distant lands, events sweep on, and all things are changed. Yet +there in your garden or orchard are the birds of your boyhood, the +same notes, the same calls, and, to all intents and purposes, the +identical birds endowed with perennial youth. The swallows, that +built so far out of your reach beneath the eaves of your father's +barn, the same ones now squeak and chatter beneath the eaves of +your barn. The warblers and shy wood-birds you pursued with such +glee ever so many summers ago, and whose names you taught to some +beloved youth who now, perchance, sleeps amid his native hills, no +marks of time or change cling to them; and when you walk out to the +strange woods, there they are, mocking you with their ever-renewed +and joyous youth. The call of the high-holes, the whistle of the +quail, the strong piercing note of the meadowlark, the drumming of +the grouse,--how these sounds ignore the years, and strike on the +ear with the melody of that springtime when the world was young, +and life was all holiday and romance! + +During any unusual tension of the feelings or emotions, how the +note or song of a single bird will sink into the memory, and become +inseparably associated with your grief or joy! Shall I ever again +be able to hear the song of the oriole without being pierced +through and through? Can it ever be other than a dirge for the dead +to me? Day after day, and week after week, this bird whistled and +warbled in a mulberry by the door, while sorrow, like a pall, +darkened my day. So loud and persistent was the singer that his +note teased and worried my excited ear. + + "Hearken to yon pine warbler, + Singing aloft in the tree! + Hearest thou, O traveler! + What he singeth to me? + + "Not unless God made sharp thine ear + With sorrow such as mine, + Out of that delicate lay couldst thou + Its heavy tale divine." + +It is the opinion of some naturalists that birds never die what is +called a natural death, but come to their end by some murderous or +accidental means; yet I have found sparrows and vireos in the +fields and woods dead or dying, that bore no marks of violence; and +I remember that once in my childhood a redbird fell down in the +yard exhausted, and was brought in by the girl; its bright scarlet +image is indelibly stamped upon my recollection. It is not known +that birds have any distempers like the domestic fowls, but I saw a +social sparrow one day quite disabled by some curious malady that +suggested a disease that sometimes attacks poultry; one eye was +nearly put out by a scrofulous-looking sore, and on the last joint +of one wing there was a large tumorous or fungous growth that +crippled the bird completely. On another occasion I picked up one +that appeared well, but could not keep its centre of gravity when +in flight, and so fell to the ground. + +One reason why dead birds and animals are so rarely found is, that +on the approach of death their instinct prompts them to creep away +in some hole or under some cover, where they will be least liable +to fall a prey to their natural enemies. It is doubtful if any of +the game-birds, like the pigeon and grouse, ever die of old age, or +the semi-game-birds, like the bobolink, or the "century living" +crow; but in what other form can death overtake the hummingbird, or +even the swift and the barn swallow? Such are true birds of the +air; they may be occasionally lost at sea during their migrations, +but, so far as I know, they are not preyed upon by any other +species. + +The valley of the Hudson, I find, forms a great natural highway for +the birds, as do doubtless the Connecticut, the Susquehanna, the +Delaware, and all other large water-courses running north and +south. The birds love an easy way, and in the valleys of the rivers +they find a road already graded for them; and they abound more in +such places throughout the season than they do farther inland. The +swarms of robins that come to us in early spring are a delight to +behold. In one of his poems Emerson speaks of + + "April's bird, + Blue-coated, flying before from tree to tree;" + +but April's bird with me is the robin, brisk, vociferous, musical, +dotting every field, and larking it in every grove; he is as easily +atop at this season as the bobolink is a month or two later. The +tints of April are ruddy and brown,--the new furrow and the +leafless trees,--and these are the tints of its dominant bird. + +>From my dining-room window I look, or did look, out upon a long +stretch of smooth meadow, and as pretty a spring sight as I ever +wish to behold was this field, sprinkled all over with robins, +their red breasts turned toward the morning sun, or their pert +forms sharply outlined against lingering patches of snow. Every +morning for weeks I had those robins for breakfast; but what they +had I never could find out. + +After the leaves are out, and gayer colors come into fashion, the +robin takes a back seat. He goes to housekeeping in the old apple- +tree, or, what he likes better, the cherry-tree. A pair reared +their domestic altar (of mud and dry grass) in one of the latter +trees, where I saw much of them. The cock took it upon himself to +keep the tree free of all other robins during cherry time, and its +branches were the scene of some lively tussles every hour in the +day. The innocent visitor would scarcely alight before the jealous +cock was upon him; but while he was thrusting the intruder out at +one side, a second would be coming in on the other. He managed, +however, to protect his cherries very well, but had so little time +to eat the fruit himself that we got fully our share. + +I have frequently seen the robin courting, and have always been +astonished and amused at the utter coldness and indifference of the +female. The females of every species of bird, however, I believe, +have this in common,--they are absolutely free from coquetry, or +any airs and wiles whatever. In most cases, Nature has given the +song and the plumage to the other sex, and all the embellishing and +acting is done by the male bird. + +I am always at home when I see the passenger pigeon. Few spectacles +please me more than to see clouds of these birds sweeping across +the sky, and few sounds are more agreeable to my ear than their +lively piping and calling in the spring woods. They come in such +multitudes, they people the whole air; they cover townships, and +make the solitary places gay as with a festival. The naked woods +are suddenly blue as with fluttering ribbons and scarfs, and vocal +as with the voices of children. Their arrival is always unexpected. +We know April will bring the robins and May the bobolinks, but we +do not know that either they or any other month will bring the +passenger pigeon. Sometimes years elapse and scarcely a flock is +seen. Then, of a sudden, some March or April they come pouring over +the horizon from the south or southwest, and for a few days the +land is alive with them. + +The whole race seems to be collected in a few vast swarms or +assemblages. Indeed, I have sometimes thought there was only one +such in the United States, and that it moved in squads, and +regiments, and brigades, and divisions, like a giant army. The +scouting and foraging squads are not unusual, and every few years +we see larger bodies of them, but rarely indeed do we witness the +spectacle of the whole vast tribe in motion. Sometimes we hear of +them in Virginia, or Kentucky and Tennessee; then in Ohio or +Pennsylvania; then in New York; then in Canada or Michigan or +Missouri. They are followed from point to point, and from State to +State, by human sharks, who catch and shoot them for market. + +A year ago last April, the pigeons flew for two or three days up +and down the Hudson. In long bowing lines, or else in dense masses, +they moved across the sky. It was not the whole army, but I should +think at least one corps of it; I had not seen such a flight of +pigeons since my boyhood. I went up to the top of the house, the +better to behold the winged procession. The day seemed memorable +and poetic in which such sights occurred. + + [Footnote: This proved to be the last flight of the pigeons + in the valley of the Hudson. The whole tribe has now (1895) + been nearly exterminated by pot-hunters. The few that still + remain appear to be scattered through the Northern States + in small, loose flocks.] + +While I was looking at the pigeons, a flock of wild geese went by, +harrowing the sky northward. The geese strike a deeper chord than +the pigeons. Level and straight they go as fate to its mark. I +cannot tell what emotions these migrating birds awaken in me,--the +geese especially. One seldom sees more than a flock or two in a +season, and what a spring token it is! The great bodies are in +motion. It is like the passage of a victorious army. No longer inch +by inch does spring come, but these geese advance the standard +across zones at one pull. How my desire goes with them; how +something in me, wild and migratory, plumes itself and follows +fast! + + "Steering north, with raucous cry, + Through tracts and provinces of sky, + Every night alighting down + In new landscapes of romance, + Where darkling feed the clamorous clans + By lonely lakes to men unknown." + +Dwelling upon these sights, I am reminded that the seeing of spring +come, not only upon the great wings of the geese and the lesser +wings of the pigeons and birds, but in the many more subtle and +indirect signs and mediums, is also a part of the compensation of +living in the country. I enjoy not less what may be called the +negative side of spring,-- those dark, dank, dissolving days, +yellow sposh and mud and water everywhere,--yet who can stay long +indoors? The humidity is soft and satisfying to the smell, and to +the face and hands, and, for the first time for months, there is +the fresh odor of the earth. The air is full of the notes and calls +of the first birds. The domestic fowls refuse their accustomed food +and wander far from the barn. Is it something winter has left, or +spring has dropped, that they pick up? And what is it that holds me +so long standing in the yard or in the fields? Something besides +the ice and snow melts and runs away with the spring floods. + +The little sparrows and purple finches are so punctual in +announcing spring, that some seasons one wonders how they know +without looking in the almanac, for surely there are no signs of +spring out of doors. Yet they will strike up as cheerily amid the +driving snow as if they had just been told that to-morrow is the +first day of March. About the same time I notice the potatoes in +the cellar show signs of sprouting. They, too, find out so quickly +when spring is near. Spring comes by two routes,--in the air and +underground, and often gets here by the latter course first. She +undermines Winter when outwardly his front is nearly as bold as +ever. I have known the trees to bud long before, by outward +appearances, one would expect them to. The frost was gone from the +ground before the snow was gone from the surface. + +But Winter hath his birds also; some of them such tiny bodies that +one wonders how they withstand the giant cold,--but they do. Birds +live on highly concentrated food,--the fine seeds of weeds and +grasses, and the eggs and larvae of insects. Such food must be very +stimulating and heating. A gizzard full of ants, for instance, +what spiced and seasoned extract is equal to that? Think what +virtue there must be in an ounce of gnats or mosquitoes, or in the +fine mysterious food the chickadee and the brown creeper gather in +the winter woods! It is doubtful if these birds ever freeze when +fuel enough can be had to keep their little furnaces going. And, as +they get their food entirely from the limbs and trunks of trees, +like the woodpeckers, their supply is seldom interfered with by the +snow. The worst annoyance must be the enameling of ice our winter +woods sometimes get. + +Indeed, the food question seems to be the only serious one with the +birds. Give them plenty to eat, and no doubt the majority of them +would face our winters. I believe all the woodpeckers are winter +birds, except the high-hole or yellow-hammer, and he obtains the +greater part of his subsistence from the ground, and is not a +woodpecker at all in his habits of feeding. Were it not that it has +recourse to budding, the ruffed grouse would be obliged to migrate. +The quail--a bird, no doubt, equally hardy, but whose food is at +the mercy of the snow--is frequently cut off by our severe winters +when it ventures to brave them, which is not often. Where plenty of +the berries of the red cedar can be had, the cedar-bird will pass +the winter in New York. The old ornithologists say the bluebird +migrates to Bermuda; but in the winter of 1874-75, severe as it +was, a pair of them wintered with me eighty miles north of New York +city. They seem to have been decided in their choice by the +attractions of my rustic porch and the fruit of a sugar-berry tree +(celtis--a kind of tree-lotus) that stood in front of it. They +lodged in the porch and took their meals in the tree. Indeed, they +became regular lotus-eaters. Punctually at dusk they were in their +places on a large laurel root in the top of the porch, whence, +however, they were frequently routed by an indignant broom that was +jealous of the neatness of the porch floor. But the pair would not +take any hints of this kind, and did not give up their quarters in +the porch or their lotus berries till spring. + +Many times during the winter the sugar-berry tree was visited by a +flock of cedar-birds that also wintered in the vicinity. At such +times it was amusing to witness the pretty wrath of the bluebirds, +scolding and threatening the intruders, and begrudging them every +berry they ate. The bluebird cannot utter a harsh or unpleasing +note. Indeed, he seems to have but one language, one speech, for +both love and war, and the expression of his indignation is nearly +as musical as his song. The male frequently made hostile +demonstrations toward the cedar-birds, but did not openly attack +them, and, with his mate, appeared to experience great relief when +the poachers had gone. + +I had other company in my solitude also, among the rest a +distinguished arrival from the far north, the pine grosbeak, a bird +rarely seen in these parts, except now and then a single specimen. +But in the winter of 1875, heralding the extreme cold weather, and +no doubt in consequence of it, there was a large incursion of them +into this State and New England. They attracted the notice of the +country people everywhere. I first saw them early in December about +the head of the Delaware. I was walking along a cleared ridge with +my gun, just at sundown, when I beheld two strange birds sitting in +a small maple. On bringing one of them down, I found it was a bird +I had never before seen; in color and shape like the purple finch, +but quite as large again in size. From its heavy beak, I at once +recognized it as belonging to the family of grosbeaks. A few days +later I saw large numbers of them in the woods, on the ground, and +in the trees. And still later, and on till February, they were very +numerous on the Hudson, coming all about my house,--more familiar +even than the little snowbird, hopping beneath the windows, and +looking up at me apparently with as much curiosity as I looked down +upon them. They fed on the buds of the sugar maples and upon frozen +apples in the orchard. They were mostly young birds and females, +colored very much like the common sparrow, with now and then +visible the dull carmine-colored head and neck of an old male. + +Other northern visitors that tarried with me the same winter were +the tree or Canada sparrow and the redpoll, the former a bird +larger than the social sparrow or hair-bird, but otherwise much +resembling it, and distinguishable by a dark spot in the middle of +its breast; the latter a bird the size and shape of the common +goldfinch, with the same manner of flight and nearly the same note +or cry, but darker than the winter plumage of the goldfinch, and +with a red crown and a tinge of red on the breast. Little bands of +these two species lurked about the barnyard all winter, picking up +the hayseed, the sparrow sometimes venturing in on the haymow when +the supply outside was short. I felt grateful to them for their +company. They gave a sort of ornithological air to every errand I +had to the barn. + +Though a number of birds face our winters, and by various shifts +worry through till spring, some of them permanent residents, and +some of them visitors from the far north, yet there is but one +genuine snow bird, nursling of the snow, and that is the snow +bunting, a bird that seems proper to this season, heralding the +coming storm, sweeping by on bold and rapid wing, and calling and +chirping as cheerily as the songsters of May. In its plumage it +reflects the winter landscape,--an expanse of white surmounted or +streaked with gray and brown; a field of snow with a line of woods +or a tinge of stubble. It fits into the scene, and does not appear +to lead a beggarly and disconsolate life, like most of our winter +residents. During the ice-harvesting on the river, I see them +flitting about among the gangs of men, or floating on the cakes of +ice, picking and scratching amid the droppings of the horses. They +love the stack and hay-barn in the distant field, where the farmer +fodders his cattle upon the snow, and every red-root, ragweed, or +pigweed left standing in the fall adds to their winter stores. + +Though this bird, and one or two others, like the chickadee and +nuthatch, are more or less complacent and cheerful during the +winter, yet no bird can look our winters in the face and sing, as +do so many of the English birds. Several species in Great Britain, +their biographers tell us, sing the winter through, except during +the severest frosts; but with us, as far south as Virginia, and, +for aught I know, much farther, the birds are tuneless at this +season. The owls, even, do not hoot, nor the hawks scream. + +Among the birds that tarry briefly with us in the spring on their +way to Canada and beyond, there is none I behold with so much +pleasure as the white-crowned sparrow. I have an eye out for him +all through April and the first week in May. He is the rarest and +most beautiful of the sparrow kind. He is crowned, as some hero or +victor in the games. He is usually in company with his congener, +the white-throated sparrow, but seldom more than in the proportion +of one to twenty of the latter. Contrasted with this bird, he looks +like its more fortunate brother, upon whom some special distinction +has been conferred, and who is, from the egg, of finer make and +quality. His sparrow color of ashen gray and brown is very clear +and bright, and his form graceful. His whole expression, however, +culminates in a singular manner in his crown. The various tints of +the bird are brought to a focus here and intensified, the lighter +ones becoming white, and the deeper ones nearly black. There is the +suggestion of a crest, also, from a habit the bird has of slightly +elevating this part of its plumage, as if to make more conspicuous +its pretty markings. They are great scratchers, and will often +remain several minutes scratching in one place, like a hen. Yet, +unlike the hen and like all hoppers, they scratch with both feet at +once, which is by no means the best way to scratch. + +The white-throats often sing during their sojourning both in fall +and spring; but only on one occasion have I ever heard any part of +the song of the white-crowned, and that proceeded from what I took +to be a young male, one October morning, just as the sun was +rising. It was pitched very low, like a half-forgotten air, but it +was very sweet. It was the song of the vesper sparrow and the +white-throat in one. In his breeding haunts he must be a superior +songster, but he is very chary of his music while on his travels. + +The sparrows are all meek and lowly birds. They are of the grass, +the fences, the low bushes, the weedy wayside places. Nature has +denied them all brilliant tints, but she has given them sweet and +musical voices. Theirs are the quaint and simple lullaby songs of +childhood. The white-throat has a timid, tremulous strain, that +issues from the low bushes or from behind the fence, where its +cradle is hid. The song sparrow modulates its simple ditty as +softly as the lining of its own nest. The vesper sparrow has only +peace and gentleness in its strain. + +What pretty nests, too, the sparrows build! Can anything be more +exquisite than a sparrow's nest under a grassy or mossy bank? What +care the bird has taken not to disturb one straw or spear of grass, +or thread of moss! You cannot approach it and put your hand into it +without violating the place more or less, and yet the little +architect has wrought day after day and left no marks. There has +been an excavation, and yet no grain of earth appears to have been +moved. If the nest had slowly and silently grown like the grass and +the moss, it could not have been more nicely adjusted to its place +and surroundings. There is absolutely nothing to tell the eye it is +there. Generally a few spears of dry grass fall down from the turf +above and form a slight screen before it. How commonly and coarsely +it begins, blending with the debris that lies about, and how it +refines and comes into form as it approaches the centre, which is +modeled so perfectly and lined so softly! Then, when the full +complement of eggs is laid, and incubation has fairly begun, what a +sweet, pleasing little mystery the silent old bank holds! + +The song sparrow, whose nest I have been describing, displays a +more marked individuality in its song than any bird with which I am +acquainted. Birds of the same species generally all sing alike, but +I have observed numerous song sparrows with songs peculiarly their +own. Last season, the whole summer through, one sang about my +grounds like this: _swee-e-t, swee-e-t, swee-e-t, bitter._ Day +after day, from May to September, I heard this strain, which I +thought a simple but very profound summing-up of life, and wondered +how the little bird had learned it so quickly. The present season, +I heard another with a song equally original, but not so easily +worded. Among a large troop of them in April, my attention was +attracted to one that was a master songster,--some Shelley or +Tennyson among his kind. The strain was remarkably prolonged, +intricate, and animated, and far surpassed anything I ever before +heard from that source. + +But the most noticeable instance of departure from the standard +song of a species I ever knew of was in the case of a wood thrush. +The bird sang, as did the sparrow, the whole season through, at the +foot of my lot near the river. The song began correctly and ended +correctly; but interjected into it about midway was a loud, +piercing, artificial note, at utter variance with the rest of the +strain. When my ear first caught this singular note, I started out, +not a little puzzled, to make, as I supposed, a new acquaintance, +but had not gone far when I discovered whence it proceeded. Brass +amid gold, or pebbles amid pearls, are not more out of place than +was this discordant scream or cry in the melodious strain of the +wood thrush. It pained and startled the ear. It seemed as if the +instrument of the bird was not under control, or else that one note +was sadly out of tune, and, when its turn came, instead of giving +forth one of those sounds that are indeed like pearls, it shocked +the ear with a piercing discord. Yet the singer appeared entirely +unconscious of the defect; or had he grown used to it, or had his +friends persuaded him that it was a variation to be coveted? +Sometimes, after the brood had hatched and the bird's pride was at +its full, he would make a little triumphal tour of the locality, +coming from under the hill quite up to the house, and flaunting his +cracked instrument in the face of whoever would listen. He did not +return again the next season; or, if he did, the malformation of +his song was gone. + +I have noticed that the bobolink does not sing the same in +different localities. In New Jersey it has one song; on the +Hudson, a slight variation of the same; and on the high grass-lands +of the interior of the State, quite a different strain,--clearer, +more distinctly articulated, and running off with more sparkle and +liltingness. It reminds one of the clearer mountain air and the +translucent spring-water of those localities. I never could make +out what the bobolink says in New Jersey, but in certain districts +in this State his enunciation is quite distinct. Sometimes he +begins with the word _gegue, gegue._ Then again, more fully, _be +true to me, Clarsy, be true to me, Clarsy, Clarsy,_ thence full +tilt into his inimitable song, interspersed in which the words +_kick your slipper, kick your slipper,_ and temperance, temperance +(the last with a peculiar nasal resonance), are plainly heard. At +its best, it is a remarkable performance, a unique performance, as +it contains not the slightest hint or suggestion, either in tone or +manner or effect, of any other bird-song to be heard. The bobolink +has no mate or parallel in any part of the world. He stands alone. +There is no closely allied species. He is not a lark, nor a finch, +nor a warbler, nor a thrush, nor a starling (though classed with +the starlings by late naturalists). He is an exception to many +well-known rules. He is the only ground-bird known to me of marked +and conspicuous plumage. He is the only black and white field-bird +we have east of the Mississippi, and, what is still more odd, he is +black beneath and white above,--the reverse of the fact in all +other cases. Preëminently a bird of the meadow during the breeding +season, and associated with clover and daisies and buttercups as no +other bird is, he yet has the look of an interloper or a newcomer, +and not of one to the manner born. + +The bobolink has an unusually full throat, which may help account +for his great power of song. No bird has yet been found that could +imitate him, or even repeat or suggest a single note, as if his +song were the product of a new set of organs. There is a vibration +about it, and a rapid running over the keys, that is the despair of +other songsters. It is said that the mockingbird is dumb in the +presence of the bobolink. My neighbor has an English skylark that +was hatched and reared in captivity. The bird is a most persistent +and vociferous songster, and fully as successful a mimic as the +mockingbird. It pours out a strain that is a regular mosaic of +nearly all the bird-notes to be heard, its own proper lark song +forming a kind of bordering for the whole. The notes of the phoebe- +bird, the purple finch, the swallow, the yellowbird, the kingbird, +the robin, and others, are rendered with perfect distinctness and +accuracy, but not a word of the bobolink's, though the lark must +have heard its song every day for four successive summers. It was +the one conspicuous note in the fields around that the lark made no +attempt to plagiarize. He could not steal the bobolink's thunder. + +The lark is a more marvelous songster than the bobolink only on +account of his soaring flight and the sustained copiousness of his +song. His note is rasping and harsh, in point of melody, when +compared with the bobolink's. When caged and near at hand, the +lark's song is positively disagreeable, it is so loud and full of +sharp, aspirated sounds. But high in air above the broad downs, +poured out without interruption for many minutes together, it is +very agreeable. + +The bird among us that is usually called a lark, namely, the +meadowlark, but which our later classifiers say is no lark at all, +has nearly the same quality of voice as the English skylark,--loud, +piercing, z-z-ing; and during the mating season it frequently +indulges while on the wing in a brief song that is quite lark-like. +It is also a bird of the stubble, and one of the last to retreat on +the approach of winter. + +The habits of many of our birds are slowly undergoing a change. +Their migrations are less marked. With the settlement and +cultivation of the country, the means of subsistence of nearly +every species are vastly increased. Insects are more numerous, and +seeds of weeds and grasses more abundant. They become more and more +domestic, like the English birds. The swallows have nearly all left +their original abodes--hollow trees, and cliffs, and rocks--for +human habitations and their environments. Where did the barn +swallow nest before the country was settled? The chimney swallow +nested in hollow trees, and, perhaps, occasionally resorts thither +yet. But the chimney, notwithstanding the smoke, seems to suit his +taste best. In the spring, before they have paired, I think these +swallows sometimes pass the night in the woods, but not if an old, +disused chimney is handy. + +One evening in early May, my attention was arrested by a band of +them containing several hundreds, perhaps a thousand, circling +about near a large, tall, disused chimney in a secluded place in +the country. They were very lively, and chippering, and diving in a +most extraordinary manner. They formed a broad continuous circle +many rods in diameter. Gradually the circle contracted and neared +the chimney. Presently some of the birds as they came round began +to dive toward it, and the chippering was more animated than ever. +Then a few ventured in; in a moment more, the air at the mouth of +the chimney was black with the stream of descending swallows. When +the passage began to get crowded, the circle lifted and the rest of +the birds continued their flight, giving those inside time to +dispose of themselves. Then the influx began again, and was kept up +till the crowd became too great, when it cleared as before. Thus by +installments, or in layers, the swallows were packed into the +chimney until the last one was stowed away. Passing by the place a +few days afterward, I saw a board reaching from the roof of the +building to the top of the chimney, and imagined some curious +person or some predaceous boy had been up to take a peep inside, +and see how so many swallows could dispose of themselves in such a +space. It would have been an interesting spectacle to see them +emerge from the chimney in the morning. + + + + +IV APRIL + +If we represent the winter of our northern climate by a rugged +snow-clad mountain, and summer by a broad fertile plain, then the +intermediate belt, the hilly and breezy uplands, will stand for +spring, with March reaching well up into the region of the snows, +and April lapping well down upon the greening fields and unloosened +currents, not beyond the limits of winter's sallying storms, but +well within the vernal zone,--within the reach of the warm breath +and subtle, quickening influences of the plain below. At its best, +April is the tenderest of tender salads made crisp by ice or snow +water. Its type is the first spear of grass. The senses--sight, +hearing, smell--are as hungry for its delicate and almost spiritual +tokens as the cattle are for the first bite of its fields. How it +touches one and makes him both glad and sad! The voices of the +arriving birds, the migrating fowls, the clouds of pigeons sweeping +across the sky or filling the woods, the elfin horn of the first +honey-bee venturing abroad in the middle of the day, the clear +piping of the little frogs in the marshes at sundown, the campfire +in the sugar-bush, the smoke seen afar rising over the trees, the +tinge of green that comes so suddenly on the sunny knolls and +slopes, the full translucent streams, the waxing and warming sun,-- +how these things and others like them are noted by the eager eye +and ear! April is my natal month, and I am born again into new +delight and new surprises at each return of it. Its name has an +indescribable charm to me. Its two syllables are like the calls of +the first birds,--like that of the phoebe-bird, or of the +meadowlark. Its very snows are fertilizing, and are called the poor +man's manure. + +Then its odors! I am thrilled by its fresh and indescribable +odors,--the perfume of the bursting sod, of the quickened roots and +rootlets, of the mould under the leaves, of the fresh furrows. No +other month has odors like it. The west wind the other day came +fraught with a perfume that was to the sense of smell what a wild +and delicate strain of music is to the ear. It was almost +transcendental. I walked across the hill with my nose in the air +taking it in. It lasted for two days. I imagined it came from the +willows of a distant swamp, whose catkins were affording the bees +their first pollen: or did it come from much farther,--from beyond +the horizon, the accumulated breath of innumerable farms and +budding forests? The main characteristic of these April odors is +their uncloying freshness. They are not sweet, they are oftener +bitter, they are penetrating and lyrical. I know well the odors of +May and June, of the world of meadows and orchards bursting into +bloom, but they are not so ineffable and immaterial and so +stimulating to the sense as the incense of April. + +The season of which I speak does not correspond with the April of +the almanac in all sections of our vast geography. It answers to +March in Virginia and Maryland, while in parts of New York and New +England it laps well over into May. It begins when the partridge +drums, when the hyla pipes, when the shad start up the rivers, when +the grass greens in the spring runs, and it ends when the leaves +are unfolding and the last snowflake dissolves in midair. It may be +the first of May before the first swallow appears, before the whip- +poor-will is heard, before the wood thrush sings; but it is April +as long as there is snow upon the mountains, no matter what the +almanac may say. Our April is, in fact, a kind of Alpine summer, +full of such contrasts and touches of wild, delicate beauty as no +other season affords. The deluded citizen fancies there is nothing +enjoyable in the country till June, and so misses the freshest, +tenderest part. It is as if one should miss strawberries and begin +his fruit-eating with melons and peaches. These last are good,-- +supremely so, they are melting and luscious,--but nothing so +thrills and penetrates the taste, and wakes up and teases the +papillae of the tongue, as the uncloying strawberry. What midsummer +sweetness half so distracting as its brisk sub-acid flavor, and +what splendor of full-leaved June can stir the blood like the best +of leafless April? + +One characteristic April feature, and one that delights me very +much, is the perfect emerald of the spring runs while the fields +are yet brown and sere,--strips and patches of the most vivid +velvet green on the slopes and in the valleys. How the eye grazes +there, and is filled and refreshed! I had forgotten what a marked +feature this was until I recently rode in an open wagon for three +days through a mountainous, pastoral country, remarkable for its +fine springs. Those delicious green patches are yet in my eye. The +fountains flowed with May. Where no springs occurred, there were +hints and suggestions of springs about the fields and by the +roadside in the freshened grass,--sometimes overflowing a space in +the form of an actual fountain. The water did not quite get to the +surface in such places, but sent its influence. + +The fields of wheat and rye, too, how they stand out of the April +landscape,--great green squares on a field of brown or gray! + +Among April sounds there is none more welcome or suggestive to me +than the voice of the little frogs piping in the marshes. No bird- +note can surpass it as a spring token; and as it is not mentioned, +to my knowledge, by the poets and writers of other lands, I am +ready to believe it is characteristic of our season alone. You may +be sure April has really come when this little amphibian creeps out +of the mud and inflates its throat. We talk of the bird inflating +its throat, but you should see this tiny minstrel inflate _its_ +throat, which becomes like a large bubble, and suggests a drummer- +boy with his drum slung very high. In this drum, or by the aid of +it, the sound is produced. Generally the note is very feeble at +first, as if the frost was not yet all out of the creature's +throat, and only one voice will be heard, some prophet bolder than +all the rest, or upon whom the quickening ray of spring has first +fallen. And it often happens that he is stoned for his pains by the +yet unpacified element, and is compelled literally to "shut up" +beneath a fall of snow or a heavy frost. Soon, however, he lifts up +his voice again with more confidence, and is joined by others and +still others, till in due time, say toward the last of the month, +there is a shrill musical uproar, as the sun is setting, in every +marsh and bog in the land. It is a plaintive sound, and I have +heard people from the city speak of it as lonesome and depressing, +but to the lover of the country it is a pure spring melody. The +little piper will sometimes climb a bulrush, to which he clings +like a sailor to a mast, and send forth his shrill call. There is a +Southern species, heard when you have reached the Potomac, whose +note is far more harsh and crackling. To stand on the verge of a +swamp vocal with these, pains and stuns the ear. The call of the +Northern species is far more tender and musical. [Footnote: The +Southern species is called the green hyla. I have since heard them +in my neighborhood on the Hudson.] + +Then is there anything like a perfect April morning? One hardly +knows what the sentiment of it is, but it is something very +delicious. It is youth and hope. It is a new earth and a new sky. +How the air transmits sounds, and what an awakening, prophetic +character all sounds have! The distant barking of a dog, or the +lowing of a cow, or the crowing of a cock, seems from out the heart +of Nature, and to be a call to come forth. The great sun appears to +have been reburnished, and there is something in his first glance +above the eastern hills, and the way his eye-beams dart right and +left and smite the rugged mountains into gold, that quickens the +pulse and inspires the heart. + +Across the fields in the early morning I hear some of the rare +April birds,--the chewink and the brown thrasher. The robin, the +bluebird, the song sparrow, the phoebe-bird, come in March; but +these two ground-birds are seldom heard till toward the last of +April. The ground-birds are all tree-singers or air-singers; they +must have an elevated stage to speak from. Our long-tailed thrush, +or thrasher, like its congeners the catbird and the mockingbird, +delights in a high branch of some solitary tree, whence it will +pour out its rich and intricate warble for an hour together. This +bird is the great American chipper. There is no other bird that I +know of that can chip with such emphasis and military decision as +this yellow-eyed songster. It is like the click of a giant gunlock. +Why is the thrasher so stealthy? It always seems to be going about +on tiptoe. I never knew it to steal anything, and yet it skulks and +hides like a fugitive from justice. One never sees it flying aloft +in the air and traversing the world openly, like most birds, but it +darts along fences and through bushes as if pursued by a guilty +conscience. Only when the musical fit is upon it does it come up +into full view, and invite the world to hear and behold. + +The chewink is a shy bird also, but not stealthy. It is very +inquisitive, and sets up a great scratching among the leaves, +apparently to attract your attention. The male is perhaps the most +conspicuously marked of all the ground-birds except the bobolink, +being black above, bay on the sides, and white beneath. The bay is +in compliment to the leaves he is forever scratching among,--they +have rustled against his breast and sides so long that these parts +have taken their color; but whence come the white and the black? +The bird seems to be aware that his color betrays him, for there +are few birds in the woods so careful about keeping themselves +screened from view. When in song, its favorite perch is the top of +some high bush near to cover. On being disturbed at such times, it +pitches down into the brush and is instantly lost to view. + +This is the bird that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Wilson about, +greatly exciting the latter's curiosity. Wilson was just then upon +the threshold of his career as an ornithologist, and had made a +drawing of the Canada jay which he sent to the President. It was a +new bird, and in reply Jefferson called his attention to a "curious +bird" which was everywhere to be heard, but scarcely ever to be +seen. He had for twenty years interested the young sportsmen of his +neighborhood to shoot one for him, but without success. "It is in +all the forests, from spring to fall," he says in his letter, "and +never but on the tops of the tallest trees, from which it +perpetually serenades us with some of the sweetest notes, and as +clear as those of the nightingale. I have followed it for miles, +without ever but once getting a good view of it. It is of the size +and make of the mockingbird, lightly thrush-colored on the back, +and a grayish white on the breast and belly. Mr. Randolph, my son- +in-law, was in possession of one which had been shot by a +neighbor," etc. Randolph pronounced it a flycatcher, which was a +good way wide of the mark. Jefferson must have seen only the +female, after all his tramp, from his description of the color; but +he was doubtless following his own great thoughts more than the +bird, else he would have had an earlier view. The bird was not a +new one, but was well known then as the ground-robin. The President +put Wilson on the wrong scent by his erroneous description, and it +was a long time before the latter got at the truth of the case. But +Jefferson's letter is a good sample of those which specialists +often receive from intelligent persons who have seen or heard +something in their line very curious or entirely new, and who set +the man of science agog by a description of the supposed novelty,-- +a description that generally fits the facts of the case about as +well as your coat fits the chair-back. Strange and curious things +in the air, and in the water, and in the earth beneath, are seen +every day except by those who are looking for them, namely, the +naturalists. When Wilson or Audubon gets his eye on the unknown +bird, the illusion vanishes, and your phenomenon turns out to be +one of the commonplaces of the fields or woods. + +A prominent April bird, that one does not have to go to the woods +or away from his own door to see and hear, is the hardy and ever- +welcome meadowlark. What a twang there is about this bird, and what +vigor! It smacks of the soil. It is the winged embodiment of the +spirit of our spring meadows. What emphasis in its _"z-d-t, z-d-t"_ +and what character in its long, piercing note! Its straight, +tapering, sharp beak is typical of its voice. Its note goes like a +shaft from a crossbow; it is a little too sharp and piercing when +near at hand, but, heard in the proper perspective, it is eminently +melodious and pleasing. It is one of the major notes of the fields +at this season. In fact, it easily dominates all others. _"Spring +o' the year! spring o' the year!"_ it says, with a long-drawn +breath, a little plaintive, but not complaining or melancholy. At +times it indulges in something much more intricate and lark-like +while hovering on the wing in midair, but a song is beyond the +compass of its instrument, and the attempt usually ends in a +breakdown. A clear, sweet, strong, high-keyed note, uttered from +some knoll or rock, or stake in the fence, is its proper vocal +performance. It has the build and walk and flight of the quail and +the grouse. It gets up before you in much the same manner, and +falls an easy prey to the crack shot. Its yellow breast, surmounted +by a black crescent, it need not be ashamed to turn to the morning +sun, while its coat of mottled gray is in perfect keeping with the +stubble amid which it walks. The two lateral white quills in its +tail seem strictly in character. These quills spring from a dash +of scorn and defiance in the bird's make-up. By the aid of these, +it can almost emit a flash as it struts about the fields and jerks +out its sharp notes. They give a rayed, a definite and piquant +expression to its movements. This bird is not properly a lark, but +a starling, say the ornithologists, though it is lark-like in its +habits, being a walker and entirely a ground-bird. Its color also +allies it to the true lark. I believe there is no bird in the +English or European fields that answers to this hardy pedestrian of +our meadows. He is a true American, and his note one of our +characteristic April sounds. + +Another marked April note, proceeding sometimes from the meadows, +but more frequently from the rough pastures and borders of the +woods, is the call of the high-hole, or golden-shafted woodpecker. +It is quite as strong as that of the meadowlark, but not so long- +drawn and piercing. It is a succession of short notes rapidly +uttered, as if the bird said _"if-if-if-if-if-if-if."_ The notes +of the ordinary downy and hairy woodpeckers suggest, in some way. +the sound of a steel punch; but that of the high-hole is much +softer, and strikes on the ear with real springtime melody. The +high-hole is not so much a wood-pecker as he is a ground-pecker. He +subsists largely on ants and crickets, and does not appear till +they are to be found. + +In Solomon's description of spring, the voice of the turtle is +prominent, but our turtle, or mourning dove, though it arrives in +April, can hardly be said to contribute noticeably to the open-air +sounds. Its call is so vague, and soft, and mournful,--in fact, so +remote and diffused,--that few persons ever hear it at all. + +Such songsters as the cow blackbird are noticeable at this season, +though they take a back seat a little later. It utters a peculiarly +liquid April sound. Indeed, one would think its crop was full of +water, its notes so bubble up and regurgitate, and are delivered +with such an apparent stomachic contraction. This bird is the only +feathered polygamist we have. The females are greatly in excess of +the males, and the latter are usually attended by three or four of +the former. As soon as the other birds begin to build, they are on +the _qui vive,_ prowling about like gypsies, not to steal the young +of others, but to steal their eggs into other birds' nests, and so +shirk the labor and responsibility of hatching and rearing their +own young. As these birds do not mate, and as therefore there can +be little or no rivalry or competition between the males, one +wonders--in view of Darwin's teaching--why one sex should have +brighter and richer plumage than the other, which is the fact. The +males are easily distinguished from the dull and faded females by +their deep glossy-black coats. + +The April of English literature corresponds nearly to our May. In +Great Britain, the swallow and the cuckoo usually arrive by the +middle of April; with us, their appearance is a week or two later. +Our April, at its best, is a bright, laughing face under a hood of +snow, like the English March, but presenting sharper contrasts, a +greater mixture of smiles and tears and icy looks than are known to +our ancestral climate. Indeed, Winter sometimes retraces his steps +in this month, and unburdens himself of the snows that the previous +cold has kept back; but we are always sure of a number of radiant, +equable days,--days that go before the bud, when the sun embraces +the earth with fervor and determination. How his beams pour into +the woods till the mould under the leaves is warm and emits an +odor! The waters glint and sparkle, the birds gather in groups, and +even those unused to singing find a voice. On the streets of the +cities, what a flutter, what bright looks and gay colors! I recall +one preëminent day of this kind last April. I made a note of it in +my note-book. The earth seemed suddenly to emerge from a wilderness +of clouds and chilliness into one of these blue sunlit spaces. How +the voyagers rejoiced! Invalids came forth, old men sauntered down +the street, stocks went up, and the political outlook brightened. + +Such days bring out the last of the hibernating animals. The +woodchuck unrolls and creeps out of his den to see if his clover +has started yet. The torpidity leaves the snakes and the turtles, +and they come forth and bask in the sun. There is nothing so small, +nothing so great, that it does not respond to these celestial +spring days, and give the pendulum of life a fresh start. + +April is also the month of the new furrow. As soon as the frost is +gone and the ground settled, the plow is started upon the hill, and +at each bout I see its brightened mould-board flash in the sun. +Where the last remnants of the snowdrift lingered yesterday the +plow breaks the sod to-day. Where the drift was deepest the grass +is pressed flat, and there is a deposit of sand and earth blown +from the fields to windward. Line upon line the turf is reversed, +until there stands out of the neutral landscape a ruddy square +visible for miles, or until the breasts of the broad hills glow +like the breasts of the robins. + +Then who would not have a garden in April? to rake together the +rubbish and burn it up, to turn over the renewed soil, to scatter +the rich compost, to plant the first seed, or bury the first tuber! +It is not the seed that is planted, any more than it is I that is +planted; it is not the dry stalks and weeds that are burned up, any +more than it is my gloom and regrets that are consumed. An April +smoke makes a clean harvest. + +I think April is the best month to be born in. One is just in time, +so to speak, to catch the first train, which is made up in this +month. My April chickens always turn out best. They get an early +start; they have rugged constitutions. Late chickens cannot stand +the heavy dews, or withstand the predaceous hawks. In April all +nature starts with you. You have not come out of your hibernaculum +too early or too late; the time is ripe, and, if you do not keep +pace with the rest, why, the fault is not in the season. + + + + +V SPRING POEMS + +There is no month oftener on the tongues of the poets than April. +It is the initiative month; it opens the door of the seasons; the +interest and expectations of the untried, the untasted, lurk in it, + + "From you have I been absent in the spring," + +says Shakespeare in one of his sonnets,-- + + "When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, + Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, + That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him." + +The following poem, from Tennyson's "In Memoriam," might be headed +"April," and serve as descriptive of parts of our season:-- + + "Now fades the last long streak of snow, + Now bourgeons every maze of quick + About the flowering squares, and thick + By ashen roots the violets blow. + + "Now rings the woodland loud and long, + The distance takes a lovelier hue, + And drowned in yonder living blue + The lark becomes a sightless song. + + "Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, + The flocks are whiter down the vale, + And milkier every milky sail + On winding stream or distant sea; + + "Where now the sea-mew pipes, or dives + In yonder greening gleam, and fly + The happy birds, that change their sky + To build and brood; that live their lives + + "From land to land; and in my breast + Spring wakens too; and my regret + Becomes an April violet, + And buds and blossoms like the rest." + +In the same poem the poet asks:-- + + "Can trouble live with April days?" + +Yet they are not all jubilant chords that this season awakens. +Occasionally there is an undertone of vague longing and sadness, +akin to that which one experiences in autumn. Hope for a moment +assumes the attitude of memory and stands with reverted look. The +haze, that in spring as well as in fall sometimes descends and +envelops all things, has in it in some way the sentiment of music, +of melody, and awakens pensive thoughts. Elizabeth Akers, in her +"April," has recognized and fully expressed this feeling. I give +the first and last stanzas:-- + + "The strange, sweet days are here again, + The happy-mournful days; + The songs which trembled on our lips + Are half complaint, half praise. + + "Swing, robin, on the budded sprays, + And sing your blithest tune;-- + Help us across these homesick days + Into the joy of June!" + +This poet has also given a touch of spring in her "March," which, +however, should be written "April" in the New England climate:-- + + "The brown buds thicken on the trees, + Unbound, the free streams sing, + As March leads forth across the leas + The wild and windy spring. + + "Where in the fields the melted snow + Leaves hollows warm and wet, + Ere many days will sweetly blow + The first blue violet." + +But on the whole the poets have not been eminently successful in +depicting spring. The humid season, with its tender, melting blue +sky, its fresh, earthy smells, its new furrow, its few simple signs +and awakenings here and there, and its strange feeling of unrest,-- +how difficult to put its charms into words! None of the so-called +pastoral poets have succeeded in doing it. That is the best part of +spring which escapes a direct and matter-of-fact description of +her. There is more of spring in a line or two of Chaucer and +Spenser than in the elaborate portraits of her by Thomson or Pope, +because the former had spring in their hearts, and the latter only +in their inkhorns. Nearly all Shakespeare's songs are spring +songs,--full of the banter, the frolic, and the love-making of the +early season. What an unloosed current, too, of joy and fresh new +life and appetite in Burns! + +In spring everything has such a margin! there are such spaces of +silence! The influences are at work underground. Our delight is in +a few things. The drying road is enough; a single wild flower, the +note of the first bird, the partridge drumming in the April woods, +the restless herds, the sheep steering for the uplands, the cow +lowing in the highway or hiding her calf in the bushes, the first +fires, the smoke going up through the shining atmosphere, from the +burning of rubbish in gardens and old fields,--each of these simple +things fills the breast with yearning and delight, for they are +tokens of the spring. The best spring poems have this singleness +and sparseness. Listen to Solomon: "For lo, the winter is past, the +rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of +the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard +in the land." In Wordsworth are some things that breathe the air of +spring. These lines, written in early spring, afford a good +specimen:-- + + "I heard a thousand blended notes, + While in a grove I sate reclined, + In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts + Bring sad thoughts to the mind." + + "To her fair works did Nature link + The human soul that through me ran; + And much it grieved my heart to think + What man has made of man. + + "Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, + The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; + And 't is my faith that every flower + Enjoys the air it breathes. + + "The birds around me hopped and played, + Their thoughts I cannot measure: + But the least motion which they made + It seemed a thrill of pleasure." + +Or these from another poem, written in his usual study, "Out-of- +Doors," and addressed to his sister:-- + + "It is the first mild day of March, + Each minute sweeter than before; + The redbreast sings from the tall larch + That stands beside the door. + + "There is a blessing in the air, + Which seems a sense of joy to yield + To the bare trees, and mountains bare, + And grass in the green field. + + . . . . . . . . . + + "Love, now a universal birth, + From heart to heart is stealing, + From earth to man, from man to earth; + It is the hour of feeling. + + "One moment now may give us more + Than years of toiling reason: + Our minds shall drink at every pore + The spirit of the season." + +It is the simplicity of such lines, like the naked branches of the +trees or the unclothed fields, and the spring-like depth of feeling +and suggestion they hold, that make them so appropriate to this +season. + +At this season I often find myself repeating these lines of his +also:-- + + "My heart leaps up, when I behold + A rainbow in the sky; + So was it, when my life began; + So is it, now I am a man; + So be it, when I shall grow old, + Or let me die!" + +Though there are so few good poems especially commemorative of the +spring, there have no doubt been spring poets,--poets with such +newness and fullness of life, and such quickening power, that the +world is re-created, as it were, beneath their touch. Of course +this is in a measure so with all real poets. But the difference I +would indicate may exist between poets of the same or nearly the +same magnitude. Thus, in this light Tennyson is an autumnal poet, +mellow and dead-ripe, and was so from the first; while Wordsworth +has much more of the spring in him, is nearer the bone of things +and to primitive conditions. + +Among the old poems, one which seems to me to have much of the +charm of springtime upon it is the story of Cupid and Psyche in +Apuleius. The songs, gambols, and wooings of the early birds are +not more welcome and suggestive. How graceful and airy, and yet +what a tender, profound, human significance it contains! But the +great vernal poem, doubly so in that it is the expression of the +springtime of the race, the boyhood of man as well, is the Iliad of +Homer. What faith, what simple wonder, what unconscious strength, +what beautiful savagery, what magnanimous enmity,--a very paradise +of war! + +Though so young a people, there is not much of the feeling of +spring in any of our books. The muse of our poets is wise rather +than joyous. There is no excess or extravagance or unruliness in +her. There are spring sounds and tokens in Emerson's "May-Day:"-- + + "April cold with dropping rain + Willows and lilacs brings again, + The whistle of returning birds, + And trumpet-lowing of the herds. + The scarlet maple-keys betray + What potent blood hath modest May, + What fiery force the earth renews, + The wealth of forms, the flush of hues; + What joy in rosy waves outpoured + Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord." + +But this is not spring in the blood. Among the works of our young +and rising poets, I am not certain but that Mr. Gilder's "New Day" +is entitled to rank as a spring poem in the sense in which I am +speaking. It is full of gayety and daring, and full of the reckless +abandon of the male bird when he is winning his mate. It is full +also of the tantalizing suggestiveness, the half-lights and shades, +of April and May. + +Of prose poets who have the charm of the springtime upon them, the +best recent example I know of is Björnson, the Norwegian romancist. +What especially makes his books spring-like is their freshness and +sweet good faith. There is also a reticence and an unwrought +suggestiveness about them that is like the promise of buds and +early flowers. Of Turgenieff, the Russian, much the same thing +might be said. His stories are simple and elementary, and have none +of the elaborate hair-splitting and forced hot-house character of +the current English or American novel. They spring from stronger, +more healthful and manly conditions, and have a force in them that +is like a rising, incoming tide. + + + + +VI OUR RURAL DIVINITY + +I wonder that Wilson Flagg did not include the cow among his +"Picturesque Animals," for that is where she belongs. She has not +the classic beauty of the horse, but in picture-making qualities +she is far ahead of him. Her shaggy, loose-jointed body; her +irregular, sketchy outlines, like those of the landscape,--the +hollows and ridges, the slopes and prominences; her tossing horns, +her bushy tail, tier swinging gait, her tranquil, ruminating +habits,--all tend to make her an object upon which the artist eye +loves to dwell. The artists are forever putting her into pictures, +too. In rural landscape scenes she is an important feature. Behold +her grazing in the pastures and on the hillsides, or along banks of +streams, or ruminating under wide-spreading trees, or standing +belly-deep in the creek or pond, or lying upon the smooth places in +the quiet summer afternoon, the day's grazing done, and waiting to +be summoned home to be milked; and again in the twilight lying upon +the level summit of the hill, or where the sward is thickest and +softest; or in winter a herd of them filing along toward the spring +to drink, or being "foddered" from the stack in the field upon the +new snow,--surely the cow is a picturesque animal, and all her +goings and comings are pleasant to behold. + +I looked into Hamerton's clever book on the domestic animals also, +expecting to find my divinity duly celebrated, but he passes her by +and contemplates the bovine qualities only as they appear in the ox +and the bull. + +Neither have the poets made much of the cow, but have rather dwelt +upon the steer, or the ox yoked to the plow. I recall this touch +from Emerson:-- + + "The heifer that lows in the upland farm, + Far heard, lows not thine ear to charm." + +But the ear is charmed, nevertheless, especially if it be not too +near, and the air be still and dense, or hollow, as the farmer +says. And again, if it be springtime and she task that powerful +bellows of hers to its utmost capacity, how round the sound is, and +how far it goes over the hills! + +The cow has at least four tones or lows. First, there is her +alarmed or distressed low when deprived of her calf, or when +separated from her mates,--her low of affection. Then there is her +call of hunger, a petition for food, sometimes full of impatience, +or her answer to the farmer's call, full of eagerness. Then there +is that peculiar frenzied bawl she utters on smelling blood, which +causes every member of the herd to lift its head and hasten to the +spot,--the native cry of the clan. When she is gored or in great +danger she bawls also, but that is different. And lastly, there is +the long, sonorous volley she lets off on the hills or in the yard, +or along the highway, and which seems to be expressive of a kind of +unrest and vague longing,--the longing of the imprisoned Io for her +lost identity. She sends her voice forth so that every god on Mount +Olympus can hear her plaint. She makes this sound in the morning, +especially in the spring, as she goes forth to graze. + +One of our rural poets, Myron Benton, whose verse often has the +flavor of sweet cream, has written some lines called "Rumination," +in which the cow is the principal figure, and with which I am +permitted to adorn my theme. The poet first gives his attention to +a little brook that "breaks its shallow gossip" at his feet and +"drowns the oriole's voice:"-- + + "But moveth not that wise and ancient cow, + Who chews her juicy cud so languid now + Beneath her favorite elm, whose drooping bough + Lulls all but inward vision fast asleep: + But still, her tireless tail a pendulum sweep + Mysterious clock-work guides, and some hid pulley + Her drowsy cud, each moment, raises duly. + + "Of this great, wondrous world she has seen more + Than you, my little brook, and cropped its store + Of succulent grass on many a mead and lawn; + And strayed to distant uplands in the dawn. + And she has had some dark experience + Of graceless man's ingratitude; and hence + Her ways have not been ways of pleasantness, + Nor all her paths of peace. But her distress + And grief she has lived past; your giddy round + Disturbs her not, for she is learned profound + In deep brahminical philosophy. + She chews the cud of sweetest revery + Above your worldly prattle, brooklet merry, + Oblivious of all things sublunary." + +The cow figures in Grecian mythology, and in the Oriental +literature is treated as a sacred animal. "The clouds are cows and +the rain milk." I remember what Herodotus says of the Egyptians' +worship of heifers and steers; and in the traditions of the Celtic +nations the cow is regarded as a divinity. In Norse mythology the +milk of the cow Andhumbla afforded nourishment to the Frost giants, +and it was she that licked into being and into shape a god, the +father of Odin. If anything could lick a god into shape, certainly +the cow could do it. You may see her perform this office for young +Taurus any spring. She licks him out of the fogs and bewilderments +and uncertainties in which he finds himself on first landing upon +these shores, and up onto his feet in an incredibly short time. +Indeed, that potent tongue of hers can almost make the dead alive +any day, and the creative lick of the old Scandinavian mother cow +is only a large-lettered rendering of the commonest facts. + +The horse belongs to the fiery god Mars. He favors war, and is one +of its oldest, most available, and most formidable engines. The +steed is clothed with thunder, and smells the battle from afar; but +the cattle upon a thousand hills denote that peace and plenty bear +sway in the land. The neighing of the horse is a call to battle; +but the lowing of old Brockleface in the valley brings the golden +age again. The savage tribes are never without the horse; the +Scythians are all mounted; but the cow would tame and humanize +them. When the Indians will cultivate the cow, I shall think their +civilization fairly begun. Recently, when the horses were sick with +the epizoötic, and the oxen came to the city and helped to do their +work, what an Arcadian air again filled the streets! But the dear +old oxen,--how awkward and distressed they looked! Juno wept in the +face of every one of them. The horse is a true citizen, and is +entirely at home in the paved streets; but the ox,--what a complete +embodiment of all rustic and rural things! Slow, deliberate, thick- +skinned, powerful, hulky, ruminating, fragrant-breathed, when he +came to town the spirit and suggestion of all Georgics and Bucolics +came with him. O citizen, was it only a plodding, unsightly brute +that went by? Was there no chord in your bosom, long silent, that +sweetly vibrated at the sight of that patient, Herculean couple? +Did you smell no hay or cropped herbage, see no summer pastures +with circles of cool shade, hear no voice of herds among the hills? +They were very likely the only horses your grandfather ever had. +Not much trouble to harness and unharness them. Not much vanity on +the road in those days. They did all the work on the early pioneer +farm. They were the gods whose rude strength first broke the soil. +They could live where the moose and the deer could. If there was no +clover or timothy to be had, then the twigs of the basswood and +birch would do. Before there were yet fields given up to grass, +they found ample pasturage in the woods. Their wide-spreading horns +gleamed in the duskiness, and their paths and the paths of the cows +became the future roads and highways, or even the streets of great +cities. + +All the descendants of Odin show a bovine trace, and cherish and +cultivate the cow. In Norway she is a great feature. Professor +Boyesen describes what he calls the _saeter_, the spring migration +of the dairy and dairymaids, with all the appurtenances of butter +and cheese making, from the valleys to the distant plains upon the +mountains, where the grass keeps fresh and tender till fall. It is +the great event of the year in all the rural districts. Nearly the +whole family go with the cattle and remain with them. At evening +the cows are summoned home with a long horn, called the _loor,_ in +the hands of the milkmaid. The whole herd comes winding down the +mountain-side toward the _saeter_ in obedience to the mellow blast. + +What were those old Vikings but thick-hided bulls that delighted in +nothing so much as goring each other? And has not the charge of +beefiness been brought much nearer home to us than that? But about +all the northern races there is something that is kindred to cattle +in the best sense,--something in their art and literature that is +essentially pastoral, sweet-breathed, continent, dispassionate, +ruminating, wide-eyed, soft-voiced,--a charm of kine, the virtue of +brutes. + +The cow belongs more especially to the northern peoples, to the +region of the good, green grass. She is the true _grazing_ animal. +That broad, smooth, always dewy nose of hers is just the suggestion +of greensward. She caresses the grass; she sweeps off the ends of +the leaves; she reaps it with the soft sickle of her tongue. She +crops close, but she does not bruise or devour the turf like the +horse. She is the sward's best friend, and will make it thick and +smooth as a carpet. + + "The turfy mountains where live the nibbling sheep" + +are not for her. Her muzzle is too blunt; then she does not _bite_ +as do the sheep; she has no upper teeth; she _crops._ But on the +lower slopes, and margins, and rich bottoms, she is at home. Where +the daisy and the buttercup and clover bloom, and where corn will +grow, is her proper domain. The agriculture of no country can long +thrive without her. Not only a large part of the real, but much of +the potential, wealth of the land is wrapped up in her. + +Then the cow has given us some good words and hints. How could we +get along without the parable of the cow that gave a good pail of +milk and then kicked it over? One could hardly keep house without +it. Or the parable of the cream and the skimmed milk, or of the +buttered bread? We know, too, through her aid, what the horns of +the dilemma mean, and what comfort there is in the juicy cud of +reverie. + +I have said the cow has not been of much service to the poets, and +yet I remember that Jean Ingelow could hardly have managed her +"High Tide" without "Whitefoot" and "Lightfoot" and "Cusha! Cusha! +Cusha! calling;" or Trowbridge his "Evening at the Farm," in which +the real call of the American farm-boy of "Co', boss! Co', boss! +Co', Co'," makes a very musical refrain. + +Tennyson's charming "Milking Song" is another flower of poesy that +has sprung up in my divinity's footsteps. + +What a variety of individualities a herd of cows presents when you +have come to know them all, not only in form and color, but in +manners and disposition! Some are timid and awkward, and the butt +of the whole herd. Some remind you of deer. Some have an expression +in the face like certain persons you have known. A petted and well- +fed cow has a benevolent and gracious look; an ill-used and poorly +fed one, a pitiful and forlorn look. Some cows have a masculine or +ox expression; others are extremely feminine. The latter are the +ones for milk. Some cows will kick like a horse; some jump fences +like deer. Every herd has its ringleader, its unruly spirit,--one +that plans all the mischief, and leads the rest through the fences +into the grain or into the orchard. This one is usually quite +different from the master spirit, the "boss of the yard." The +latter is generally the most peaceful and law-abiding cow in the +lot, and the least bullying and quarrelsome. But she is not to be +trifled with; her will is law; the whole herd give way before her, +those that have crossed horns with her and those that have not, but +yielded their allegiance without crossing. I remember such a one +among my father's milkers when I was a boy,--a slender-horned, +deep-shouldered, large-uddered, dewlapped old cow that we always +put first in the long stable, so she could not have a cow on each +side of her to forage upon; for the master is yielded to no less in +the stanchions than in the yard. She always had the first place +anywhere. She had her choice of standing-room in the milking-yard, +and when she wanted to lie down there or in the fields the best and +softest spot was hers. When the herd were foddered from the stack +or barn, or fed with pumpkins in the fall, she was always first +served. Her demeanor was quiet but impressive. She never bullied or +gored her mates, but literally ruled them with the breath of her +nostrils. If any new-comer or ambitious younger cow, however, +chafed under her supremacy, she was ever ready to make good her +claims. And with what spirit she would fight when openly +challenged! She was a whirlwind of pluck and valor; and not after +one defeat or two defeats would she yield the championship. The +boss cow, when overcome, seems to brood over her disgrace, and day +after day will meet her rival in fierce combat. + +A friend of mine, a pastoral philosopher, whom I have consulted in +regard to the master cow, thinks it is seldom the case that one +rules all the herd, if it number many, but that there is often one +that will rule nearly all. "Curiously enough," he says, "a case +like this will often occur: No. 1 will whip No. 2; No. 2 whips No. +3; and No. 3 whips No. 1; so around in a circle. This is not a +mistake; it is often the case. I remember," he continued, "we once +had feeding out of a large bin in the centre of the yard six cows +who mastered right through in succession from No. 1 to No. 6; +_but_ No. 6 _paid off the score by whipping No. 1._ I often watched +them when they were all trying to feed out of the box, and of +course trying, dog-in-the-manger fashion, each to prevent any other +she could. They would often get in the order to do it very +systematically, since they could keep rotating about the box till +the chain happened to get broken somewhere, when there would be +confusion. Their mastership, you know, like that between nations, +is constantly changing. There are always Napoleons who hold their +own through many vicissitudes; but the ordinary cow is continually +liable to lose her foothold. Some cow she has always despised, and +has often sent tossing across the yard at her horns' ends, some +pleasant morning will return the compliment and pay off old +scores." + +But my own observation has been that, in herds in which there have +been no important changes for several years, the question of might +gets pretty well settled, and some one cow becomes the acknowledged +ruler. + +The bully of the yard is never the master, but usually a second or +third rate pusher that never loses an opportunity to hook those +beneath her, or to gore the masters if she can get them in a tight +place. If such a one can get loose in the stable, she is quite +certain to do mischief. She delights to pause in the open bars and +turn and keep those behind her at bay till she sees a pair of +threatening horns pressing toward her, when she quickly passes on. +As one cow masters all, so there is one cow that is mastered by +all. These are the two extremes of the herd, the head and the tail. +Between them are all grades of authority, with none so poor but +hath some poorer to do her reverence. + +The cow has evidently come down to us from a wild or semi-wild +state; perhaps is a descendant of those wild, shaggy cattle of +which a small band is still preserved in some nobleman's park in +Scotland. Cuvier seems to have been of this opinion. One of the +ways in which her wild instincts still crop out is the disposition +she shows in spring to hide her calf,--a common practice among the +wild herds. Her wild nature would be likely to come to the surface +at this crisis if ever; and I have known cows that practiced great +secrecy in dropping their calves. As their time approached, they +grew restless, a wild and excited look was upon them; and if left +free, they generally set out for the woods, or for some other +secluded spot. After the calf is several hours old, and has got +upon its feet and had its first meal, the dam by some sign commands +it to lie down and remain quiet while she goes forth to feed. If +the calf is approached at such time, it plays "possum," pretends to +be dead or asleep, till, on finding this ruse does not succeed, it +mounts to its feet, bleats loudly and fiercely, and charges +desperately upon the intruder. But it recovers from this wild scare +in a little while, and never shows signs of it again. + +The habit of the cow, also, in eating the placenta, looks to me +like a vestige of her former wild instincts,--the instinct to +remove everything that would give the wild beasts a clew or a +scent, and so attract them to her helpless young. + +How wise and sagacious the cows become that run upon the street, or +pick their living along the highway! The mystery of gates and bars +is at last solved to them. They ponder over them by night, they +lurk about them by day, till they acquire a new sense,--till they +become _en rapport_ with them and know when they are open and +unguarded. The garden gate, if it open into the highway at any +point, is never out of the mind of these roadsters, or out of their +calculations. They calculate upon the chances of its being left +open a certain number of times in the season; and if it be but +once, and only for five minutes, your cabbage and sweet corn +suffer. What villager, or countryman either, has not been awakened +at night by the squeaking and crunching of those piratical jaws +under the window, or in the direction of the vegetable patch? I +have had the cows, after they had eaten up my garden, break into +the stable where my own milcher was tied, and gore her and devour +her meal. Yes, life presents but one absorbing problem to the +street cow, and that is how to get into your garden. She catches +glimpses of it over the fence or through the pickets, and her +imagination or her epigastrium is inflamed. When the spot is +surrounded by a high board fence, I think I have seen her peeping +at the cabbages through a knothole. At last she learns to open the +gate. It is a great triumph of bovine wit. She does it with her +horn or her nose, or may be with her ever-ready tongue. I doubt if +she has ever yet penetrated the mystery of the newer patent +fastenings; but the old-fashioned thumb-latch she can see through, +give her time enough. + +A large, lank, muley or polled cow used to annoy me in this way +when I was a dweller in a certain pastoral city. I more than half +suspected she was turned in by some one; so one day I watched. +Presently I heard the gate-latch rattle; the gate swung open, and +in walked the old buffalo. On seeing me she turned and ran like a +horse. I then fastened the gate on the inside and watched again. +After long waiting the old cow came quickly round the corner and +approached the gate. She lifted the latch with her nose. Then, as +the gate did not move, she lifted it again and again. Then she +gently nudged it. Then, the obtuse gate not taking the hint, she +butted it gently, then harder and still harder, till it rattled +again. At this juncture I emerged from my hiding-place, when the +old villain scampered off with great precipitation. She knew she +was trespassing, and she had learned that there were usually some +swift penalties attached to this pastime. + +I have owned but three cows and loved but one. That was the first +one, Chloe, a bright red, curly-pated, golden-skinned Devonshire +cow, that an ocean steamer landed for me upon the banks of the +Potomac one bright May Day many clover summers ago. She came from +the north, from the pastoral regions of the Catskills, to graze +upon the broad commons of the national capital. I was then the +fortunate and happy lessee of an old place with an acre of ground +attached, almost within the shadow of the dome of the Capitol. +Behind a high but aged and decrepit board fence I indulged my rural +and unclerical tastes. I could look up from my homely tasks and +cast a potato almost in the midst of that cataract of marble steps +that flows out of the north wing of the patriotic pile. Ah! when +that creaking and sagging back gate closed behind me in the +evening, I was happy; and when it opened for my egress thence in +the morning, I was not happy. Inside that gate was a miniature +farm, redolent of homely, primitive life, a tumble-down house and +stables and implements of agriculture and horticulture, broods of +chickens, and growing pumpkins, and a thousand antidotes to the +weariness of an artificial life. Outside of it were the marble and +iron palaces, the paved and blistering streets, and the high, +vacant mahogany desk of a government clerk. In that ancient +inclosure I took an earth bath twice a day. I planted myself as +deep in the soil as I could, to restore the normal tone and +freshness of my system, impaired by the above-mentioned government +mahogany. I have found there is nothing like the earth to draw the +various social distempers out of one. The blue devils take flight +at once if they see you mean to bury them and make compost of them. +Emerson intimates that the scholar had better not try to have two +gardens; but I could never spend an hour hoeing up dock and red- +root and twitch-grass without in some way getting rid of many weeds +and fungi, unwholesome growths, that a petty indoor life is forever +fostering in my moral and intellectual nature. + +But the finishing touch was not given till Chloe came. She was the +jewel for which this homely setting waited. My agriculture had some +object then. The old gate never opened with such alacrity as when +she paused before it. How we waited for her coming! Should I send +Drewer, the colored patriarch, for her? No; the master of the house +himself should receive Juno at the capital. + +"One cask for you," said the clerk, referring to the steamer bill +of lading. + +"Then I hope it's a cask of milk," I said. "I expected a cow." + +"One cask, it says here." + +"Well, let's see it; I'll warrant it has horns and is tied by a +rope;" which proved to be the case, for there stood the only object +that bore my name, chewing its cud, on the forward deck. How she +liked the voyage I could not find out; but she seemed to relish so +much the feeling of solid ground beneath her feet once more, that +she led me a lively step all the way home. She cut capers in front +of the White House, and tried twice to wind me up in the rope as we +passed the Treasury. She kicked up her heels on the broad avenue, +and became very coltish as she came under the walls of the Capitol. +But that night the long-vacant stall in the old stable was filled, +and the next morning the coffee had met with a change of heart. I +had to go out twice with the lantern and survey my treasure before +I went to bed. Did she not come from the delectable mountains, and +did I not have a sort of filial regard for her as toward my foster- +mother? + +This was during the Arcadian age at the capital, before the easy- +going Southern ways had gone out and the prim new Northern ways had +come in, and when the domestic animals were treated with +distinguished consideration and granted the freedom of the city. +There was a charm of cattle in the street and upon the commons; +goats cropped your rosebushes through the pickets, and nooned upon +your front porch; and pigs dreamed Arcadian dreams under your +garden fence, or languidly frescoed it with pigments from the +nearest pool. It was a time of peace; it was the poor man's golden +age. Your cow, your goat, your pig, led vagrant, wandering lives, +and picked up a subsistence wherever they could, like the bees, +which was almost everywhere. Your cow went forth in the morning and +came home fraught with milk at night, and you never troubled +yourself where she went or how far she roamed. + +Chloe took very naturally to this kind of life. At first I had to +go with her a few times and pilot her to the nearest commons, and +then I left her to her own wit, which never failed her. What +adventures she had, what acquaintances she made, how far she +wandered, I never knew. I never came across her in my walks or +rambles. Indeed, on several occasions I thought I would look her up +and see her feeding in national pastures, but I never could find +her. There were plenty of cows, but they were all strangers. But +punctually, between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, her +white horns would be seen tossing above the gate and her impatient +low be heard. Sometimes, when I turned her forth in the morning, +she would pause and apparently consider which way she would go. +Should she go toward Kendall Green to-day, or follow the Tiber, or +over by the Big Spring, or out around Lincoln Hospital? She seldom +reached a conclusion till she had stretched forth her neck and +blown a blast on her trumpet that awoke the echoes in the very +lantern on the dome of the Capitol. Then, after one or two licks, +she would disappear around the corner. Later in the season, when +the grass was parched or poor on the commons, and the corn and +cabbage tempting in the garden, Chloe was loath to depart in the +morning, and her deliberations were longer than ever, and very +often I had to aid her in coming to a decision. + +For two summers she was a wellspring of pleasure and profit in my +farm of one acre, when, in an evil moment, I resolved to part with +her and try another. In an evil moment I say, for from that time my +luck in cattle left me. The goddess never forgave me the execution +of that rash and cruel resolve. + +The day is indelibly stamped on my memory when I exposed my Chloe +for sale in the public market-place. It was in November, a bright, +dreamy, Indian summer day. A sadness oppressed me, not unmixed with +guilt and remorse. An old Irish woman came to the market also with +her pets to sell, a sow and five pigs, and took up a position next +me. We condoled with each other; we bewailed the fate of our +darlings together; we berated in chorus the white-aproned but +blood-stained fraternity who prowled about us. When she went away +for a moment I minded the pigs, and when I strolled about she +minded my cow. How shy the innocent beast was of those carnal +marketmen! How she would shrink away from them! When they put out a +hand to feel her condition she would "scrooch" down her back, or +bend this way or that, as if the hand were a branding-iron. So long +as I stood by her head she felt safe--deluded creature!--and chewed +the cud of sweet content; but the moment I left her side she seemed +filled with apprehension, and followed me with her eyes, lowing +softly and entreatingly till I returned. + +At last the money was counted out for her, and her rope surrendered +to the hand of another. How that last look of alarm and +incredulity, which I caught as I turned for a parting glance, went +to my heart! + +Her stall was soon filled, or partly filled, and this time with a +native,--a specimen of what may be called the cornstalk breed of +Virginia; a slender, furtive, long-geared heifer just verging on +cowhood, that in spite of my best efforts would wear a pinched and +hungry look. She evidently inherited a humped back. It was a family +trait, and evidence of the purity of her blood. For the native +blooded cow of Virginia, from shivering over half rations of +cornstalks in the open air during those bleak and windy winters, +and roaming over those parched fields in summer, has come to have +some marked features. For one thing, her pedal extremities seem +lengthened; for another, her udder does not impede her traveling; +for a third, her backbone inclines strongly to the curve; then, she +despiseth hay. This last is a sure test. Offer a thorough-bred +Virginia cow hay, and she will laugh in your face; but rattle the +husks or shucks, and she knows you to be her friend. + +The new-comer even declined corn-meal at first. She eyed it +furtively, then sniffed it suspiciously, but finally discovered +that it bore some relation to her native "shucks," when she fell to +eagerly. + +I cherish the memory of this cow, however, as the most affectionate +brute I ever knew. Being deprived of her calf, she transferred her +affections to her master, and would fain have made a calf of him, +lowing in the most piteous and inconsolable manner when he was out +of her sight, hardly forgetting her grief long enough to eat her +meal, and entirely neglecting her beloved husks. Often in the +middle of the night she would set up that sonorous lamentation, and +continue it till sleep was chased from every eye in the household. +This generally had the effect of bringing the object of her +affection before her, but in a mood anything but filial or +comforting. Still, at such times a kick seemed a comfort to her, +and she would gladly have kissed the rod that was the instrument of +my midnight wrath. + +But her tender star was destined soon to a fatal eclipse. Being +tied with too long a rope on one occasion during my temporary +absence, she got her head into the meal-barrel, and stopped not +till she had devoured nearly half a bushel of dry meal. The +singularly placid and benevolent look that beamed from the meal- +besmeared face when I discovered her was something to be +remembered. For the first time, also, her spinal column came near +assuming a horizontal line. +But the grist proved too much for her frail mill, and her demise +took place on the third day, not of course without some attempt to +relieve her on my part. I gave her, as is usual in such +emergencies, everything I "could think of," and everything my +neighbors could think of, besides some fearful prescriptions which +I obtained from a German veterinary surgeon, but to no purpose. I +imagined her poor maw distended and inflamed with the baking sodden +mass which no physic could penetrate or enliven. + +Thus ended my second venture in live-stock. My third, which +followed sharp upon the heels of this disaster, was scarcely more +of a success. This time I led to the altar a buffalo cow, as they +call the "muley" down South,--a large, spotted, creamy-skinned cow, +with a fine udder, that I persuaded a Jew drover to part with for +ninety dollars. "Pag like a dish rack (rag)," said he, pointing to +her udder after she had been milked. "You vill come pack and gif me +the udder ten tollar" (for he had demanded an even hundred), he +continued, "after you have had her a gouple of days." True, I felt +like returning to him after a "gouple of days," but not to pay the +other ten dollars. The cow proved to be as blind as a bat, though +capable of counterfeiting the act of seeing to perfection. For did +she not lift up her head and follow with her eyes a dog that scaled +the fence and ran through the other end of the lot, and the next +moment dash my hopes thus raised by trying to walk over a locust- +tree thirty feet high? And when I set the bucket before her +containing her first mess of meal, she missed it by several inches, +and her nose brought up against the ground. Was it a kind of far- +sightedness and near blindness? That was it, I think; she had +genius, but not talent; she could see the man in the moon, but was +quite oblivious to the man immediately in her front. Her eyes were +telescopic and required a long range. + +As long as I kept her in the stall, or confined to the inclosure, +this strange eclipse of her sight was of little consequence. But +when spring came, and it was time for her to go forth and seek her +livelihood in the city's waste places, I was embarrassed. Into what +remote corners or into what _terra incognita_ might she not wander! +There was little doubt but that she would drift around home in the +course of the summer, or perhaps as often as every week or two; but +could she be trusted to find her way back every night? Perhaps she +could be taught. Perhaps her other senses were acute enough to +compensate in a measure for her defective vision. So I gave her +lessons in the topography of the country. I led her forth to graze +for a few hours each day and led her home again. Then I left her to +come home alone, which feat she accomplished very encouragingly. +She came feeling her way along, stepping very high, but apparently +a most diligent and interested sight-seer. But she was not sure of +the right house when she got to it, though she stared at it very +hard. + +Again I turned her forth, and again she came back, her telescopic +eyes apparently of some service to her. On the third day, there was +a fierce thunder-storm late in the afternoon, and old buffalo did +not come home. It had evidently scattered and bewildered what +little wits she had. Being barely able to navigate those streets on +a calm day, what could she be expected to do in a tempest? + +After the storm had passed, and near sundown, I set out in quest of +her, but could get no clew. I heard that two cows had been struck +by lightning about a mile out on the commons. My conscience +instantly told me that one of them was mine. It would be a fit +closing of the third act of this pastoral drama. Thitherward I bent +my steps, and there upon the smooth plain I beheld the scorched and +swollen forms of two cows slain by thunderbolts, but neither of +them had ever been mine. + +The next day I continued the search, and the next, and the next. +Finally I hoisted an umbrella over my head, for the weather had +become hot, and set out deliberately and systematically to explore +every foot of open common on Capitol Hill. I tramped many miles, +and found every man's cow but my own,--some twelve or fifteen +hundred, I should think. I saw many vagrant boys and Irish and +colored women, nearly all of whom had seen a buffalo cow that very +day that answered exactly to my description, but in such diverse +and widely separate places that I knew it was no cow of mine. And +it was astonishing how many times I was myself deceived; how many +rumps or heads, or line backs or white flanks, I saw peeping over +knolls, or from behind fences or other objects, that could belong +to no cow but mine! + +Finally I gave up the search, concluded the cow had been stolen, +and advertised her, offering a reward. But days passed, and no +tidings were obtained. Hope began to burn pretty low,--was indeed +on the point of going out altogether,--when one afternoon, as I was +strolling over the commons (for in my walks I still hovered about +the scenes of my lost milcher), I saw the rump of a cow, over a +grassy knoll, that looked familiar. Coming nearer, the beast lifted +up her head; and, behold! it was she! only a few squares from home, +where doubtless she had been most of the time. I had overshot the +mark in my search. I had ransacked the far-off, and had neglected +the near-at-hand, as we are so apt to do. But she was ruined as a +milcher, and her history thenceforward was brief and touching! + + + + +VII BEFORE GENIUS + +If there did not something else go to the making of literature +besides mere literary parts, even the best of them, how long ago +the old bards and the Biblical writers would have been superseded +by the learned professors and the gentlemanly versifiers of later +times! Is there to-day a popular poet, using the English language, +who does not, in technical acquirements and in the artificial +adjuncts of poetry,--rhyme, metre, melody, and especially sweet, +dainty fancies,--surpass Europe's and Asia's loftiest and oldest? +Indeed, so marked is the success of the latter-day poets in this +respect, that any ordinary reader may well be puzzled, and ask, if +the shaggy antique masters are poets, what are the refined and +euphonious producers of our own day? + +If we were to inquire what this something else is which is +prerequisite to any deep and lasting success in literature, we +should undoubtedly find that it is the man behind the book. It is +the fashion of the day to attribute all splendid results to genius +and culture. But genius and culture are not enough. "All other +knowledge is hurtful to him who has not the science of honesty and +goodness," says Montaigne. The quality of simple manhood, and the +universal human traits which form the bond of union between man and +man,--which form the basis of society, of the family, of +government, of friendship,-- are quite overlooked; and the credit +is given to some special facility, or to brilliant and lucky hit. +Does any one doubt that the great poets and artists are made up +mainly of the most common universal human and heroic +characteristics?--that in them, though working to other ends, is +all that construct the soldier, the sailor, the farmer, the +discoverer, the bringer-to-pass in any field, and that their work +is good and enduring in proportion as it is saturated and +fertilized by the qualities of these? Good human stock is the main +dependence. No great poet ever appeared except from a race of good +fighters, good eaters, good sleepers, good breeders. Literature +dies with the decay of the _un-_literary element. It is not in the +spirit of something far away in the clouds or under the moon, +something ethereal, visionary, and anti-mundane, that Angelo, +Dante, and Shakespeare work, but in the spirit of common Nature and +of the homeliest facts; through these, and not away from them, the +path of the creator lies. + +It is no doubt this tendency, always more or less marked in highly +refined and cultivated times, to forget or overlook the primary +basic qualities, and to parade and make much of verbal and +technical acquirements, that led Huxley to speak with such bitter +scorn of the "sensual caterwauling of the literary classes," for +this is not the only country in which books are produced that are a +mere skin of elegant words blown up by copious literary gas. + +In imaginative works, especially, much depends upon the quality of +mere weight. A stern, material inertia is indispensable. It is like +the immobility and the power of resistance of a piece of ordnance, +upon which the force and efficacy of the projectile finally depend. +In the most daring flights of the master, there is still something +which remains indifferent and uncommitted, and which acts as +reserve power, making the man always superior to his work. He must +always leave the impression that if he wanted to pull harder or to +fly higher he could easily do so. In Homer there is much that is +not directly available for Homer's purposes as poet. This is his +personality,--the real Homer,--which lies deeper than his talents +and skill, and which works through these by indirections. This +gives the authority; this is the unseen backer, which makes every +promise good. + +What depths can a man sound but his own, or what heights explore? +"We carry within us," says Sir Thomas Browne, "the wonders we seek +without us." + +Indeed, there is a strict moral or ethical dependence of the +capacity to conceive or to project great things upon the capacity +to be or to do them. It is as true as any law of hydraulics or of +statics, that the workmanship of a man can never rise above the +level of his character. He can never adequately say or do anything +greater than he himself is. There is no such thing, for instance, +as deep insight into the mystery of Creation, without integrity and +simplicity of character. + +In the highest mental results and conditions the whole being +sympathizes. The perception of a certain range of truth, such as is +indicated by Plato, Hegel, Swedenborg, and which is very far from +what is called "religious" or "moral," I should regard as the best +testimonial that could be offered of a man's probity and essential +nobility of soul. Is it possible to imagine a fickle, inconstant, +or a sly, vain, mean person reading and appreciating Emerson? Think +of the real men of science, the great geologists and astronomers, +one opening up time, the other space! Shall mere intellectual +acumen be accredited with these immense results? What noble pride, +self-reliance, and continuity of character underlie Newton's +deductions! + +Only those books are for the making of men into which a man has +gone in the making. Mere professional skill and sleight of hand, of +themselves, are to be apprized as lightly in letters as in war or +in government, or in any kind of leadership. Strong native +qualities only avail in the long run; and the more these dominate +over the artificial endowments, sloughing or dropping the latter in +the final result, the more we are refreshed and enlarged. Who has +not, at some period of his life, been captivated by the rhetoric +and fine style of nearly all the popular authors of a certain sort, +but at last waked up to discover that behind these brilliant names +was no strong, loving man, but only a refined taste, a fertile +invention, or a special talent of one kind or another. + +Think of the lather of the modern novel, and the fashion-plate men +and women that figure in it! What noble person has Dickens +sketched, or has any novelist since Scott? The utter poverty of +almost every current novelist, in any grand universal human traits +in his own character, is shown in nothing more clearly than in the +_kind_ of interest the reader takes in his books. We are led along +solely by the ingenuity of the plot, and a silly desire to see how +the affair came out. What must be the effect, long continued, of +this class of jugglers working upon the sympathies and the +imagination of a nation of gestating women? + +How the best modern novel collapses before the homely but immense +human significance of Homer's celestial swineherd entertaining +divine Ulysses, or even the solitary watchman in Aeschylus' +"Agamemnon," crouched, like a night-dog, on the roofs of the +Atreidae, waiting for the signal fires that should announce the +fall of sacred Ilion! + +But one need not look long, even in contemporary British +literature, to find a man. In the author of "Characteristics" and +"Sartor Resartus" we surely encounter one of the true heroic cast. +We are made aware that here is something more than a _littérateur,_ +something more than genius. Here is veracity, homely directness and +sincerity, and strong primary idiosyncrasies. Here the man enters +into the estimate of the author. There is no separating them, as +there never is in great examples. A curious perversity runs through +all, but in no way vitiates the result. In both his moral and +intellectual nature, Carlyle seems made with a sort of stub and +twist, like the best gun-barrels. The knotty and corrugated +character of his sentences suits well the peculiar and intense +activity of his mind. What a transition from his terse and sharply +articulated pages, brimming with character and life, and a strange +mixture of rage, humor, tenderness, poetry, philosophy, to the cold +disbelief and municipal splendor of Macaulay! Nothing in Carlyle's +contributions seems fortuitous. It all flows from a good and +sufficient cause in the character of the man. + +Every great man is, in a certain way, an Atlas, with the weight of +the world upon him. And if one is to criticise at all, he may say +that, if Carlyle had not been quite so conscious of this weight, +his work would have been better done. Yet to whom do we owe more, +even as Americans? Anti-democratic in his opinions, he surely is +not so in spirit, or in the quality of his make. The nobility of +labor and the essential nobility of man were never so effectively +preached before. The deadliest enemy of democracy is not the +warning or dissenting voice, but it is the spirit, rife among us, +which would engraft upon our hardy Western stock the sickly and +decayed standards of the expiring feudal world. + +With two or three exceptions, there is little as yet in American +literature that shows much advance beyond the merely conventional +and scholastic,--little, I mean, in which one gets a whiff of the +strong, unbreathed air of mountain or prairie, or a taste of rude, +new power that is like the tonic of the sea. Thoreau occupies a +niche by himself. Thoreau was not a great personality, yet his +writings have a strong characteristic flavor. He is anti-scorbutic, +like leeks and onions. He has reference, also, to the highest +truths. + +It is very likely true that our most native and original characters +do not yet take to literature. It is, perhaps, too early in the +day. Iron and lime have to pass through the vegetable before they +can reach the higher organization of the animal, and maybe this +Western nerve and heartiness will yet emerge on the intellectual +plane. Let us hope that it will indeed be Western nerve and +heartiness when it gets there, and not Eastern wit and epigram! + +In Abraham Lincoln we had a character of very marked and lofty +type, the most suggestive study or sketch of the future American +man that has yet appeared in our history. How broad, +unconventional, and humane! How democratic! how adhesive! No fine +arabesque carvings, but strong, unhewn, native traits, and deep +lines of care, toil, and human sympathy. Lincoln's Gettysburg +speech is one of the most genuine and characteristic utterances in +our annals. It has the true antique simplicity and impressiveness. +It came straight from the man, and is as sure an index of character +as the living voice, or the physiognomy, or the personal presence. +Indeed, it may be said of Mr. Lincoln's entire course while at the +head of the nation, that no President, since the first, ever in his +public acts allowed the man so fully to appear, or showed so little +disposition to retreat behind the featureless political mask which +seems to adhere to the idea of gubernatorial dignity. + +It would be hardly fair to cite Everett's speech on the same +occasion as a specimen of the opposite style, wherein ornate +scholarship and the pride of talents dominate. Yet a stern critic +would be obliged to say that, as an author, Everett allowed, for +the most part, only the expurgated, complimenting, drawing-room man +to speak; and that, considering the need of America to be kept +virile and broad at all hazards, his contribution, both as man and +writer, falls immeasurably short of Abraham Lincoln's. + +What a noble specimen of its kind, and how free from any verbal +tricks or admixture of literary sauce, is Thoreau's "Maine Woods"! +And what a marked specimen of the opposite style is a certain other +book I could mention in which these wild and grand scenes serve but +as a medium to advertise the author's fund of classic lore! + +Can there be any doubt about the traits and outward signs of a +noble character, and is not the style of an author the manners of +his soul? + +Is there a lyceum lecturer in the country who is above manoeuvring +for the applause of his audience? or a writer who is willing to +make himself of no account for the sake of what he has to say? Even +in the best there is something of the air and manners of a +performer on exhibition. The newspaper, or magazine, or book is a +sort of raised platform upon which the advertiser advances before a +gaping and expectant crowd. Truly, how well he _handles_ his +subject! He turns it over, and around, and inside out, and top-side +down. He tosses it about; he twirls it; he takes it apart and puts +it together again, and knows well beforehand where the applause +will come in. Any reader, in taking up the antique authors, must be +struck by the contrast. + +"In Aeschylus," says Landor, "there is no trickery, no trifling, no +delay, no exposition, no garrulity, no dogmatism, no declamation, +no prosing, . . . but the loud, clear challenge, the firm, +unstealthy step, of an erect, broad-breasted soldier." + +On the whole, the old authors are better than the new. The real +question of literature is not simplified by culture or a +multiplication of books, as the conditions of life are always the +same, and are not made one whit easier by all the myriads of men +and women who have lived upon the globe. The standing want is never +for more skill, but for newer, fresher power,--a more plentiful +supply of arterial blood. The discoverer, or the historian, or the +man of science, may begin where his predecessor left off, but the +poet or any artist must go back for a fresh start. With him it is +always the first day of creation, and he must begin at the stump or +nowhere. + + + + +VIII BEFORE BEAUTY + +I + +Before genius is manliness, and before beauty is power. The Russian +novelist and poet, Turgenieff, scattered all through whose works +you will find unmistakable traits of greatness, makes one of his +characters say, speaking of beauty, "The old masters,--they never +hunted after it; it comes of itself into their compositions, God +knows whence, from heaven or elsewhere. The whole world belonged to +them, but we are unable to clasp its broad spaces; our arms are too +short." + +>From the same depth of insight come these lines from "Leaves of +Grass," apropos of true poems:-- + +"They do not seek beauty--they are sought; +Forever touching them, or close upon them, follows beauty, longing, + fain, love-sick." + +The Roman was perhaps the first to separate beauty from use, and to +pursue it as ornament merely. He built his grand edifice,--its +piers, its vaults, its walls of brick and concrete,--and then gave +it a marble envelope copied from the Greek architecture. The latter +could be stripped away, as in many cases it was by the hand of +time, and leave the essentials of the structure nearly complete. +Not so with the Greek: he did not seek the beautiful, he was +beauty; his building had no ornament, it was all structure; in its +beauty was the flower of necessity, the charm of inborn fitness and +proportion. In other words, "his art was structure refined into +beautiful forms, not beautiful forms superimposed upon structure," +as with the Roman. And it is in Greek mythology, is it not, that +Beauty is represented as riding upon the back of a lion? as she +assuredly always does in their poetry and art,--rides upon power, +or terror, or savage fate; not only rides upon, but is wedded and +incorporated with it; hence the athletic desire and refreshment her +coming imparts. + +This is the invariable order of nature. Beauty without a rank +material basis enfeebles. The world is not thus made; man is not +thus begotten and nourished. + +It comes to me there is something implied or understood when we +look upon a beautiful object, that has quite as much to do with the +impression made upon the mind as anything in the object itself; +perhaps more. There is somehow an immense and undefined background +of vast and unconscionable energy, as of earthquakes, and ocean +storms, and cleft mountains, across which things of beauty play, +and to which they constantly defer; and when this background is +wanting, as it is in much current poetry, beauty sickens and dies, +or at most has only a feeble existence. + +Nature does nothing merely for beauty; beauty follows as the +inevitable result; and the final impression of health and finish +which her works make upon the mind is owing as much to those things +which are not technically called beautiful as to those which are. +The former give identity to the latter. The one is to the other +what substance is to form, or bone to flesh. The beauty of nature +includes all that is called beautiful, as its flower; and all that +is not called beautiful, as its stalk and roots. + +Indeed, when I go to the woods or the fields, or ascend to the +hilltop, I do not seem to be gazing upon beauty at all, but to be +breathing it like the air. I am not dazzled or astonished; I am in +no hurry to look lest it be gone. I would not have the litter and +debris removed, or the banks trimmed, or the ground painted. What I +enjoy is commensurate with the earth and sky itself. It clings to +the rocks and trees; it is kindred to the roughness and savagery; +it rises from every tangle and chasm; it perches on the dry oak- +stubs with the hawks and buzzards; the crows shed it from their +wings and weave it into their nests of coarse sticks; the fox barks +it, the cattle low it, and every mountain path leads to its haunts. +I am not a spectator of, but a participator in it. It is not an +adornment; its roots strike to the centre of the earth. + +All true beauty in nature or in art is like the iridescent hue of +mother-of-pearl, which is intrinsic and necessary, being the result +of the arrangement of the particles,--the flowering of the +mechanism of the shell; or like the beauty of health which comes +out of and reaches back again to the bones and the digestion. There +is no grace like the grace of strength. What sheer muscular gripe +and power lie back of the firm, delicate notes of the great +violinist! "Wit," says Heine,--and the same thing is true of +beauty,--"isolated, is worthless. It is only endurable when it +rests on a solid basis." + +In fact, beauty as a separate and distinct thing does not exist. +Neither can it be reached by any sorting or sifting or clarifying +process. It is an experience of the mind, and must be preceded by +certain conditions, just as light is an experience of the eye, and +sound of the ear. + +To attempt to manufacture beauty is as vain as to attempt to +manufacture truth; and to give it to us in poems or any form of +art, without a lion of some sort, a lion of truth or fitness or +power, is to emasculate it and destroy its volition. + +But current poetry is, for the most part, an attempt to do this +very thing, to give us beauty without beauty's antecedents and +foil. The poets want to spare us the annoyance of the beast. Since +beauty is the chief attraction, why not have this part alone, pure +and unadulterated,--why not pluck the plumage from the bird, the +flower from its stalk, the moss from the rock, the shell from the +shore, the honey-bag from the bee, and thus have in brief what +pleases us? Hence, with rare exceptions, one feels, on opening the +latest book of poems, like exclaiming, Well, here is the beautiful +at last divested of everything else,--of truth, of power, of +utility,-- and one may add of beauty, too. It charms as color, or +flowers, or jewels, or perfume charms--and that is the end of it. + +It is ever present to the true artist, in his attempt to report +nature, that every object as it stands in the circuit of cause and +effect has a history which involves its surroundings, and that the +depth of the interest which it awakens in us is in proportion as +its integrity in this respect is preserved. In nature we are +prepared for any opulence of color or of vegetation, or freak of +form, or display of any kind, because of the preponderance of the +common, ever-present feature of the earth. The foil is always at +hand. In like manner in the master poems we are never surfeited +with mere beauty. + +Woe to any artist who disengages Beauty from the wide background of +rudeness, darkness, and strength,--and disengages her from absolute +nature! The mild and beneficent aspects of nature,-- what gulfs and +abysses of power underlie them! The great shaggy, barbaric earth,-- +yet the summing-up, the plenum, of all we know or can know of +beauty! So the orbic poems of the world have a foundation as of the +earth itself, and are beautiful because they are something else +first. Homer chose for his groundwork War, clinching, tearing, +tugging war; in Dante, it is Hell; in Milton, Satan and the Fall; +in Shakespeare, it is the fierce Feudal world, with its towering +and kingly personalities; in Byron, it is Revolt and diabolic +passion. When we get to Tennyson, the lion is a good deal tamed, +but he is still there in the shape of the proud, haughty, and manly +Norman, and in many forms yet stimulates the mind. + +The perception of cosmical beauty comes by a vital original +process. It is in some measure a creative act, and those works that +rest upon it make demands--perhaps extraordinary ones--upon the +reader or the beholder. We regard mere surface glitter, or mere +verbal sweetness, in a mood entirely passive, and with a pleasure +entirely profitless. The beauty of excellent stage scenery seems +much more obvious and easy of apprehension than the beauty of trees +and hills themselves, inasmuch as the act of association in the +mind is much easier and cheaper than the act of original +perception. + +Only the greatest works in any department afford any explanation of +this wonder we call nature, or aid the mind in arriving at correct +notions concerning it. To copy here and there a line or a trait is +no explanation; but to translate nature into another language--to +bridge it to us, to repeat in some sort the act of creation itself-- +is the crowning triumph of poetic art. + + + +II + +After the critic has enumerated all the stock qualities of the +poet, as taste, fancy, melody, it remains to be said that unless +there is something in him that is _living identity,_ something +analogous to the growing, pushing, reproducing forces of nature, +all the rest in the end pass for but little. + +This is perhaps what the German critic, Lessing, really means by +_action,_ for true poems are more like deeds, expressive of +something behind, more like acts of heroism or devotion, or like +personal character, than like thoughts or intellections. + +All the master poets have in their work an interior, chemical, +assimilative property, a sort of gastric juice which dissolves +thought and form, and holds in vital fusion religions, times, +races, and the theory of their own construction, naming up with +electric and defiant power,--power without any admixture of +resisting form, as in a living organism. + +There are in nature two types or forms, the cell and the crystal. +One means the organic, the other the inorganic; one means growth, +development, life; +the other means reaction, solidification, rest. The hint and model +of all creative works is the cell; critical, reflective, and +philosophical works are nearer akin to the crystal; while there is +much good literature that is neither the one nor the other +distinctively, but which in a measure touches and includes both. +But crystallic beauty or cut and polished gems of thought, the +result of the reflex rather than the direct action of the mind, we +do not expect to find in the best poems, though they may be most +prized by specially intellectual persons. In the immortal poems the +solids are very few, or do not appear at all as solids,--as lime +and iron,--any more than they do in organic nature, in the flesh of +the peach or the apple. The main thing in every living organism is +the vital fluids: seven tenths of man is water; and seven tenths of +Shakespeare is passion, emotion,--fluid humanity. Out of this arise +his forms, as Venus arose out of the sea, and as man is daily built +up out of the liquids of the body. We cannot taste, much less +assimilate, a solid until it becomes a liquid; and your great idea, +your sermon or moral, lies upon your poem a dead, cumbrous mass +unless there is adequate heat and solvent, emotional power. Herein +I think Wordsworth's "Excursion" fails as a poem. It has too much +solid matter. It is an over-freighted bark that does not ride the +waves buoyantly and lifelike; far less so than Tennyson's "In +Memoriam," which is just as truly a philosophical poem as the +"Excursion." (Wordsworth is the fresher poet; his poems seem really +to have been written in the open air, and to have been brought +directly under the oxygenating influence of outdoor nature; while +in Tennyson this influence seems tempered or farther removed.) + +The physical cosmos itself is not a thought, but an act. Natural +objects do not affect us like well-wrought specimens or finished +handicraft, which have nothing to follow, but as living, +procreating energy. Nature is perpetual transition. Everything +passes and presses on; there is no pause, no completion, no +explanation. To produce and multiply endlessly, without ever +reaching the last possibility of excellence, and without committing +herself to any end, is the law of Nature. + +These considerations bring us very near the essential difference +between prose and poetry, or rather between the poetic and the +didactic treatment of a subject. The essence of creative art is +always the same; namely, interior movement and fusion; while the +method of the didactic or prosaic treatment is fixity, limitation. +The latter must formulate and define; but the principle of the +former is to flow, to suffuse, to mount, to escape. We can conceive +of life only as something constantly _becoming._ It plays forever +on the verge. It is never _in loco,_ but always _in transitu._ +Arrest the wind, and it is no longer the wind; close your hands +upon the light, and behold, it is gone. + +The antithesis of art in method is science, as Coleridge has +intimated. As the latter aims at the particular, so the former aims +at the universal. One would have truth of detail, the other truth +of _ensemble._ The method of science may be symbolized by the +straight line, that of art by the curve. The results of science, +relatively to its aim, must be parts and pieces; while art must +give the whole in every act; not quantitively of course, but +qualitively,--by the integrity of the spirit in which it works. + +The Greek mind will always be the type of the artist mind, mainly +because of its practical bent, its healthful objectivity. The Greek +never looked inward, but outward. Criticism and speculation were +foreign to him. His head shows a very marked predominance of the +motive and perceptive powers over the reflective. The expression of +the face is never what we call intellectual or thoughtful, but +commanding. His gods are not philosophers, but delight in deeds, +justice, rulership. + +Among the differences between the modern and the classical +aesthetic mind is the greater precision and definiteness of the +latter. The modern genius is Gothic, and demands in art a certain +vagueness and spirituality like that of music, refusing to be +grasped and formulated. Hence for us (and this is undoubtedly an +improvement) there must always be something about a poem, or any +work of art, besides the evident intellect or plot of it, or what +is on its surface, or what it tells. This something is the +Invisible, the Undefined, almost Unexpressed, and is perhaps the +best part of any work of art, as it is of a noble personality. To +amuse, to exhibit culture, to formulate the aesthetic, or even to +excite the emotions, is by no means all,--is not even the deepest +part. Beside these, and inclosing all, is the general impalpable +effect, like good air, or the subtle presence of good spirits, +wordless but more potent far than words. As, in the superbest +person, it is not merely what he says or knows or shows, or even +how he behaves, but the silent qualities, like gravitation, that +insensibly but resistlessly hold us; so in a good poem, or in any +other expression of art. + + + + +IX EMERSON + +Wherein the race has so far lost and gained, in being transplanted +from Europe to the New England soil and climate, is well +illustrated by the writings of Emerson. There is greater refinement +and sublimation of thought, greater clearness and sharpness of +outline, greater audacity of statement, but, on the other hand, +there is a loss of bulk, of unction, of adipose tissue, and shall +we say of power? + +Emerson is undoubtedly a master on the New England scale,--such a +master as the land and race are capable of producing. He stands out +clear and undeniable. The national type, as illustrated by that +section of the country, is the purest and strongest in him of any +yet. He can never suffer eclipse. Compared with the English or +German master, he is undoubtedly deficient in viscera, in moral and +intellectual stomach; but, on the other hand, he is of a fibre and +quality hard to match in any age or land. From first to last he +strikes one as something extremely pure and compact, like a nut or +an egg. Great matters and tendencies lie folded in him, or rather +are summarized in his pages. He writes short but pregnant chapters +on great themes, as in his "English Traits," a book like rich +preserves put up pound for pound, a pound of Emerson to every pound +of John Bull. His chapter on Swedenborg in "Representative Men" is +a good sample of his power to abbreviate and restate with added +force. His mind acts like a sun-lens in gathering the cold pale +beams of that luminary to a focus which warms and stimulates the +reader in a surprising manner. The gist of the whole matter is +here; and how much weariness and dullness and plodding is left out! + +In fact, Emerson is an essence, a condensation; more so, perhaps, +than any other man who has appeared in literature. Nowhere else is +there such a preponderance of pure statement, of the very attar of +thought, over the bulkier, circumstantial, qualifying, or secondary +elements. He gives us net results. He is like those strong +artificial fertilizers. A pinch of him is equivalent to a page or +two of Johnson, and he is pitched many degrees higher as an +essayist than even Bacon. He has had an immediate stimulating +effect upon all the best minds of the country; how deep or lasting +this influence will be remains to be seen. + +This point and brevity has its convenience and value especially in +certain fields of literature. I by no means would wish to water +Emerson; yet it will not do to lose sight of the fact that mass and +inertia are indispensable to the creator. Considering him as poet +alone, I have no doubt of his irremediable deficiency here. You +cannot have broad, massive effect, deep light and shade, or a +torrent of power, with such extreme refinement and condensation. +The superphosphates cannot take the place of the coarser, bulkier +fertilizers. Especially in poetry do we require pure thought to be +well diluted with the human, emotional qualities. In the writing +most precious to the race, how little is definition and +intellectual formula, and how much is impulse, emotion, will, +character, blood, chyle! We must have liquids and gases and +solvents. We perhaps get more of them in Carlyle. Emerson's page +has more serene astral beauty than Carlyle's, but not that intense +blast-furnace heat that melts down the most obdurate facts and +characters into something plastic and poetical. Emerson's ideal is +always the scholar, the man of books and ready wit; Carlyle's hero +is a riding or striding ruler, or a master worker in some active +field. + +The antique mind no doubt affords the true type of health and +wholeness in this respect. The Greek could see, and feel, and +paint, and carve, and speak nothing but emotional man. In nature he +saw nothing but personality,--nothing but human or superhuman +qualities; to him the elements all took the human shape. Of that +vague, spiritual, abstract something which we call Nature he had no +conception. He had no sentiment, properly speaking, but impulse and +will-power. And the master minds of the world, in proportion to +their strength, their spinal strength, have approximated to this +type. Dante, Angelo, Shakespeare, Byron, Goethe, saw mainly man, +and him not abstractly but concretely. And this is the charm of +Burns and the glory of Scott. Carlyle has written the best +histories and biographies of modern times, because he sees man with +such fierce and steadfast eyes. Emerson sees him also, but he is +not interested in him as a man, but mainly as a spirit, as a +demigod, or as a wit or a philosopher. + +Emerson's quality has changed a good deal in his later writings. +His corn is no longer in the milk; it has grown hard, and we that +read have grown hard, too. He has now ceased to be an expansive, +revolutionary force, but he has not ceased to be a writer of +extraordinary gripe and unexpected resources of statement. His +startling piece of advice, "Hitch your wagon to a star," is typical +of the man, as combining the most unlike and widely separate +qualities. Because not less marked than his idealism and mysticism +is his shrewd common sense, his practical bent, his definiteness,-- +in fact, the sharp New England mould in which he is cast. He is the +master Yankee, the centennial flower of that thrifty and peculiar +stock. More especially in his later writings and speakings do we +see the native New England traits,--the alertness, eagerness, +inquisitiveness, thrift, dryness, archness, caution, the nervous +energy as distinguished from the old English unction and vascular +force. How he husbands himself,--what prudence, what economy, +always spending up, as he says, and not down! How alert, how +attentive; what an inquisitor; always ready with some test +question, with some fact or idea to match or to verify, ever on the +lookout for some choice bit of adventure or information, or some +anecdote that has pith and point! No tyro basks and takes his ease +in his presence, but is instantly put on trial and must answer or +be disgraced. He strikes at an idea like a falcon at a bird. His +great fear seems to be lest there be some fact or point worth +knowing that will escape him. He is a close-browed miser of the +scholar's gains. He turns all values into intellectual coin. Every +book or person or experience is an investment that will or will not +warrant a good return in ideas. He goes to the Radical Club, or to +the literary gathering, and listens with the closest attention to +every word that is said, in hope that something will be said, some +word dropped, that has the ring of the true metal. Apparently he +does not permit himself a moment's indifference or inattention. +His own pride is always to have the ready change, to speak the +exact and proper word, to give to every occasion the dignity of +wise speech. You are bartered with for your best. There is no +profit in life but in the interchange of ideas, and the chief +success is to have a head well filled with them. Hard cash at that; +no paper promises satisfy him; he loves the clink and glint of the +real coin. + +His earlier writings were more flowing and suggestive, and had +reference to larger problems; but now everything has got weighed +and stamped and converted into the medium of wise and scholarly +conversation. It is of great value; these later essays are so many +bags of genuine coin, which it has taken a lifetime to hoard; not +all gold, but all good, and the fruit of wise industry and economy. + +I know of no other writing that yields the reader so many strongly +stamped medallion-like sayings and distinctions. There is a +perpetual refining and recoining of the current wisdom of life and +conversation. It is the old gold or silver or copper, but how +bright and new it looks in his pages! Emerson loves facts, things, +objects, as the workman his tools. He makes everything serve. The +stress of expression is so great that he bends the most obdurate +element to his purpose; as the bird, under her keen necessity, +weaves the most contrary and diverse materials into her nest. He +seems to like best material that is a little refractory; it makes +his page more piquant and stimulating. Within certain limits he +loves roughness, but not at the expense of harmony. He has +wonderful hardiness and push. Where else in literature is there a +mind, moving in so rare a medium, that gives one such a sense of +tangible resistance and force? It is a principle in mechanics that +velocity is twice as great as mass: double your speed and you +double your heat, though you halve your weight. In like manner this +body we are considering is not the largest, but its speed is great, +and the intensity of its impact with objects and experience is +almost without parallel. Everything about a man like Emerson is +important. I find his phrenology and physiognomy more than +ordinarily typical and suggestive. Look at his picture there,-- +large, strong features on a small face and head,--no blank spaces; +all given up to expression; a high predaceous nose, a sinewy brow, +a massive, benevolent chin. In most men there is more face than +feature, but here is a vast deal more feature than face, and a +corresponding alertness and emphasis of character. Indeed, the man +is made after this fashion. He is all type; his expression is +transcendent. His mind has the hand's pronounced anatomy,--its +cords and sinews and multiform articulations and processes, its +opposing and coordinating power. If his brain is small, its texture +is fine and its convolutions are deep. There have been broader and +more catholic natures, but few so towering and audacious in +expression and so rich in characteristic traits. Every scrap and +shred of him is important and related. Like the strongly aromatic +herbs and simples,--sage, mint, wintergreen, sassafras,--the least +part carries the flavor of the whole. Is there one indifferent or +equivocal or unsympathizing drop of blood in him? Where he is at +all, he is entirely,--nothing extemporaneous; his most casual word +seems to have lain in pickle a long time, and is saturated through +and through with the Emersonian brine. Indeed, so pungent and +penetrating is his quality that even his quotations seem more than +half his own. + +He is a man who occupies every inch of his rightful territory; he +is there in proper person to the farthest bound. Not every man is +himself and his best self at all times and to his finger points. +Many great characters, perhaps the greatest, have more or less +neutral or waste ground. You must penetrate a distance before you +reach the real quick. Or there is a good wide margin of the +commonplace which is sure to put them on good terms with the mass +of their fellow-citizens. And one would think Emerson could afford +to relax a little; that he had earned the right to a dull page or +two now and then. The second best or third best word sometimes +would make us appreciate his first best all the more. Even his god- +father Plato nods occasionally, but Emerson's good breeding will +not for a moment permit such a slight to the reader. + +Emerson's peculiar quality is very subtle, but very sharp and firm +and unmistakable. It is not analogous to the commoner, slower-going +elements, as heat, air, fire, water, but is nearer akin to that +elusive but potent something we call electricity. It is abrupt, +freaky, unexpected, and always communicates a little wholesome +shock. It darts this way and that, and connects the far and the +near in every line. There is always a leaping thread of light, and +there is always a kind of answering peal or percussion. With what +quickness and suddenness extremes are brought together! The reader +is never prepared for what is to come next; the spark will most +likely leap from some source or fact least thought of. His page +seldom glows and burns, but there is a never-ceasing crackling and +discharge of moral and intellectual force into the mind. + +His chief weapon, and one that he never lays down, is identical +with that of the great wits, namely, surprise. The point of his +remark or idea is always sprung upon the reader, never quietly laid +before him. He has a mortal dread of tameness and flatness, and +would make the very water we drink bite the tongue. + +He has been from the first a speaker and lecturer, and his style +has been largely modeled according to the demand of those sharp, +heady New England audiences for ceaseless intellectual friction +and chafing. Hence every sentence is braided hard, and more or less +knotted, and, though of silk, makes the mind tingle. He startles by +overstatement, by understatement, by paradox, by antithesis, and by +synthesis. Into every sentence enters the unexpected,--the +congruous leaping from the incongruous, the high coming down, the +low springing up, likeness or relation suddenly coming into view +where before was only difference or antagonism. How he delights to +bring the reader up with a short turn, to impale him on a knotty +point, to explode one of his verbal bombshells under his very nose! +Yet there is no trickery or rhetorical legerdemain. His heroic +fibre always saves him. + +The language in which Taine describes Bacon applies with even more +force to Emerson:-- + +"Bacon," he says, "is a producer of conceptions and of sentences. +The matter being explored, he says to us: 'Such it is; touch it not +on that side; it must be approached from the other.' Nothing more; +no proof, no effort to convince; he affirms, and nothing more; he +has thought in the manner of artists and poets, and he speaks after +the manner of prophets and seers. 'Cogita et visa,'--this title of +one of his books might be the title of all. His process is that of +the creators; it is intuition, not reasoning. . . . There is +nothing more hazardous, more like fantasy, than this mode of +thought when it is not checked by natural and good strong common +sense. This common sense, which is a kind of natural divination, +the stable equilibrium of an intellect always gravitating to the +true, like the needle to the north pole, Bacon possesses in the +highest degree. He has a preëminently practical, even an +utilitarian mind." + +It is significant, and is indeed the hidden seed or root out of +which comes the explanation of much, if not the main part, of his +life and writings, that Emerson comes of a long line of clergymen; +that the blood in his veins has been teaching, and preaching, and +thinking, and growing austere, these many generations. One wonders +that it is still so bounding and strong, so red with iron and quick +with oxygen. But in him seems to be illustrated one of those rare +cases in the genealogy of families where the best is carried +forward each time, and steadily recruited and intensified. It does +not seem possible for any man to become just what Emerson is from +the stump, though perhaps great men have been the fruit of one +generation; but there is a quality in him, an aroma of fine +manners, a propriety, a chivalry in the blood, that dates back, and +has been refined and transmitted many times. Power is born with a +man, and is always first hand, but culture, genius, noble +instincts, gentle manners, or the easy capacity for these things, +may be, and to a greater or a lesser extent are, the contribution +of the past. Emerson's culture is radical and ante-natal, and never +fails him. The virtues of all those New England ministers and all +those tomes of sermons are in this casket. One fears sometimes that +he has been too much clarified, or that there is not enough savage +grace or original viciousness and grit in him to save him. How he +hates the roysterers, and all the rank, turbulent, human passions, +and is chilled by the thought that perhaps after all Shakespeare +led a vulgar life! + +When Tyndall was here, he showed us how the dark, coarse, invisible +heat rays could be strained out of the spectrum; or, in other +words, that every solar beam was weighted with a vast, nether, +invisible side, which made it a lever of tremendous power in +organic nature. After some such analogy, one sees how the highest +order of power in the intellectual world draws upon and is +nourished by those rude, primitive, barbaric human qualities that +our culture and pietism tend to cut off and strain out. Our culture +has its eye on the other end of the spectrum, where the fine violet +and indigo rays are; but all the lifting, rounding, fructifying +powers of the system are in the coarse, dark rays--the black devil-- +at the base. The angel of light is yoked with the demon of +darkness, and the pair create and sustain the world. + +In rare souls like Emerson, the fruit of extreme culture, it is +inevitable that at least some of the heat rays should be lost, and +we miss them especially when we contrast him with the elder +masters. The elder masters did not seem to get rid of the coarse or +vulgar in human life, but royally accepted it, and struck their +roots into it, and drew from it sustenance and power: but there is +an ever-present suspicion that Emerson prefers the saints to the +sinners; prefers the prophets and seers to Homer, Shakespeare, and +Dante. Indeed, it is to be distinctly stated and emphasized, that +Emerson is essentially a priest, and that the key to all he has +said and written is to be found in the fact that his point of view +is not that of the acceptor, the creator,--Shakespeare's point of +view,--but that of the refiner and selector, the priest's point of +view. He described his own state rather than that of mankind when +he said, "The human mind stands ever in perplexity, demanding +intellect, demanding sanctity, impatient equally of each without +the other." + +Much surprise has been expressed in literary circles in this +country that Emerson has not followed up his first off-hand +indorsement of Walt Whitman with fuller and more deliberate +approval of that poet, but has rather taken the opposite tack. But +the wonder is that he should have been carried off his feet at all +in the manner he was; and it must have been no ordinary breeze that +did it. Emerson shares with his contemporaries the vast +preponderance of the critical and discerning intellect over the +fervid, manly qualities and faith. His power of statement is +enormous; his scope of being is not enormous. The prayer he uttered +many years ago for a poet of the modern, one who could see in the +gigantic materialism of the times the carnival of the same deities +we so much admire in Greece and Rome, seems to many to have even +been explicitly answered in Whitman; but Emerson is balked by the +cloud of materials, the din and dust of action, and the moving +armies, in which the god comes enveloped. + +But Emerson has his difficulties with all the poets. Homer is too +literal, Milton too literary, and there is too much of the whooping +savage in Whitman. He seems to think the real poet is yet to +appear; a poet on new terms, the reconciler, the poet-priest,--one +who shall unite the whiteness and purity of the saint with the +power and unction of the sinner; one who shall bridge the chasm +between Shakespeare and St. John. For when our Emerson gets on his +highest horse, which he does only on two or three occasions, he +finds Shakespeare only a half man, and that it would take Plato and +Manu and Moses and Jesus to complete him. Shakespeare, he says, +rested with the symbol, with the festal beauty of the world, and +did not take the final step, and explore the essence of things, and +ask, "Whence? What? and Whither?" He was not wise for himself; he +did not lead a beautiful, saintly life, but ate, and drank, and +reveled, and affiliated with all manner of persons, and quaffed the +cup of life with gusto and relish. The elect, spotless souls will +always look upon the heat and unconscious optimism of the great +poet with deep regret. But if man would not become emasculated, if +human life is to continue, we must cherish the coarse as well as +the fine, the root as well as the top and flower. The poet-priest +in the Emersonian sense has never yet appeared, and what reason +have we to expect him? The poet means life, the whole of life,--all +your ethics and philosophies, and essences and reason of things, in +vital play and fusion, clothed with form and color, and throbbing +with passion: the priest means a part, a thought, a precept; he +means suppression, expurgation, death. To have gone farther than +Shakespeare would have been to cease to be a poet, and to become a +mystic or a seer. + +Yet it would be absurd to say, as a leading British literary +journal recently did, that Emerson is not a poet. He is one kind of +a poet. He has written plenty of poems that are as melodious as the +hum of a wild bee in the air,--chords of wild aeolian music. + +Undoubtedly his is, on the whole, a bloodless kind of poetry. It +suggests the pale gray matter of the cerebrum rather than flesh and +blood. Mr. William Rossetti has made a suggestive remark about him. +He is not so essentially a poet, says this critic, as he is a Druid +that wanders among the bards, and strikes the harp with even more +than bardic stress. + +Not in the poetry of any of his contemporaries is there such a +burden of the mystery of things, nor are there such round wind-harp +tones, nor lines so tense and resonant, and blown upon by a breeze +from the highest heaven of thought. In certain respects he has gone +beyond any other. He has gone beyond the symbol to the thing +signified. He has emptied poetic forms of their meaning and made +poetry of that. He would fain cut the world up into stars to shine +in the intellectual firmament. He is more and he is less than the +best. + +He stands among other poets like a pine-tree amid a forest of oak +and maple. He seems to belong to another race, and to other climes +and conditions. He is great in one direction, up; no dancing +leaves, but rapt needles; never abandonment, never a tossing and +careering, never an avalanche of emotion; the same in sun and snow, +scattering his cones, and with night and obscurity amid his +branches. He is moral first and last, and it is through his +impassioned and poetic treatment of the moral law that he gains +such an ascendency over his reader. He says, as for other things he +makes poetry of them, but the moral law makes poetry of him. He +sees in the world only the ethical, but he sees it through the +aesthetic faculty. Hence his page has the double charm of the +beautiful and the good. + + + +II + +One of the penalties Emerson pays for his sharp decision, his +mental pertinence and resistance, is the curtailment of his field +of vision and enjoyment. He is one of those men whom the gods drive +with blinders on, so that they see fiercely in only a few +directions. Supreme lover as he is of poetry,--Herrick's poetry,-- +yet from the whole domain of what may be called emotional poetry, +the poetry of fluid humanity, tallied by music, he seems to be shut +out. This may be seen by his reference to Shelley in his last book, +"Letters and Social Aims," and by his preference of the +metaphysical poet throughout his writings. Wordsworth's famous +"Ode" is, he says, the high-water mark of English literature. What +he seems to value most in Shakespeare is the marvelous wit, the +pregnant sayings. He finds no poet in France, and in his "English +Traits" credits Tennyson with little but melody and color. (In our +last readings, do we not surely come to feel the manly and robust +fibre beneath Tennyson's silken vestments?) He demands of poetry +that it be a kind of spiritual manna, and is at last forced to +confess that there are no poets, and that when such angels do +appear, Homer and Milton will be tin pans. + +One feels that this will not do, and that health, and wholeness, +and the well-being of man are more in the keeping of Shakespeare +than in the hands of Zoroaster or any of the saints. I doubt if +that rarefied air will make good red blood and plenty of it. + +But Emerson makes his point plain, and is not indebted to any of +his teachers for it. It is the burden of all he writes upon the +subject. The long discourse that opens his last volume [footnote: +_Letters and Social Aims_] has numerous subheadings, as "Poetry," +"Imagination," "Creation," "Morals," and "Transcendency;" but it!s +all a plea for transcendency. I am reminded of the story of an old +Indian chief who was invited to some great dinner where the first +course was "succotash." When the second course was ready the old +Indian said he would have a little more succotash, and when the +third was ready he called for more succotash and so with the fourth +and fifth, and on to the end. In like manner Emerson will have +nothing but the "spiritual law" in poetry, and he has an enormous +appetite for that. Let him have it, but why should +he be so sure that mankind all want succotash? Mankind finally +comes to care little for what any poet has to _say,_ but only for +what he has to _sing._ We want the pearl of thought dissolved in +the wine of life. How much better are sound bones and a good +digestion in poetry than all the philosophy and transcendentalism +in the world! + +What one comes at last to want is power, mastery; and, whether it +be mastery over the subtleties of the intellect, as in Emerson +himself, or over the passions and the springs of action, as in +Shakespeare, or over our terrors and the awful hobgoblins of hell +and Satan, as in Dante, or over vast masses and spaces of nature +and the abysms of aboriginal man, as in Walt Whitman, what matters +it? Are we not refreshed by all? There is one mastery in Burns, +another in Byron, another in Rabelais, and in Victor Hugo, and in +Tennyson; and though the critic has his preferences, though he +affect one more than another, yet who shall say this one is a poet +and that one is not? "There may be any number of supremes," says +the master, and "one by no means contravenes another." Every gas is +a vacuum to every other gas, says Emerson, quoting the scientist; +and every great poet complements and leaves the world free to every +other great poet. + +Emerson's limitation or fixity is seen also in the fact that he has +taken no new step in his own direction, if indeed another step +could be taken in that direction and not step off. He is a prisoner +on his peak. He cannot get away from the old themes. His later +essays are upon essentially the same subjects as his first. He +began by writing on nature, greatness, manners, art, poetry, and he +is still writing on them. He is a husbandman who practices no +rotation of crops, but submits to the exhaustive process of taking +about the same things from his soil year after year. Some readers +think they detect a falling off. It is evident there is not the +same spontaneity, and that the soil has to be more and more stirred +and encouraged, which is not at all to be wondered at. + +But if Emerson has not advanced, he has not receded, at least in +conviction and will, which is always the great danger with our bold +prophets. The world in which he lives, the themes upon which he +writes, never become hackneyed to him. They are always fresh and +new. He has hardened, but time has not abated one jot or tittle +his courage and hope,--no cynicism and no relaxing of his hold, no +decay of his faith, while the nobleness of his tone, the chivalry +of his utterance, is even more marked than at first. Better a +hundred-fold than his praise of fine manners is the delicacy and +courtesy and the grace of generous breeding displayed on every +page. Why does one grow impatient and vicious when Emerson writes +of fine manners and the punctilios of conventional life, and feel +like kicking into the street every divinity enshrined in the +drawing-room? It is a kind of insult to a man to speak the word in +his presence. Purify the parlors indeed by keeping out the +Choctaws, the laughers! Let us go and hold high carnival for a +week, and split the ears of the groundlings with our "contemptible +squeals of joy." And when he makes a dead set at praising +eloquence, I find myself instantly on the side of the old clergyman +he tells of who prayed that he might never be eloquent; or when he +makes the test of a man an intellectual one, as his skill at +repartee, and praises the literary crack shot, and defines +manliness to be readiness, as he does in this last volume and in +the preceding one, I am filled with a perverse envy of all the +confused and stammering heroes of history. Is Washington faltering +out a few broken and ungrammatical sentences, in reply to the vote +of thanks of the Virginia legislature, less manly than the glib +tongue in the court-room or in the club that can hit the mark every +time? The test of a wit or of a scholar is one thing; the test of a +man, I take it, is quite another. In this and some other respects +Emerson is well antidoted by Carlyle, who lays the stress on the +opposite qualities, and charges his hero to hold his tongue. But +one cheerfully forgives Emerson the way he puts his thumb-nail on +the bores. He speaks feelingly, and no doubt from as deep an +experience as any man in America. + +I really hold Emerson in such high esteem that I think I can safely +indulge myself in a little more fault-finding with him. + +I think it must be admitted that he is deficient in sympathy. This +accounts in a measure for his coolness, his self-possession, and +that kind of uncompromising rectitude or inflexibleness that marks +his career, and that he so lauds in his essays. No man is so little +liable to be warped or compromised in any way as the unsympathetic +man. Emerson's ideal is the man who stands firm, who is unmoved, +who never laughs, or apologizes, or deprecates, or makes +concessions, or assents through good-nature, or goes abroad; who is +not afraid of giving offense; "who answers you without supplication +in his eye,"--in fact, who stands like a granite pillar amid the +slough of life. You may wrestle with this man, he says, or swim +with him, or lodge in the same chamber with him, or eat at the same +table, and yet he is a thousand miles off, and can at any moment +finish with you. He is a sheer precipice, is this man, and not to +be trifled with. You shrinking, quivering, acquiescing natures, +avaunt! You sensitive plants, you hesitating, indefinite creatures, +you uncertain around the edges, you non-resisting, and you heroes, +whose courage is quick, but whose wit is tardy, make way, and let +the human crustacean pass. Emerson is moulded upon this pattern. +It is no mush and milk that you get at this table. "A great man is +coming to dine with me; I do not wish to please him; I wish that he +should wish to please me." On the lecture stand he might be of +wood, so far as he is responsive to the moods and feelings of his +auditors. They must come to him; he will not go to them: but they +do not always come. Latterly the people have felt insulted, the +lecturer showed them so little respect. Then, before a promiscuous +gathering, and in stirring and eventful times like ours, what +anachronisms most of his lectures are, even if we take the high +ground that they are pearls before swine! The swine may safely +demand some apology of him who offers them pearls instead of corn. + +Emerson's fibre is too fine for large public uses. He is what he +is, and is to be accepted as such, only let us _know_ what he is. +He does not speak to universal conditions, or to human nature in +its broadest, deepest, strongest phases. His thought is far above +the great sea level of humanity, where stand most of the world's +masters. He is like one of those marvelously clear mountain lakes +whose water-line runs above all the salt seas of the globe. He is +very precious, taken at his real worth. Why find fault with the +isolation and the remoteness in view of the sky-like purity and +depth? + +Still I must go on sounding and exploring him, reporting where I +touch bottom and where I do not. He reaps great advantage from his +want of sympathy. The world makes no inroads upon him through this +channel. He is not distracted by the throng or maybe the mob of +emotions that find entrance here. He shines like a star undimmed by +current events. He speaks as from out the interstellar spaces. 'T +is vulgar sympathy makes mortals of us all, and I think Emerson's +poetry finally lacks just that human coloring and tone, that flesh +tint of the heart, which vulgar sympathy with human life as such +imparts. + +But after we have made all possible deductions from Emerson, there +remains the fact that he is a living force, and, tried by home +standards, a master. Wherein does the secret of his power lie? He +is the prophet and philosopher of young men. The old man and the +man of the world make little of him, but of the youth who is ripe +for him he takes almost an unfair advantage. One secret of his +charm I take to be the instant success with which he transfers our +interest in the romantic, the chivalrous, the heroic, to the sphere +of morals and the intellect. We are let into another realm unlooked +for, where daring and imagination also lead. The secret and +suppressed heart finds a champion. To the young man fed upon the +penny precepts and staple Johnsonianism of English literature, and +upon what is generally doled out in the schools and colleges, it is +a surprise; it is a revelation. A new world opens before him. The +nebulae of his spirit are resolved or shown to be irresolvable. The +fixed stars of his inner firmament are brought immeasurably near. +He drops all other books. He will gaze and wonder. From Locke or +Johnson or Wayland to Emerson is like a change from the school +history to the Arabian Nights. There may be extravagances and some +jugglery, but for all that the lesson is a genuine one, and to us +of this generation immense. + +Emerson is the knight-errant of the moral sentiment. He leads, in +our time and country, one illustrious division, at least, in the +holy crusade of the affections and the intuitions against the +usurpations of tradition and theological dogma. He marks the +flower, the culmination, under American conditions and in the finer +air of the New World, of the reaction begun by the German +philosophers, and passed along by later French and English +thinkers, of man against circumstance, of spirit against form, of +the present against the past. What splendid affirmation, what +inspiring audacity, what glorious egoism, what generous brag, what +sacred impiety! There is an _eclat_ about his words, and a brave +challenging of immense odds, that is like an army with banners. It +stirs the blood like a bugle-call: beauty, bravery, and a sacred +cause,--the three things that win with us always. The first essay +is a forlorn hope. See what the chances are: "The world exists for +the education of each man. . . . He should see that he can live all +history in his own person. He must sit solidly at home, and not +suffer himself to be bullied by kings or empires, but know that he +is greater than all the geography and all the government of the +world; he must transfer the point of view from which history is +commonly read from Rome and Athens and London to himself, and not +deny his conviction that he is the court, and, if England or Egypt +have anything to say to him, he will try the case; if not, let them +forever be silent." In every essay that follows, there are the +same great odds and the same electric call to the youth to face +them. It is, indeed, as much a world of fable and romance that +Emerson introduces us to as we get in Homer or Herodotus. It is +true, all true,--true as Arthur and his knights, or Pilgrim's +Progress, and I pity the man who has not tasted its intoxication, +or who can see nothing in it. + +The intuitions are the bright band, without armor or shield, that +slay the mailed and bucklered giants of the understanding. +Government, institutions, religions, fall before the glance of the +hero's eye. Art and literature, Shakespeare, Angelo, Aeschylus, are +humble suppliants before you, the king. The commonest fact is +idealized, and the whole relation of man to the universe is thrown +into a kind of gigantic perspective. It is not much to say there is +exaggeration; the very start makes Mohammed's attitude toward the +mountain tame. The mountain _shall_ come to Mohammed, and, in the +eyes of all born readers of Emerson, the mountain does come, and +comes with alacrity. + +Some shrewd judges apprehend that Emerson is not going to last; +basing their opinion upon the fact, already alluded to, that we +outgrow him, or pass through him as through an experience that we +cannot repeat. He is but a bridge to other things; he gets you +over. He is an exceptional fact in literature, say they, and does +not represent lasting or universal conditions. He is too fine for +the rough wear and tear of ages. True, we do not outgrow Dante, or +Cervantes, or Bacon; and I doubt if the Anglo-Saxon stock at least +ever outgrows that king of romancers, Walter Scott. These men and +their like appeal to a larger audience, and in some respects a more +adult one, at least one more likely to be found in every age and +people. Their achievement was more from the common level of human +nature than are Emerson's astonishing paradoxes. Yet I believe his +work has the seal of immortality upon it as much as that of any of +them. No doubt he has a meaning to us now and in this country that +will be lost to succeeding time. His religious significance will +not be so important to the next generation. He is being or has been +so completely absorbed by his times, that readers and hearers +hereafter will get him from a thousand sources, or his contribution +will become the common property of the race. All the masters +probably had some peculiar import or tie to their contemporaries +that we at a distance miss. It is thought by scholars that we have +lost the key, or one key, to Dante, and Chaucer, and Shakespeare,-- +the key or the insight that people living under the same roof get +of each other. + +But, aside from and over and above everything else, Emerson +_appeals to youth and to genius._ If you have these, you will +understand him and delight in him; if not, or neither of them, you +will make little of him. And I do not see why this should not be +just as true any time hence as at present. + + + + +X THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE + + TO WALT WHITMAN + + "'I, thirty-six years old, in perfect health, begin, + Hoping to cease not till death.'" + CHANTS DEMOCRATIC. + + + "They say that thou art sick, art growing old, + Thou Poet of unconquerable health, + With youth far-stretching, through the golden wealth + Of autumn, to Death's frostful, friendly cold. + The never-blenching eyes, that did behold + Life's fair and foul, with measureless content, + And gaze ne'er sated, saddened as they bent + Over the dying soldier in the fold + Of thy large comrade love;--then broke the tear! + War-dream, field-vigil, the bequeathed kiss, + Have brought old age to thee; yet, Master, now, + Cease not thy song to us; lest we should miss + A death-chant of indomitable cheer, + Blown as a gale from God;--oh sing it thou!" + ARRAN LEIGH (England). + +I + +Whoever has witnessed the flight of any of the great birds, as the +eagle, the condor, the sea-gulls, the proud hawks, has perhaps felt +that the poetic suggestion of the feathered tribes is not all +confined to the sweet and tiny songsters,--the thrushes, canaries, +and mockingbirds of the groves and orchards, or of the gilded cage +in my lady's chamber. It is by some such analogy that I would +indicate the character of the poetry I am about to discuss, +compared with that of the more popular and melodious singer,--the +poetry of the strong wing and the daring flight. + +Well and profoundly has a Danish critic said, in "For Ide og +Virkelighed" ("For the Idea and the Reality"), a Copenhagen +magazine:-- + +"It may be candidly admitted that the American poet has not the +elegance, special melody, nor _recherché_ aroma of the accepted +poets of Europe or his own country; but his compass and general +harmony are infinitely greater. The sweetness and spice, the poetic +_ennui,_ the tender longings, the exquisite art-finish of those +choice poets are mainly unseen and unmet in him,--perhaps because +he cannot achieve them, more likely because he disdains them. But +there is an electric _living soul_ in his poetry, far more +fermenting and bracing. His wings do not glitter in their movement +from rich and varicolored plumage, nor are his notes those of the +accustomed song-birds; but his flight is the flight of the eagle." + +Yes, there is not only the delighting of the ear with the +outpouring of sweetest melody and its lessons, but there is the +delighting of the eye and soul through that soaring and circling in +the vast empyrean of "a strong bird on pinions free,"--lessons of +freedom, power, grace, and spiritual suggestion,--vast, +unparalleled, _formless_ lessons. + +It is now upwards of twenty years since Walt Whitman printed (in +1855) his first thin beginning volume of "Leaves of Grass;" and, +holding him to the test which he himself early proclaimed, namely, +"that the proof of the poet shall be sternly deferred till his +country has absorb'd him as affectionately as he has absorb'd it," +he is yet on trial, yet makes his appeal to an indifferent or to a +scornful audience. That his complete absorption, however, by his +own country and by the world, is ultimately to take place, is one +of the beliefs that grows stronger and stronger within me as time +passes, and I suppose it is with a hope to help forward this +absorption that I write of him now. Only here and there has he yet +effected a lodgment, usually in the younger and more virile minds. +But considering the unparalleled audacity of his undertaking, and +the absence in most critics and readers of anything like full-grown +and robust aesthetic perception, the wonder really is not that he +should have made such slow progress, but that he should have gained +any foothold at all. The whole literary _technique_ of the race for +the last two hundred years has been squarely against him, laying, +as it does, the emphasis upon form and scholarly endowments instead +of upon aboriginal power and manhood. + +My own mastery of the poet, incomplete as it is, has doubtless been +much facilitated by contact--talks, meals, and jaunts--with him, +stretching through a decade of years, and by seeing how everything +in his _personnel_ was resumed and carried forward in his literary +expression; in fact, how the one was a living commentary upon the +other. After the test of time, nothing goes home like the test of +actual intimacy; and to tell me that Whitman is not a large, fine, +fresh, magnetic personality, making you love him and want always to +be with him, were to tell me that my whole past life is a +deception, and all the impression of my perceptive faculties a +fraud. I have studied him as I have studied the birds, and have +found that the nearer I got to him the more I saw. Nothing about a +first-class man can be overlooked; he is to be studied in every +feature,--in his physiology and phrenology, in the shape of his +head, in his brow, his eye, his glance, his nose, his ear (the ear +is as indicative in a man as in a horse), his voice. In Whitman all +these things are remarkably striking and suggestive. His face +exhibits a rare combination of harmony and sweetness with +strength,--strength like the vaults and piers of the Roman +architecture. Sculptor never carved a finer ear or a more +imaginative brow. Then his heavy-lidded, absorbing eye, his +sympathetic voice, and the impression which he makes of starting +from the broad bases of the universal human traits. (If Whitman was +grand in his physical and perfect health, I think him far more so +now (1877), cheerfully mastering paralysis, penury, and old age.) +You know, on seeing the man and becoming familiar with his +presence, that, if he achieve the height at all, it will be from +where every man stands, and not from some special genius, or +exceptional and adventitious point. He does not make the impression +of the scholar or artist or _littérateur,_ but such as you would +imagine the antique heroes to make,--that of a sweet-blooded, +receptive, perfectly normal, catholic man, with, further than that, +a look about him that is best suggested by the word elemental or +cosmical. It was this, doubtless, that led Thoreau to write, after +an hour's interview, that he suggested "something a little more +than human." In fact, the main clew to Walt Whitman's life and +personality, and the expression of them in his poems, is to be +found in about the largest emotional element that has appeared +anywhere. This, if not controlled by a potent rational balance, +would either have tossed him helplessly forever, or wrecked him as +disastrously as ever storm and gale drove ship to ruin. These +volcanic emotional fires appear everywhere in his books; and it is +really these, aroused to intense activity and unnatural strain +during the four years of the war and his persistent labors in the +hospitals, that have resulted in his illness and paralysis since. + +It has been impossible, I say, to resist these personal impressions +and magnetisms, and impossible with me not to follow them up in the +poems, in doing which I found that his "Leaves of Grass" was really +the _drama of himself,_ played upon various and successive stages +of nature, history, passion, experience, patriotism, and that he +had not made, nor had he intended to make, mere excellent "poems," +tunes, statues, or statuettes, in the ordinary sense. + +Before the man's complete acceptance and assimilation by America, +he may have to be first passed down through the minds of critics +and commentators, and given to the people with some of his rank new +quality taken off,--a quality like that which adheres to objects in +the open air, and makes them either forbidding or attractive, as +one's mood is healthful and robust or feeble and languid. The +processes are silently at work. Already seen from a distance, and +from other atmospheres and surroundings, he assumes magnitude and +orbic coherence; for in curious contrast to the general denial of +Whitman in this country (though he has more lovers and admirers +here than is generally believed) stands the reception accorded him +in Europe. The poets there, almost without exception, recognize his +transcendent quality, the men of science his thorough scientific +basis, the republicans his inborn democracy, and all his towering +picturesque personality and modernness. Professor Clifford says he +is more thoroughly in harmony with the spirit and letter of +advanced scientism than any other living poet. Professor Tyrrell +and Mr. Symonds find him eminently Greek, in the sense in which to +be natural and "self-regulated by the law of perfect health" is to +be Greek. The French "Revue des Deux Mondes" pronounces his war +poems the most vivid, the most humanly passionate, and the most +modern, of all the verse of the nineteenth century. Freiligrath +translated him into German, and hailed him as the founder of a new +democratic and modern order of poetry, greater than the old. But I +do not propose to go over the whole list here; I only wish to +indicate that the absorption is well commenced abroad, and that +probably her poet will at last reach America by way of those far- +off, roundabout channels. The old mother will first masticate and +moisten the food which is still too tough for her offspring. + +When I first fell in with "Leaves of Grass," I was taken by +isolated passages scattered here and there through the poems; these +I seized upon, and gave myself no concern about the rest. Single +lines in it often went to the bottom of the questions that were +vexing me. The following, though less here than when encountered in +the frame of mind which the poet begets in you, curiously settled +and stratified a certain range of turbid, fluctuating inquiry:-- + + "There was never any more inception than there is now,-- + Nor any more youth or age than there is now; + And will never be any more perfection than there is now, + Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now." + +These lines, also, early had an attraction for me I could not +define, and were of great service:-- + + "Pleasantly and well-suited I walk, + Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good, + The whole universe indicates that it is good, + The past and the present indicate that it is good." + +In the following episode, too, there was to me something far deeper +than the words or the story:-- + + "The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside; + I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the wood-pile; + Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak, + And went where he sat on a log, and led him in, and assured him, + And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and + bruis'd feet, + And gave him a room that entered from my own, and gave him some + coarse clean clothes; + And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness, + And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles: + He stayed with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd North; + (I had him sit next me at table--my firelock lean'd in the corner.)" + +But of the book as a whole I could form no adequate conception, and +it was not for many years, and after I had known the poet himself, +as already stated, that I saw in it a teeming, rushing globe well +worthy my best days and strength to surround and comprehend. + +One thing that early took me in the poems was (as before alluded +to) the tremendous personal force back of them, and felt through +them as the sun through vapor; not merely intellectual grasp or +push, but a warm, breathing, towering, magnetic Presence that there +was no escape from. + +Another fact I was quick to perceive, namely, that this man had +almost in excess a quality in which every current poet was +lacking,--I mean the faculty of being in entire sympathy with +actual nature, and the objects; and shows of nature, and of rude, +abysmal man; and appalling directness of utterance therefrom, at +first hand, without any intermediate agency or modification. + +The influence of books and works of art upon an author may be seen +in all respectable writers. If knowledge alone made literature, or +culture genius, there would be no dearth of these things among the +moderns. But I feel bound to say that there is something higher and +deeper than the influence or perusal of any or all books, or all +other productions of genius,--a quality of information which the +masters can never impart, and which all the libraries do not hold. +This is the absorption by an author, previous to becoming so, of +the spirit of nature, through the visible objects of the universe, +and his affiliation with them subjectively and objectively. Not +more surely is the blood quickened and purified by contact with the +unbreathed air than is the spirit of man vitalized and made strong +by intercourse with the real things of the earth. The calm, all- +permitting, wordless spirit of nature,--yet so eloquent to him who +hath ears to hear! The sunrise, the heaving sea, the woods and +mountains, the storm and the whistling winds, the gentle summer +day, the winter sights and sounds, the night and the high dome of +stars,--to have really perused these, especially from childhood +onward, till what there is in them, so impossible to define, finds +its full mate and echo in the mind,--this only is the lore which +breathes the breath of life into all the rest. Without it, literary +productions may have the superb beauty of statues, but with it only +can they have the beauty of life. + +I was never troubled at all by what the critics called Whitman's +want of art, or his violation of art. I saw that he at once +designedly swept away all which the said critics have commonly +meant by that term. The dominant impression was of the living +presence and voice. He would have no curtains, he said, not the +finest, between himself and his reader; and in thus bringing me +face to face with his subject I perceived he not only did not +escape conventional art, but I perceived an enlarged, enfranchised +art in this very abnegation of art. "When half-gods go, whole gods +arrive." It was obvious to me that the new style gained more than +it lost, and that in this fullest operatic launching forth of the +voice, though it sounded strange at first, and required the ear to +get used to it, there might be quite as much science, and a good +deal more power, than in the tuneful but constricted measures we +were accustomed to. + +To the eye the page of the new poet presented about the same +contrast with the page of the popular poets that trees and the +free, unbidden growths of nature do with a carefully clipped hedge; +and to the spirit the contrast was about the same. The hedge is the +more studiedly and obviously beautiful, but, ah! there is a kind of +beauty and satisfaction in trees that one would not care to lose. +There are symmetry and proportion in the sonnet, but to me there is +something I would not exchange for them in the wild swing and +balance of many free and unrhymed passages in Shakespeare; like the +one, for instance, in which these lines occur:-- + + "To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, + And blown with restless violence round + About the pendent world." + +Here is the spontaneous grace and symmetry of a forest tree, or a +soughing mass of foliage. + +And this passage from my poet I do not think could be improved by +the verse-maker's art:-- + + "This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded + heaven, + And I said to my Spirit, _When we become the enfolders of those orbs + and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be + fill'd and satisfied then?_ + And my Spirit said, No, _we but level that lift, to pass and continue + beyond."_ + +Such breaking with the routine poetic, and with the grammar of +verse, was of course a dangerous experiment, and threw the composer +absolutely upon his intrinsic merits, upon his innately poetic and +rhythmic quality. He must stand or fall by these alone, since he +discarded all artificial, all adventitious helps. If interior, +spontaneous rhythm could not be relied on, and the natural music +and flexibility of language, then there was nothing to shield the +ear from the pitiless hail of words,--not one softly padded verse +anywhere. + +All poets, except those of the very first order, owe immensely to +the form, the art, the stereotyped metres, and stock figures they +find ready to hand. The form is suggestive,--it invites and aids +expression, and lends itself readily, like fashion, to conceal, or +extenuate, or eke out poverty of thought and feeling in the verse. +The poet can "cut and cover," as the farmer says, in a way the +prose-writer never can, nor one whose form is essentially prose, +like Whitman's. + +I, too, love to see the forms worthily used, as they always are by +the master; and I have no expectation that they are going out of +fashion right away. A great deal of poetry that serves, and helps +sweeten one's cup, would be impossible without them,--would be +nothing when separated from them. It is for the ear, and for the +sense of tune and of carefully carved and modeled forms, and is not +meant to arouse the soul with the taste of power, and to start off +on journeys for itself. But the great inspired utterances, like the +Bible,--what would they gain by being cast in the moulds of +metrical verse? In all that concerns art, viewed from any high +standpoint,--proportion, continence, self-control, unfaltering +adherence to natural standards, subordination of parts, perfect +adjustment of the means to the end, obedience to inward law, no +trifling, no levity, no straining after effect, impartially +attending to the back and loins as well as to the head, and even +holding toward his subject an attitude of perfect acceptance and +equality,--principles of art to which alone the great spirits are +amenable,--in all these respects, I say, this poet is as true as an +orb in astronomy. + +To his literary expression pitched on scales of such unprecedented +breadth and loftiness, the contrast of his personal life comes in +with a foil of curious homeliness and simplicity. Perhaps never +before has the absolute and average _commonness of humanity_ been +so steadily and unaffectedly adhered to. I give here a glimpse of +him in Washington on a Navy Yard horse-car, toward the close of the +war, one summer day at sundown. The car is crowded and +suffocatingly hot, with many passengers on the rear platform, and +among them a bearded, florid-faced man, elderly but agile, resting +against the dash, by the side of the young conductor, and evidently +his intimate friend. The man wears a broad-brim white hat. Among +the jam inside, near the door, a young Englishwoman, of the working +class, with two children, has had trouble all the way with the +youngest, a strong, fat, fretful, bright babe of fourteen or +fifteen months, who bids fair to worry the mother completely out, +besides becoming a howling nuisance to everybody. As the car tugs +around Capitol Hill the young one is more demoniac than ever, and +the flushed and perspiring mother is just ready to burst into tears +with weariness and vexation. The car stops at the top of the hill +to let off most of the rear platform passengers, and the white- +hatted man reaches inside, and, gently but firmly disengaging the +babe from its stifling place in the mother's arms, takes it in his +own, and out in the air. The astonished and excited child, partly +in fear, partly in satisfaction at the change, stops its screaming, +and, as the man adjusts it more securely to his breast, plants its +chubby hands against him, and, pushing off as far as it can, gives +a good long look squarely in his face,--then, as if satisfied, +snuggles down with its head on his neck, and in less than a minute +is sound and peacefully asleep without another whimper, utterly +fagged out. A square or so more and the conductor, who has had an +unusually hard and uninterrupted day's work, gets off for his first +meal and relief since morning. And now the white-hatted man, +holding the slumbering babe, also acts as conductor the rest of the +distance, keeping his eye on the passengers inside, who have by +this time thinned out greatly. He makes a very good conductor, too, +pulling the bell to stop or to go on as needed, and seems to enjoy +the occupation. The babe meanwhile rests its fat cheeks close on +his neck and gray beard, one of his arms vigilantly surrounding it, +while the other signals, from time to time, with the strap; and the +flushed mother inside has a good half hour to breathe, and to cool +and recover herself. + + + +II + +No poem of our day dates and locates itself as absolutely as +"Leaves of Grass;" but suppose it had been written three or four +centuries ago, and +had located itself in mediaeval Europe, and was now first brought +to light, together with a history of Walt Whitman's simple and +disinterested life, can there be any doubt about the cackling that +would at once break out in the whole brood of critics over the +golden egg that had been uncovered? This +reckon would be a favorite passage with all:-- + + "You sea! I resign myself to you also--I guess what you mean; + I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers; + I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me; + We must have a turn together--I undress--hurry me out of sight of + the land; + Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse; + Dash me with amorous wet--I can repay you. + + "Sea of stretch'd ground-swells! + Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths! + Sea of the brine of life! sea of unshovel'd yet always ready graves! + Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea! + I am integral with you--I too am of one phase, and of all phases." + +This other passage would afford many a text for the moralists and +essayists:-- + + "Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarship, + and the like; + To me, all that those persons have arrived at sinks away from them, + except as it results to their Bodies and Souls, + So that often, to me, they appear gaunt and naked, + And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and mocks himself + or herself, + And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness, is full of + the rotten excrement of maggots; + And often, to me, those men and women pass unwittingly the true + realities of life, and go toward false realities, + And often, to me, they are alive after what custom has served + them, but nothing more, + And often, to me, they are sad, hasty, unwaked somnambules, + walking the dusk." + +Ah, Time, you enchantress! what tricks you play with us! The old is +already proved,--the past and the distant hold nothing but the +beautiful. + +Or let us take another view. Suppose Walt Whitman had never +existed, and some bold essayist, like Mr. Higginson or Matthew +Arnold, had projected him in abstract, outlined him on a scholarly +ideal background, formulated and put in harmless critical periods +the principles of art which he illustrates, and which are the +inevitable logic of his poems,-- said essayist would have won great +applause. "Yes, indeed, that were a poet to cherish; fill those +shoes and you have a god." + +How different a critic's account of Shakespeare from Shakespeare +himself,--the difference between the hewn or sawed timber and the +living tree! A few years ago we had here a lecturer from over seas, +who gave to our well-dressed audiences the high, moral, and +intellectual statement of the poet Burns. It was very fine, and +people were greatly pleased, vastly more so, I fear, than they were +with Burns himself. Indeed, I could not help wondering how many of +those appreciative listeners had any original satisfaction in the +Scotch poet at first hand, or would have accepted him had he been +their neighbor and fellow-citizen. But as he filtered through the +scholarly mind in trickling drops, oh, he was so sweet! + +Everybody stirred with satisfaction as the lecturer said: "When +literature becomes dozy, respectable, and goes in the smooth +grooves of fashion, and copies and copies again, something must be +done; and to give life to that dying literature a man must be found +_not educated under its influence."_ I applauded with the rest, for +it was a bold saying; but I could not help thinking how that +theory, brought home to ourselves and illustrated in a living +example, would have sent that nodding millinery and faultless +tailory flying downstairs, as at an alarm of fire. + +One great service of Walt Whitman is that he exerts a tremendous +influence to bring the race up on this nether side,--to place the +emotional, the assimilative, the sympathetic, the spontaneous, +intuitive man, the man of the fluids and of the affections, flush +with the intellectual man. That we moderns have fallen behind here +is unquestionable, and we in this country more than the Old World +peoples. All the works of Whitman, prose and verse, are embosomed +in a sea of emotional humanity, and they float deeper than they +show; there is far more in what they necessitate and imply than in +what they say. + +It is not so much of fatty degeneration that we are in danger in +America, but of calcareous. The fluids, moral and physical, are +evaporating; surfaces are becoming encrusted, there is a deposit of +flint in the veins and arteries, outlines are abnormally sharp and +hard, nothing is held in solution, all is precipitated in well- +defined ideas and opinions. + +But when I think of the type of character planted and developed by +my poet, I think of a man or a woman rich above all things in the +genial human attributes, one "nine times folded" in an atmosphere +of tenderest, most considerate humanity,--an atmosphere warm with +the breath of a tropic heart, that makes your buds of affection and +of genius start and unfold like a south wind in May. Your +intercourse with such a character is not merely intellectual; it is +deeper and better than that. Walter Scott carried such a fund of +sympathy and goodwill that even the animals found fellowship with +him, and the pigs understood his great heart. + +It was the large endowment of Whitman, in his own character in this +respect, that made his services in the army hospitals during the +war so ministering and effective, and that renders his "Drum-Taps" +the tenderest and most deeply yearning and sorrowful expression of +the human heart in poetry that ever war called forth. Indeed, from +my own point of view, there is no false or dangerous tendency among +us, in life or in letters, that this poet does not offset and +correct. Fret and chafe as much as we will, we are bound to +gravitate, more or less, toward this mountain, and feel its +bracing, rugged air. + +Without a certain self-surrender there is no greatness possible in +literature, any more than in religion, or in anything else. It is +always a trait of the master that he is not afraid of being +compromised by the company he keeps. He is the central and main +fact in any company. Nothing so lowly but he will do it reverence; +nothing so high but he can stand in its presence. His theme is the +river, and he the ample and willing channel. Little natures love to +disparage and take down; they do it in self-defense; but the master +gives you all, and more than your due. Whitman does not stand +aloof, superior, a priest or a critic: he abandons himself to all +the strong human currents; he enters into and affiliates with every +phase of life; he bestows himself royally upon whoever and whatever +will receive him. There is no competition between himself and his +subject; he is not afraid of over-praising, or making too much of +the commonest individual. What exalts others exalts him. + +We have had great help in Emerson in certain ways,--first-class +service. He probes the conscience and the moral purpose as few men +have done, and gives much needed stimulus there. But, after him, +the need is all the more pressing for a broad, powerful, opulent, +human personality to absorb these ideals, and to make something +more of them than fine sayings. With Emerson alone we are rich in +sunlight, but poor in rain and dew,--poor, too, in soil, and in the +moist, gestating earth principle. Emerson's tendency is not to +broaden and enrich, but to concentrate and refine. + +Then, is there not an excessive modesty, without warrant in +philosophy or nature, dwindling us in this country, drying us up in +the viscera? Is there not a decay--a deliberate, strange abnegation +and dread--of sane sexuality, of maternity and paternity, among us, +and in our literary ideals and social types of men and women? For +myself, I welcome any evidence to the contrary, or any evidence +that deeper and counteracting agencies are at work, as unspeakably +precious. I do not know where this evidence is furnished in such +ample measure as in the pages of Walt Whitman. The great lesson of +nature, I take it, is that a sane sensuality must be preserved at +all hazards, and this, it seems to me, is also the great lesson of +his writings. The point is fully settled in him that, however they +may have been held in abeyance or restricted to other channels, +there is still sap and fecundity, and depth of virgin soil in the +race, sufficient to produce a man of the largest mould and the most +audacious and unconquerable egotism, and on a plane the last to be +reached by these qualities; a man of antique stature, of Greek +fibre and gripe, with science and the modern added, without abating +one jot or tittle of his native force, adhesiveness, Americanism, +and democracy. + +As I have already hinted, Whitman has met with by far his amplest +acceptance and appreciation in Europe. There is good reason for +this, though it is not what has been generally claimed, namely, +that the cultivated classes of Europe are surfeited with +respectability, half dead with _ennui_ and routine, and find an +agreeable change in the daring unconventionality of the new poet. +For the fact is, it is not the old and jaded minds of London, or +Paris, or Dublin, or Copenhagen, that have acknowledged him, but +the fresh, eager, young minds. Nine tenths of his admirers there +are the sturdiest men in the fields of art, science, and +literature. + +In many respects, as a race, we Americans have been pampered and +spoiled; we have been brought up on sweets. I suppose that, +speaking literally, no people under the sun consume so much +confectionery, so much pastry and cake, or indulge in so many gassy +and sugared drinks. The soda-fountain, with its syrups, has got +into literature, and furnishes the popular standard of poetry. The +old heroic stamina of our ancestors, that craved the bitter but +nourishing home-brewed, has died out, and in its place there is a +sickly cadaverousness that must be pampered and cosseted. Among +educated people here there is a mania for the bleached, the double- +refined,--white houses, white china, white marble, and white skins. +We take the bone and sinew out of the flour in order to have white +bread, and are bolting our literature as fast as possible. + +It is for these and kindred reasons that Walt Whitman is more read +abroad than in his own country. It is on the rank, human, and +emotional side-- sex, magnetism, health, physique,--that he is so +full. Then his receptivity and assimilative powers are enormous, +and he demands these in his reader. In fact, his poems are +physiological as much as they are intellectual. They radiate from +his entire being, and are charged to repletion with that blended +quality of mind and body--psychic and physiologic--which the living +form and presence send forth. Never before in poetry has the body +received such ennoblement. The great theme is IDENTITY, and +identity comes through the body; and all that pertains to the body, +the poet teaches, is entailed upon the spirit. In his rapt gaze, +the body and the soul are one, and what debases the one debases the +other. Hence he glorifies the body. Not more ardently and purely +did the great sculptors of antiquity carve it in the enduring +marble than this poet has celebrated it in his masculine and +flowing lines. The bearing of his work in this direction is +invaluable. Well has it been said that the man or the woman who has +"Leaves of Grass" for a daily companion will be under the constant, +invisible influence of sanity, cleanliness, strength, and a +gradual severance from all that corrupts and makes morbid and mean. + +In regard to the unity and construction of the poems, the reader +sooner or later discovers the true solution to be, that the +dependence, cohesion, and final reconciliation of the whole are in +the Personality of the poet himself. As in Shakespeare everything +is strung upon the plot, the play, and loses when separated from +it, so in this poet every line and sentence refers to and +necessitates the Personality behind it, and derives its chief +significance therefrom. In other words, "Leaves of Grass" is +essentially a dramatic poem, a free representation of man in his +relation to the outward world,--the play, the interchanges between +him and it, apart from social and artificial considerations,--in +which we discern the central purpose or thought to be for every man +and woman his or her Individuality, and around that, Nationality. +To show rather than to tell,--to body forth as in a play how these +arise and blend; how the man is developed and recruited, his +spirit's descent; how he walks through materials absorbing and +conquering them; how he confronts the immensities of time and +space; where are the true sources of his power, the soul's real +riches,--that which "adheres and goes forward and is not dropped by +death;" how he is all defined and published and made certain +through his body; the value of health and physique; the great +solvent, Sympathy,--to show the need of larger and fresher types in +art and in life, and then how the state is compacted, and how the +democratic idea is ample and composite, and cannot fail us,--to +show all this, I say, not as in a lecture or a critique, but +suggestively and inferentially,--to work it out freely and +picturesquely, with endless variations, with person and picture and +parable and adventure, is the lesson and object of "Leaves of +Grass." From the first line, where the poet says, + + "I loafe and invite my Soul," + +to the last, all is movement and fusion,--all is clothed in flesh +and blood. The scene changes, the curtain rises and falls, but the +theme is still Man,--his opportunities, his relations, his past, +his future, his sex, his pride in himself, his omnivorousness, his +"great hands," his yearning heart, his seething brain, the abysmal +depths that underlie him and open from him, all illustrated in the +poet's own character,--he the chief actor always. His personality +directly facing you, and with its eye steadily upon you, runs +through every page, spans all the details, and rounds and completes +them, and compactly holds them. This gives the form and the art +conception, and gives homogeneousness. + +When Tennyson sends out a poem, it is perfect, like an apple or a +peach; slowly wrought out and dismissed, it drops from his boughs +holding a conception or an idea that spheres it and makes it whole. +It is completed, distinct, and separate,--might be his, or might be +any man's. It carries his quality, but it is a thing of itself, and +centres and depends upon itself. Whether or not the world will +hereafter consent, as in the past, to call only beautiful creations +of this sort _poems,_ remains to be seen. But this is certainly not +what Walt Whitman does, or aims to do, except in a few cases. He +completes no poems apart and separate from himself, and his pages +abound in hints to that effect:-- + + "Let others finish specimens--I never finish specimens; + I shower them by exhaustless laws, as Nature does, fresh + and modern continually." + +His lines are pulsations, thrills, waves of force, indefinite +dynamics, formless, constantly emanating from the living centre, +and they carry the quality of the author's personal presence with +them in a way that is unprecedented in literature. + +Occasionally there is a poem or a short piece that detaches itself, +and assumes something like ejaculatory and statuesque proportion, +as "O Captain, my Captain," "Pioneers," "Beat, Beat, Drums," and +others in "Drum-Taps;" but all the great poems, like "Walt +Whitman," "Song of the Open Road," "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "To +Working Men," "Sleep-Chasings," etc., are out-flamings, out- +rushings, of the pent fires of the poet's soul. The first-named +poem, which is the seething, dazzling sun of his subsequent poetic +system, shoots in rapid succession waves of almost consuming +energy. It is indeed a central orb of fiercest light and heat, +swept by wild storms of emotion, but at the same time of sane and +beneficent potentiality. Neither in it nor in either of the others +is there the building-up of a fair verbal structure, a symmetrical +piece of mechanism, whose last stone is implied and necessitated in +the first. + +"The critic's great error," says Heine, "lies in asking, 'What +ought the artist to do?' It would be far more correct to ask, 'What +does the artist intend?'" + +It is probably partly because his field is so large, his demands so +exacting, his method so new (necessarily so), and from the whole +standard of the poems being what I may call an astronomical one, +that the critics complain so generally of want of form in him. And +the critics are right enough, as far as their objection goes. There +is no deliberate form here, any more than there is in the forces of +nature. Shall we say, then, that nothing but the void exists? The +void is filled by a Presence. There is a controlling, directing, +overarching will in every page, every verse, that there is no +escape from. Design and purpose, natural selection, growth, +culmination, are just as pronounced as in any poet. + +There is a want of form in the unfinished statue, because it is +struggling into form; it is nothing without form; but there is no +want of form in the elemental laws and effusions,--in fire, or +water, or rain, or dew, or the smell of the shore or the plunging +waves. And may there not be the analogue of this in literature,--a +potent, quickening, exhilarating quality in words, apart from and +without any consideration of constructive form? Under the influence +of the expansive, creative force that plays upon me from these +pages, like sunlight or gravitation, the question of form never +comes up, because I do not for one moment escape the eye, the +source from which the power and action emanate. + +I know that Walt Whitman has written many passages with reference +far more to their position, interpretation, and scanning ages +hence, than for current reading. Much of his material is too near +us; it needs time. Seen through the vista of long years, perhaps +centuries, it will assume quite different hues. Perhaps those long +lists of trades, tools, and occupations would not be so repellent +if we could read them, as we read Homer's catalogue of the ships, +through the retrospect of ages. They are justified in the poem +aside from their historic value, because they are alive and full of +action,--panoramas of the whole mechanical and industrial life of +America, north, east, south, west,--bits of scenery, bird's-eye +views, glimpses of moving figures, caught as by a flash, +characteristic touches indoors and out, all passing in quick +succession before you. They have in the fullest measure what +Lessing demands in poetry,--the quality of ebbing and flowing +action, as distinct from the dead water of description; they are +thoroughly dramatic, fused, pliant, and obedient to the poet's +will. No glamour is thrown over them, no wash of sentiment; and if +they have not the charm of novelty and distance, why, that is an +accident that bars them in a measure to us, but not to the future. +Very frequently in these lists or enumerations of objects, actions, +shows, there are sure to occur lines of perfect description:-- + + "Where the heifers browse--where geese nip their food with short + jerks; + Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome + prairie; + Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles + far and near; + Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon; + Where the katydid works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree + over the well." + + "Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown + apprentices, + The swing of their axes on the square-hew'd log, shaping it toward + the shape of a mast, + The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, + The butter-color'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, + The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes." + + "Always these compact lands--lands tied at the hips with the belt + stringing the huge oval lakes." + + "Far breath'd land! Arctic braced! Mexican breez'd!--the diverse! + the compact!" + +Tried by the standards of the perfect statuesque poems, these pages +will indeed seem strange enough; but viewed as a part of the poetic +compend of America, the swift gathering-in, from her wide- +spreading, multitudinous, material life, of traits and points and +suggestions that belong here and are characteristic, they have +their value. The poet casts his great seine into events and doings +and material progress, and these are some of the fish, not all +beautiful by any means, but all terribly alive, and all native to +these waters. + +In the "Carol of Occupations" occur, too, those formidable +inventories of the more heavy and coarsegrained trades and tools +that few if any readers have been able to stand before, and that +have given the scoffers and caricaturists their favorite weapons. +If you detach a page of these and ask, "Is it poetry? have the +'hog-hook,' the 'killing-hammer,' 'the cutter's cleaver,' 'the +packer's maul,' met with a change of heart, and been converted into +celestial cutlery?" I answer, No, they are as barren of poetry as a +desert is of grass; but in their place in the poem, and in the +collection, they serve as masses of shade or neutral color in +pictures, or in nature, or in character,--a negative service, but +still indispensable. The point, the moral of the poem, is really +backed up and driven home by this list. The poet is determined +there shall be no mistake about it. He will not put in the dainty +and pretty things merely,--he will put in the coarse and common +things also, and he swells the list till even his robust muse +begins to look uneasy. Remember, too, that Whitman declaredly +writes the lyrics of America, of the masses, of democracy, and of +the practical labor of mechanics, boatmen, and farmers:-- + + "The sum of all known reverence I add up in you, whoever you are; + All doctrines, all politics and civilization, exude from you; + All sculpture and monuments, and anything inscribed anywhere, are + tallied in you; + The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records + reach, is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same: + If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they + all be? + The most renown'd poems would be ashes, orations and plays would + be vacuums. + + "All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it; + (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of + the arches and cornices?) + + "All music is what awakens from you when you are reminded by the + instruments; + It is not the violins and the cornets--it is not the oboe, nor + the beating drums--nor the score of the baritone singer singing + his sweet romanza--nor that of the men's chorus, nor that of + the women's chorus, + It is nearer and farther than they." + +Out of this same spirit of reverence for man and all that pertains +essentially to him, and the steady ignoring of conventional and +social distinctions and prohibitions, and on the same plane as the +universal brotherhood of the poems, come those passages in "Leaves +of Grass" that have caused so much abuse and fury,--the allusions +to sexual acts and organs,--the momentary contemplation of man as +the perpetuator of his species. Many good judges, who have followed +Whitman thus far, stop here and refuse their concurrence. But if +the poet has failed in this part, he has failed in the rest. It is +of a piece with the whole. He has felt in his way the same +necessity as that which makes the anatomist or the physiologist not +pass by, or neglect, or falsify, the loins of his typical +personage. All the passages and allusions that come under this head +have a scientific coldness and purity, but differ from science, as +poetry always must differ, in being alive and sympathetic, instead +of dead and analytic. There is nothing of the forbidden here, none +of those sweet morsels that we love to roll under the tongue, such +as are found in Byron and Shakespeare, and even in austere Dante. +If the fact is not lifted up and redeemed by the solemn and far- +reaching laws of maternity and paternity, through which the poet +alone contemplates it, then it is irredeemable, and one side of our +nature is intrinsically vulgar and mean. + +Again: Out of all the full-grown, first-class poems, no matter what +their plot or theme, emerges a sample of Man, each after its kind, +its period, its nationality, its antecedents. The vast and cumbrous +Hindu epics contribute their special types of both man and woman, +impossible except from far-off Asia and Asian antiquity. Out of +Homer, after all his gorgeous action and events, the distinct +personal identity, the heroic and warlike chieftain of Hellas only +permanently remains. In the same way, when the fire and fervor of +Shakespeare's plots and passions subside, the special feudal +personality, as lord or gentleman, still towers in undying +vitality. Even the Sacred Writings themselves, considered as the +first great poems, leave on record, out of all the rest, the +portraiture of a characteristic Oriental Man. Far different from +these (and yet, as he says, "the same old countenance pensively +looking forth," and "the same red running blood"), "Leaves of +Grass" and "Two Rivulets" also bring their contribution; nay, +behind every page _that_ is the main purport,--to outline a New +World Man and a New World Woman, modern, complete, democratic, not +only fully and nobly intellectual and spiritual, but in the same +measure physical, emotional, and even fully and nobly carnal. + +An acute person once said to me, "As I read and re-read these +poems, I more and more think their inevitable result in time must +be to produce + + 'A race of splendid and savage _old men,_' + +of course dominated by moral and spiritual laws, but with volcanoes +of force always alive beneath the surface." + +And still again: One of the questions to be put to any poem +assuming a first-class importance among us--and I especially invite +this inquiry toward "Leaves of Grass"--is, How far is this work +consistent with, and the outcome of, that something which secures +to the race ascendency, empire, and perpetuity? There is in every +dominant people a germ, a quality, an expansive force, that, no +matter how it is overlaid, gives them their push and their hold +upon existence,--writes their history upon the earth, and stamps +their imprint upon the age. To what extent is your masterpiece the +standard-bearer of this quality,--helping the race to victory? +helping me to be more myself than I otherwise would? + + + +III + +Not the least of my poet's successes is in his thorough +assimilation of the modern sciences, transmuting them into strong +poetic nutriment, and in the extent to which all his main poems are +grounded in the deepest principles of modern philosophical inquiry. + +Nearly all the old literatures may be said to have been founded +upon fable, and upon a basis and even superstructure of ignorance, +that, however charming it may be, we have not now got, and could +not keep if we had. The bump of wonder and the feeling of the +marvelous,--a kind of half-pleasing fear, like that of children in +the dark or in the woods,--were largely operative with the old +poets, and I believe are necessary to any eminent success in this +field; but they seem nearly to have died out of the modern mind, +like organs there is no longer any use for. The poetic temperament +has not yet adjusted itself to the new lights, to science, and to +the vast fields and expanses opened up in the physical cosmos by +astronomy and geology, and in the spiritual or intellectual world +by the great German metaphysicians. The staple of a large share of +our poetic literature is yet mainly the result of the long age of +fable and myth that now lies behind us. "Leaves of Grass" is, +perhaps, the first serious and large attempt at an expression in +poetry of a knowledge of the earth as one of the orbs, and of man +as a microcosm of the whole, and to give to the imagination these +new and true fields of wonder and romance. In it fable and +superstition are at an end, priestcraft is at an end, skepticism +and doubt are at an end, with all the misgivings and dark +forebodings that have dogged the human mind since it began to relax +its hold upon tradition and the past; and we behold man reconciled, +happy, ecstatic, full of reverence, awe, and wonder, reinstated in +Paradise,-- the paradise of perfect knowledge and unrestricted +faith. + +It needs but a little pondering to see that the great poet of the +future will not be afraid of science, but will rather seek to plant +his feet upon it as upon a rock. He knows that, from an enlarged +point of view, there is no feud between Science and Poesy, any more +than there is between Science and Religion, or between Science and +Life. He sees that the poet and the scientist do not travel +opposite but parallel roads, that often approach each other very +closely, if they do not at times actually join. The poet will +always pause when he finds himself in opposition to science; and +the scientist is never more worthy the name than when he escapes +from analysis into synthesis, and gives us living wholes. And +science, in its present bold and receptive mood, may be said to be +eminently creative, and to have made every first-class thinker and +every large worker in any aesthetic or spiritual field immeasurably +its debtor. It has dispelled many illusions, but it has more than +compensated the imagination by the unbounded vistas it has opened +up on every hand. It has added to our knowledge, but it has added +to our ignorance in the same measure: the large circle of light +only reveals the larger circle of darkness that encompasses it, and +life and being and the orbs are enveloped in a greater mystery to +the poet to-day than they were in the times of Homer or Isaiah. +Science, therefore, does not restrict the imagination, but often +compels it to longer flights. The conception of the earth as an +orb shooting like a midnight meteor through space, a brand cast by +the burning sun with the fire at its heart still unquenched, the +sun itself shooting and carrying the whole train of worlds with it, +no one knows whither,--what a lift has science given the +imagination in this field! Or the tremendous discovery of the +correlation and conservation of forces, the identity and +convertibility of heat and force and motion, and that no ounce of +power is lost, but forever passed along, changing form but not +essence, is a poetic discovery no less than a scientific one. The +poets have always felt that it must be so, and, when the fact was +authoritatively announced by science, every profound poetic mind +must have felt a thrill of pleasure. Or the nebular hypothesis of +the solar system,--it seems the conception of some inspired madman, +like William Blake, rather than the cool conclusion of reason, and +to carry its own justification, as great power always does. Indeed, +our interest in astronomy and geology is essentially a poetic one,-- +the love of the marvelous, of the sublime, and of grand harmonies. +The scientific conception of the sun is strikingly Dantesque, and +appalls the imagination. Or the hell of fire through which the +earth has passed, and the aeons of monsters from which its fair +forms have emerged,--from which of the seven circles of the Inferno +did the scientist get his hint? Indeed, science everywhere reveals +a carnival of mightier gods than those that cut such fantastic +tricks in the ancient world. Listen to Tyndall on light, or to +Youmans on the chemistry of a sunbeam, and see how fable pales its +ineffectual fires, and the boldest dreams of the poets are +eclipsed. + +The vibratory theory of light and its identity with the laws of +sound, the laws of the tides and the seasons, the wonders of the +spectroscope, the theory of gravitation, of electricity, of +chemical affinity, the deep beneath deep of the telescope, the +world within world of the microscope,--in these and many other +fields it is hard to tell whether it is the scientist or the poet +we are listening to. What greater magic than that you can take a +colorless ray of light, break it across a prism, and catch upon a +screen all the divine hues of the rainbow? + +In some respects science has but followed out and confirmed the dim +foreshadowings of the human breast. Man in his simplicity has +called the sun father and the earth mother. Science shows this to +be no fiction, but a reality; that we are really children of the +sun, and that every heart-beat, every pound of force we exert, is a +solar emanation. The power with which you now move and breathe came +from the sun just as literally as the bank-notes in your pocket +came from the bank. + +The ancients fabled the earth as resting upon the shoulders of +Atlas, and Atlas as standing upon a turtle; but what the turtle +stood upon was a puzzle. An acute person says that science has but +changed the terms of the equation, but that the unknown quantity is +the same as ever. The earth now rests upon the sun,--in his +outstretched palm; the sun rests upon some other sun, and that upon +some other; but what they all finally rest upon, who can tell? Well +may Tennyson speak of the "fairy tales of science," and well may +Walt Whitman say:-- + + "I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the + reasons of things; + They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen." + +But, making all due acknowledgments to science, there is one danger +attending it that the poet alone can save us from,--the danger that +science, absorbed with its great problems, will forget Man. Hence +the especial office of the poet with reference to science is to +endow it with a human interest. The heart has been disenchanted by +having disclosed to it blind, abstract forces where it had +enthroned personal humanistic divinities. In the old time, man was +the centre of the system; everything was interested in him, and +took sides for or against him. There were nothing but men and gods +in the universe. But in the results of science the world is more +and more, and man is less and less. The poet must come to the +rescue, and place man again at the top, magnify him, exalt him, +reinforce him, and match these wonders from without with equal +wonders from within. Welcome to the bard who is not appalled by the +task, and who can readily assimilate and turn into human emotions +these vast deductions of the savants! The minor poets do nothing in +this direction; only men of the largest calibre and the most heroic +fibre are adequate to the service. Hence one finds in Tennyson a +vast deal more science than he would at first suspect; but it is +under his feet; it is no longer science, but faith, or reverence, +or poetic nutriment. It is in "Locksley Hall," "The Princess," "In +Memoriam," "Maud," and in others of his poems. Here is a passage +from "In Memoriam:"-- + + "They say, + The solid earth whereon we tread + + "In tracts of fluent heat began, + And grew to seeming-random forms, + The seeming prey of cyclic storms, + Till at the last arose the man; + + "Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime, + The herald of a higher race, + And of himself in higher place + If so he type this work of time + + "Within himself, from more to more; + Or, crown'd with attributes of woe, + Like glories, move his course, and show + That life is not as idle ore, + + "But iron dug from central gloom, + And heated hot with burning fears, + And dipt in baths of hissing tears, + And batter'd with the shocks of doom + + "To shape and use. Arise and fly + The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; + Move upward, working out the beast, + And let the ape and tiger die." + +Or in this stanza behold how the science is disguised or turned +into the sweetest music:-- + + "Move eastward, happy earth, and leave + Yon orange sunset waning slow; + From fringes of the faded eve, + O happy planet, eastward go; + Till over thy dark shoulder glow + Thy silver sister-world, and rise + To glass herself in dewy eyes + That watch me from the glen below." + +A recognition of the planetary system, and of the great fact that +the earth moves eastward through the heavens, in a soft and tender +love-song! + +But in Walt Whitman alone do we find the full, practical +absorption, and re-departure therefrom, of the astounding idea that +the earth is a star in the heavens like the rest, and that man, as +the crown and finish, carries in his moral consciousness the +flower, the outcome, of all this wide field of turbulent +unconscious nature. Of course in his handling it is no longer +science, or rather it is science dissolved in the fervent heat of +the poet's heart, and charged with emotion. "The words of true +poems," he says, "are the tufts and final applause of science." +Before Darwin or Spencer he proclaimed the doctrine of evolution:-- + + "I am stuccoed with quadrupeds and birds all over, + And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons, + And call anything close again when I desire it. + + "In vain the speeding and shyness; + In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach; + In vain the mastodon retreats beneath his own powder'd bones; + In vain objects stand leagues off, and assume manifold shapes; + In vain the ocean settling in hollows, and the great monsters + lying low." + +In the following passage the idea is more fully carried out, and +man is viewed through a vista which science alone has laid open; +yet how absolutely a work of the creative imagination is revealed:-- + + "I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I am incloser of things + to be. + My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs; + On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the + steps; + All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount. + + "Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me; + Afar down I see the huge first Nothing--I know I was even there; + I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, + And took my time, and took no hurt from the foetid carbon. + + "Long I was hugg'd close--long and long, + Immense have been the preparations for me, + Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me, + Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful + boatmen; + For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings; + They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. + + "Before I was born out of my mother, generations guided me; + My embryo has never been torpid--nothing could overlay it, + For it the nebula cohered to an orb, + The long low strata piled to rest it on, + Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, + Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths, and deposited + it with care; + All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight + me: + Now on this spot I stand with my robust Soul." + +I recall no single line of poetry in the language that fills my +imagination like that beginning the second stanza:-- + + "Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me." + +One seems to see those huge Brocken shadows of the past sinking and +dropping below the horizon like mountain peaks, as he presses +onward on his journey. Akin to this absorption of science is +another quality in my poet not found in the rest, except perhaps a +mere hint of it now and then in Lucretius,--a quality easier felt +than described. It is a tidal wave of emotion running all through +the poems, which is now and then crested with such passages as +this:-- + + "I am he that walks with the tender and growing night; + I call to the earth and sea, half held by the night. + + "Press close, bare-bosom'd night! Press close, magnetic, + nourishing night! + Night of south winds! night of the large, few stars! + Still, nodding night! mad, naked, summer night. + + "Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath'd earth! + Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! + Earth of departed sunset! Earth of the mountains, misty topt! + Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with + blue! + Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river! + Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my + sake! + Far-swooping, elbow'd earth! rich, apple-blossom'd earth! + Smile, for your lover comes!" + +Professor Clifford calls it "cosmic emotion,"--a poetic thrill and +rhapsody in contemplating the earth as a whole,--its chemistry and +vitality, its bounty, its beauty, its power, and the applicability +of its laws and principles to human, aesthetic, and art products. +It affords the key to the theory of art upon which Whitman's poems +are projected, and accounts for what several critics call their +sense of magnitude,--"something of the vastness of the succession +of objects in Nature." + + "I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those + of the earth! + I swear there can be no theory of any account, unless it corroborate + the theory of the earth! + No politics, art, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account, + unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth, + Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude + of the earth." + +Or again, in his "Laws for Creation:"-- + + "All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the + compact truth of the world, + There shall be no subject too pronounced--All works shall illustrate + the divine law of indirections." + +Indeed, the earth ever floats in this poet's mind as his mightiest +symbol,--his type of completeness and power. It is the armory from +which he draws his most potent weapons. See, especially, "To the +Sayers of Words," "This Compost," "The Song of the Open Road," and +"Pensive on her Dead gazing I heard the Mother of all." + +The poet holds essentially the same attitude toward cosmic +humanity, well illustrated in "Salut au Monde:"-- + + "My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the + whole earth; + I have look'd for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me + in all lands; + I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them. + + "O vapors! I think I have risen with you and moved away to distant + continents, and fallen down there for reasons; + I think I have blown with you, O winds; + O waters, I have finger'd every shore with you." + +Indeed, the whole book is leavened with vehement Comradeship. Not +only in the relations of individuals to each other shall loving +good-will exist and be cultivated,--not only between the different +towns and cities, and all the States of this indissoluble, +compacted Union,--but it shall make a tie of fraternity and fusion +holding all the races and peoples and countries of the whole earth. + +Then the National question. As Whitman's completed works now stand, +in their two volumes, it is certain they could only have grown out +of the Secession War; and they will probably go to future ages as +in literature the most characteristic identification of that war,-- +risen from and portraying it, representing its sea of passions and +progresses, partaking of all its fierce movements and perturbed +emotions, and yet sinking the mere military parts of that war, +great as those were, below and with matters far greater, deeper, +more human, more expanding, and more enduring. + +I must not close this paper without some reference to Walt +Whitman's prose writings, which are scarcely less important than +his poems. Never has Patriotism, never has the antique Love of +Country, with even doubled passion and strength, been more fully +expressed than in these contributions. They comprise two thin +volumes,--now included in "Two Rivulets,"--called "Democratic +Vistas" and "Memoranda during the War;" the former exhibiting the +personality of the poet in more vehement and sweeping action even +than do the poems, and affording specimens of soaring vaticination +and impassioned appeal impossible to match in the literature of our +time. The only living author suggested is Carlyle; but so much is +added, the _presence_ is so much more vascular and human, and the +whole page so saturated with faith and love and democracy, that +even the great Scotchman is overborne. Whitman, too, radiates +belief, while at the core of Carlyle's utterances is despair. The +style here is eruptive and complex, or what Jeremy Taylor calls +_agglomerative,_ and puts the Addisonian models utterly to rout,--a +style such as only the largest and most Titanic workman could +effectively use. A sensitive lady of my acquaintance says reading +the "Vistas" is like being exposed to a pouring hailstorm,--the +words fairly bruise her mind. In its literary construction the book +is indeed a shower, or a succession of showers, multitudinous, +wide-stretching, down-pouring,--the wrathful bolt and the quick +veins of poetic fire lighting up the page from time to time. I can +easily conceive how certain minds must be swayed and bent by some +of these long, involved, but firm and vehement passages. I cannot +deny myself the pleasure of quoting one or two pages. The writer is +referring to the great literary relics of past times:-- + +"For us, along the great highways of time, those monuments stand,-- +those forms of majesty and beauty. For us those beacons burn +through all the nights. Unknown Egyptians, graving hieroglyphs; +Hindus, with hymn and apothegm and endless epic; Hebrew prophet, +with spirituality, as in flames of lightning, conscience like red- +hot iron, plaintive songs and screams of vengeance for tyrannies +and enslavement; Christ, with bent head, brooding love and peace, +like a dove; Greek, creating eternal shapes of physical and +aesthetic proportion; Roman, lord of satire, the sword, and the +codex,--of the figures, some far off and veiled, others near and +visible; Dante, stalking with lean form, nothing but fibre, not a +grain of superfluous flesh; Angelo, and the great painters, +architects, musicians; rich Shakespeare, luxuriant as the sun, +artist and singer of Feudalism in its sunset, with all the gorgeous +colors, owner thereof, and using them at will;--and so to such as +German Kant and Hegel, where they, though near us, leaping over the +ages, sit again, impassive, imperturbable, like the Egyptian gods. +Of these, and the like of these, is it too much, indeed, to return +to our favorite figure, and view them as orbs, moving in free paths +in the spaces of that other heaven, the cosmic intellect, the Soul? + +"Ye powerful and resplendent ones! ye were, in your atmospheres, +grown not for America, but rather for her foes, the Feudal and the +old--while our genius is democratic and modern. Yet could ye, +indeed, but breathe your breath of life into our New World's +nostrils--not to enslave us as now, but, for our needs, to breed a +spirit like your own--perhaps (dare we to say it?) to dominate, +even destroy what you yourselves have left! On your plane, and no +less, but even higher and wider, will I mete and measure for our +wants to-day and here. I demand races of orbic bards, with +unconditional, uncompromising sway. Come forth, sweet democratic +despots of the west!" + +Here is another passage of a political cast, but showing the same +great pinions and lofty flight:-- + +"It seems as if the Almighty had spread before this nation charts +of imperial destinies, dazzling as the sun, yet with lines of +blood, and many a deep intestine difficulty, and human aggregate of +cankerous imperfection,--saying, Lo! the roads, the only plans of +development, long, and varied with all terrible balks and +ebullitions. You said in your soul, I will be empire of empires, +overshadowing all else, past and present, putting the history of +Old World dynasties, conquests, behind me as of no account,--making +a new history, the history of Democracy, making old history a +dwarf,--I alone inaugurating largeness, culminating time. If these, +O lands of America, are indeed the prizes, the determinations of +your Soul, be it so. But behold the cost, and already specimens of +the cost. Behold the anguish of suspense, existence itself wavering +in the balance, uncertain whether to rise or fall; already, close +behind you and around you, thick winrows of corpses on +battlefields, countless maimed and sick in hospitals, treachery +among Generals, folly in the Executive and Legislative departments, +schemers, thieves everywhere,--cant, credulity, make-believe +everywhere. Thought you greatness was to ripen for you, like a +pear? If you would have greatness, know that you must conquer it +through ages, centuries,--must pay for it with a proportionate +price. For you, too, as for all lands, the struggle, the traitor, +the wily person in office, scrofulous wealth, the surfeit of +prosperity, the demonism of greed, the hell of passion, the decay +of faith, the long postponement, the fossil-like lethargy, the +ceaseless need of revolutions, prophets, thunder-storms, deaths, +births, new projections, and invigorations of ideas and men." + +The "Memoranda during the War" is mainly a record of personal +experiences, nursing the sick and wounded soldiers in the +hospitals: most of it is in a low key, simple, unwrought, like a +diary kept for one's self; but it reveals the large, tender, +sympathetic soul of the poet even more than his elaborate works, +and puts in practical form that unprecedented and fervid +comradeship which is his leading element. It is printed almost +verbatim, just as the notes were jotted down at the time and on the +spot. It is impossible to read it without the feeling of tears, +while there is elsewhere no such portrayal of the common soldier, +and such appreciation of him, as is contained in its pages. It is +heart's blood, every word of it, and along with "Drum-Taps" is the +only literature of the war thus far entirely characteristic and +worthy of serious mention. There are in particular two passages in +the "Memoranda" that have amazing dramatic power, vividness, and +rapid action, like some quick painter covering a large canvas. I +refer to the account of the assassination of President Lincoln, and +to that of the scenes in Washington after the first battle of Bull +Run. What may be called the mass-movement of Whitman's prose style-- +the rapid marshaling and grouping together of many facts and +details, gathering up, and recruiting, and expanding as the +sentences move along, till the force and momentum become like a +rolling flood, or an army in echelon on the charge--is here +displayed with wonderful effect. + +Noting and studying what forces move the world, the only sane +explanation that comes to me of the fact that such writing as these +little volumes contain has not, in this country especially, met +with its due recognition and approval, is that, like all Whitman's +works, they have really never yet been published at all in the true +sense,--have never entered the arena where the great laurels are +won. They have been printed by the author, and a few readers have +found them out, but to all intents and purposes they are unknown. + +I have not dwelt on Whitman's personal circumstances, his age (he +is now, 1877, entering his fifty-ninth year), paralysis, seclusion, +and the treatment of him by certain portions of the literary +classes, although these have all been made the subjects of wide +discussion of late, both in America and Great Britain, and have, I +think, a bearing under the circumstances on his character and +genius. It is an unwritten tragedy that will doubtless always +remain unwritten. I will but mention an eloquent appeal of the +Scotch poet, Robert Buchanan, published in London in March, 1876, +eulogizing and defending the American bard, in his old age, +illness, and poverty, from the swarms of maligners who still +continue to assail him. The appeal has this fine passage:-- + +"He who wanders through the solitudes of far-off Uist or lonely +Donegal may often behold the Golden Eagle sick to death, worn with +age or famine, or with both, passing with weary waft of wing from +promontory to promontory, from peak to peak, pursued by a crowd of +rooks and crows, which fall back screaming whenever the noble bird +turns his indignant head, and which follow frantically once more, +hooting behind him, whenever he wends again upon his way." + +Skipping many things I should yet like to touch upon,--for this +paper is already too long,--I will say in conclusion that, if any +reader of mine is moved by what I have here written to undertake +the perusal of "Leaves of Grass," or the later volume, "Two +Rivulets," let me yet warn him that he little suspects what is +before him. Poetry in the Virgilian, Tennysonian, or Lowellian +sense it certainly is not. Just as the living form of man in its +ordinary garb is less beautiful (yet more beautiful) than the +marble statue; just as the living woman and child that may have sat +for the model is less beautiful (yet more so) than one of Raphael's +finest Madonnas, or just as a forest of trees addresses itself less +directly to the feeling of what is called art and form than the +house or other edifice built from them; just as you, and the whole +spirit of our current times, have been trained to feed on and +enjoy, not Nature or Man, or the aboriginal forces, or the actual, +but pictures, books, art, and the selected and refined,--just so +these poems will doubtless first shock and disappoint you. Your +admiration for the beautiful is never the feeling directly and +chiefly addressed in them, but your love for the breathing flesh, +the concrete reality, the moving forms and shows of the universe. A +man reaches and moves you, not an artist. Doubtless, too, a certain +withholding and repugnance has first to be overcome, analogous to a +cold sea plunge; and it is not till you experience the reaction, +the after-glow, and feel the swing and surge of the strong waves, +that you know what Walt Whitman's pages really are. They don't give +themselves at first,--like the real landscape and the sea, they are +all indirections. You may have to try them many times; there is +something of Nature's rudeness and forbiddingness, not only at the +first, but probably always. But after you have mastered them by +resigning yourself to them, there is nothing like them anywhere in +literature for vital help and meaning. The poet says:-- + + "The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections, + That scorn the best I can do to relate them." + +And the press of your mind to these pages will certainly start new +and countless problems that poetry and art have never before +touched, and that afford a perpetual stimulus and delight. + +It has been said that the object of poetry and the higher forms of +literature is to escape from the tyranny of the real into the +freedom of the ideal; but what is the ideal unless ballasted and +weighted with the real? All these poems have a lofty ideal +background; the great laws and harmonies stretch unerringly above +them, and give their vista and perspective. It is because Whitman's +ideal is clothed with rank materiality, as the soul is clothed with +the carnal body, that his poems beget such warmth and desire in the +mind, and are the reservoirs of so much power. No one can feel more +than I how absolutely necessary it is that the facts of nature and +experience be born again in the heart of the bard, and receive the +baptism of the true fire before they be counted poetical; and I +have no trouble on this score with the author of "Leaves of Grass." +He never fails to ascend into spiritual meanings. Indeed, the +spirituality of Walt Whitman is the chief fact after all, and +dominates every page he has written. + +Observe that this singer and artist makes no _direct_ attempt to be +poetical, any more than he does to be melodious or rhythmical. He +approaches these qualities and results as it were from beneath, and +always indirectly; they are drawn to him, not he to them; and if +they appear absent from his page at first, it is because we have +been looking for them in the customary places on the outside, where +he never puts them, and have not yet penetrated the interiors. As +many of the fowls hide their eggs by a sort of intuitive prudery +and secretiveness, Whitman always half hides, or more than half +hides, his thought, his glow, his magnetism, his most golden and +orbic treasures. + +Finally, as those men and women respect and love Walt Whitman best +who have known him longest and closest personally, the same rule +will apply to "Leaves of Grass" and the later volume, "Two +Rivulets." It is indeed neither the first surface reading of those +books, nor perhaps even the second or third, that will any more +than prepare the student for the full assimilation of the poems. +Like Nature, and like the Sciences, they suggest endless suites of +chambers opening and expanding more and more and continually. + + +INDEX + + [Transcribist's note: Index has been shortened to names + of authors and to birds, with scientific names.] + +Aeschylus +Akers, Elizabeth. +Apuleius. +Audubon, John Jaines. + +Bacon, Francis. +Benton, Myron. +Bible. +Bittern, American (_Botaurus lentiginosus_). +Björnson, Björnstjerne. +Blackbird, cow, or cowbird (_Molothrus ater_). +Blackbird, European. +Bluebird (_Sialia sialis_). +Bobolink (_Dolichonyx oryzivorus_). +Bryant, William Cullen. +Buchanan, Robert. +Bunting, snow, or snowflake (_Passerina nivalis_). +Burke, Edmund. +Burns, Robert. +Byron, Lord. + +Cardinal. See Grosbeak, cardinal. +Carlyle, Thomas. +Cedar-bird, or cedar waxwing (_Ampelis cedrorum_). +Chat, yellow-breasted (_Icteria virens_). +Chewink, or towhee (_Pipilo erythrophthalmus_). +Chickadee (_Parus atricapillus_). +Cicada. +Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. +Cowper, William. +Crow, American (_Corvis brachyrhynchos_). +Cuckoo, American. +Cuckoo, European. +Dante. +Darwin, Charles. +Dove, mourning (_Zenaidura macroura_). + +Eagle. +Emerson, Ralph Waldo. +Everett, Edward. + +Flagg, Wilson. +Flicker. See High-hole. +Flycatcher, great crested (_Myiarchus crinitus_). +Frogs. See Hyla. + +Gilder, Richard Watson. +Grasshopper of Greek poetry. +Grosbeak, cardinal, or cardinal (_Cardinalis cardinalis_). +Grosbeak, pine (_Pinicola enucleator leucura_). +Grouse, ruffed (_Bonasa umbellus_). + +Hamerton, Philip Gilbert. +Hawk. +High-hole, or yellow-hammer, or golden-shafted woodpecker, or + flicker (_Colaptes auratus luteus_). +Hogg, James. +Homer. +Hood, Thomas. +Hornets, black. +Hudson River valley. +Hummingbird, ruby-throated (_Trochilus colubris_). +Hyla, green. +Hyla, Pickering's. + +Ingelow, Jean. + +Jefferson, Thomas. +Jonson, Ben. + +Keats, John. +Kingbird (_Tyrannus tyrannus_). + +Lamb, Charles. +Lark. See Skylark. +Lark, shore or horned (_Otocoris alpestris_). +Lathrop, George Parson. +Lincoln, Abraham. +Lizard. +Locust. +Logan, John. +Loon (_Gavia imber_). +Lowell, James Russell. +Lyly, John. + +Macaulay, Thomas Babington. +Meadowlark (_Sturnella magna_). +Michael Angelo. +Milton, John. +Mockingbird (_Mimus polyglottos_). + +Oriole, Baltimore (_Icterus galbula_). +Oven-bird, or golden-crowned thrush (_Seiurus aurocapillus_). +Owl. + +Partridge. See Grouse, ruffed. +Pewee, wood (_Contopus virens_). +Phaedrus. +Phoebe-bird (_Sayornis phoebe_). +Pigeon, passenger (_Ectopistes migratorius_). +Pipit, American, or titlark (_Anthus pensilvanicus_). +Pipit, Sprague's (_Anthus spragueii_). +Pope, Alexander. + +Quail, or bob-white (_Colinus virginianus_). + +Redpoll (_Acanthis linaria_). +Robin, American (_Merula migratoria_). + +Sandpiper, spotted, or "tip-up" (_Actitis macularia_). +Sandpipers. +Shelley, Percy Bysshe. + +Snake. +Snake, garter. +Socrates. +Solomon. +Sparrow, social or chipping (_Spizella socialis_). +Sparrow, song (_Melospiza cinerea melodia_). +Sparrow, tree or Canada (_Spizella monticola_). +Sparrow, vesper (_Pooecetes gramineus_). +Sparrow, white-crowned (_Zonotrichia leucophrys_). +Sparrow, white-throated (_Zonotrichia albicollis_). +Spenser. +Strawberry. +Sugar-berry. +Swallow, barn (_Hirundo erythrogastra_). +Swallow, chimney, or chimney swift (_Chaetura pelagica_). +Swallow, cliff (Petrochellidon lunifrons). +Swift, chimney. See Swallow. + +Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe. +Tennyson, Alfred. +Thaxter, Celia. +Thomson, James. +Thoreau, Henry D.. +Thrasher, brown, or long-tailed thrush (_Toxostoma rufum_). +Thrush, golden-crowned. See Ovenbird. +Thrush, hermit (_Hylocichla guttata pallasii_). +Thrush, wood (_Hylocichla mustelina_). +Tip-up. See Sandpiper, spotted. +Titlark. See Pipit, American. +Townee. See Chewink. +Trowbridge, John T. +Turgenieff. +Turner, J. M. W. +Turtles. + +Warbler, pine (_Dendroica vigorsii_). +Water-thrush. +Whip-poor-will (_Antrostomus vociferous_). +Whitman, Walt. +Whittier, John Greenleaf. +Wilde, Richard Henry. +Wilson, Alexander. +Woodchuck. +Woodpecker, downy (_Dryobates pubescens medianus_). +Woodpecker, golden-shafted. See High-hole. +Woodpecker, hairy (_Dryobates villosus_). +Woodpecker, red-headed (_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_). +Wordsworth, William. +Wren, house (_Troglodytes aëdon_). + +Yellow-hammer. See High-hole. +Yellow-throat, Maryland, or northern yellow-throat (_Geothlypis + trichas brachidactyla_). + +_____________________________________________________________ + +[Transcribist's note: John Burroughs used some characters +which are not standard to our writing in 2001. + +He used a dieresis in preeminent, and accented "e"s in +debris and denouement, and in some French words. These have +been replaced with plain English letters. + +I substituted the letters "oe" "ae" and for these ligatures, used +Often in words such as phoebe and in scientific names. Similarly +the "e" in the golden eagle's scientific name is modernized. + +He also used symbols available to a typesetter which are +unavailable to us in ASCII (plain vanilla text) to illustrate +bird calls and notes. I have replaced these with a description +of what was there originally. + +Finally, he used italics throughout the book that I was +unable to retain; I have used underlines on each side of an +italicized word, phrase or paragraph. _This phrase is italic_, +for instance. +_____________________________________________________________ + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BIRDS AND POETS *** + +This file should be named 8bpoe10.txt or 8bpoe10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8bpoe11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8bpoe10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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