Scenes in my Native Land/The Deserted Nest
THE DESERTED NEST.
Flown! Flown! my little ones? Your cunning house,
So deftly hid beneath the mantling vine,
Quite empty?
But a few short days it seems,
Since first we spied you, a, strange, breathing mass,
Unfledged and shapeless, with bright, staring eyes,
And ever-open beak. We often came
To inspect your tiny tenement, because
Your parents were our lodgers, in a nook
Of the piazza, where the vine-leaves curled,
And thatched it like a cottage. They were out
Most of their time, upon the busy wing,
Seeking your food, while you at leisure lived,
Eating and chirping, with an equal zeal
Alternately; for whatsoe'er they brought
Was eagerly received. I feared you 'd be
Such gormandizers, that you 'd never learn
Your gamut; for you certainly were blest
With a most wondrous appetite. And still,
To help the matter on, my little girl
Amused herself by dropping now and then
A small green grape into your gaping mouths,
Feeling so very sure 't would do you good.
But as for me, I had a thousand fears
Of cholera, and. all the latent ills
That birds are heir to, and with fainter step
Stole every morning to your curtained couch,
Filled with sad visions of your early death.
But lo! you grew like mushrooms, and your sires,
Who screamed at first with terror, when we drew
So near their hopeful race, at length became
Quite passive to our visits, and partook
Our scattered crumbs complacently.
Yet now,
You 're gone, my birds, and I shall miss you much,
Both morn and eve.
Methinks you were too young
To try your fortune in this world of snares,
And much I fear that some marauding cat,
With her keen feline tastes in exercise,
May seize and bear you, with your tender wings
All helpless, hanging from her whisker'd mouth,
A gift to her voracious little ones.
Yet hence with such forebodings,—and I 'll think
When from yon shrubbery I hear a song,
Trembling with sweet, unpractised melody,
It is your descant.
How will ye obtain
Your sustenance, thus sent as wanderers forth,
Mid all the ignorance of infancy
To cater for yourselves?
Yet this wide earth
Is your refectory, and the light leaf
That shivers on the gale, and the seamed trunk,
And the fresh furrow where the ploughman treads,
Show to your microscopic glance a feast
Ready and full.
Our Father feedeth you!
Ye gather not in store-house, or in barn,
But seek your meat from Him.
Would that we shared
Your simple faith,—we who so duly ask
Our daily bread, and yet distrust His hand
Who feeds all creatures and upbraideth not.
And when our homes below are desolate,
Even like your empty nest, my winged ones,
And when their eyes, who loved us here below,
Shall seek and find us not, may we have risen
Where melody shall know no dissonance,
And love no parting flight.
The habits of the migratory birds form a fruitful subject of observation and inquiry. The unerring instinct that guides them through the trackless fields of air, avoiding the hostility of birds of prey, the comparative mystery of their residence in far distant regions, and the punctuality of their return, increase our respect for these winged friends, who from their lodgings upon the Sultan's harem, or amid the gardens of the Nile, remember their brown nest in the thorn-hedge, or the cottage-roof, and compass earth and ocean to rebuild it.
How beautifully has an English naturalist remarked: "When we think for a moment that the swallows, martins, and swifts, that sport in our summer skies, and become inhabitants of our houses, will presently be dwelling in the heart of regions which we long in vain to know, and whither we travellers toil in vain to penetrate; that they will anon affix their nests to the Chinese pagoda, the Indian temple, or beneath the Equator, to the palm-thatched eaves of the African hut, that the small birds which populate our hedges and fields, will quickly spread themselves with the cuckoo over the warm regions beyond the pillars of Hercules, and the wilds of the Levant, of Greece and Syria; that the nightingale will be serenading in the chestnut groves of Italy and the rose-gardens of Persia; that the thrush and the field-fare, that share our winter, will pour out triumphant music in their native wastes, in the sudden summers of Scandinavia, the desolate rocks in the lonely ocean, the craggy and misty isles of the Orkneys and Shetlands; the wild swan rewinging its way through the lofty regions of the cloud to Iceland, and other arctic lands,—we feel how much poetry is connected with these wanderers of the earth."
We are led still more to feel His infinite wisdom and goodness, who maketh them to know their appointed time:—
Who marketh their course through the tropics bright,
Who nerveth their wing for its weary flight,
And guideth their caravan's trackless way
By the star at night and the cloud by day.
The Indian fig, with its arching screen,
Welcomes them in to its vistas green,—
And the breathing buds of the spicy tree,
Thrill at the burst of their melody;
And the bulbul starts, and his carol clear,
Such a rushing of stranger-wings to hear.
O wild-wood wanderers! though far away
From your summer homes in our vales ye stray,
Yet when they awake at the call of spring,
We shall see you again with your glancing wing,
Your nest mid yon waving trees to raise,
And teach our spirits their Maker's praise.