Crouching Down In One Of The Big Burrows At The Roots Of An
Old Elder I Remained For Half An Hour, Listening To The
Thump-Thump Of The Alarmed Rabbits About Me, And The
Accompanying Hiss And Swish Of The Wind And Sleet And Rain In
The Ragged Branches.
The storm over I continued my rambles on Whitesheet Hill, and
coming back an hour or two later to the very spot where I had
seen and followed the wheatear, I all at once caught sight of
a second bird, lying dead on the turf close to my feet!
The
sudden sight gave me a shock of astonishment, mingled with
admiration and grief. For how pretty it looked, though dead,
lying on its back, the little black legs stuck stiffly up, the
long wings pressed against the sides, their black tips
touching together like the clasped hands of a corpse; and the
fan-like black and white tail, half open as in life, moved
perpetually up and down by the wind, as if that tail-flirting
action of the bird had continued after death. It was very
beautiful in its delicate shape and pale harmonious colouring,
resting on the golden-green mossy turf. And it was a male,
undoubtedly the mate of the wheatear I had seen at the spot,
and its little mate, not knowing what death is, had probably
been keeping watch near it, wondering at its strange stillness
and greatly fearing for its safety when I came that way, and
passed by without seeing it.
Poor little migrant, did you come back across half the world
for this - back to your home on Whitesheet Hill to grow cold
and fail in the cold April wind, and finally to look very
pretty, lying stiff and cold, to the one pair of human eyes
that were destined to see you! The little birds that come
and go and return to us over such vast distances, they perish
like this in myriads annually; flying to and from us they
are blown away by death like sere autumn leaves, "the
pestilence-stricken multitudes" whirled away by the wind!
They die in myriads: that is not strange; the strange, the
astonishing thing is the fact of death; what can they tell
us of it - the wise men who live or have ever lived on the
earth - what can they say now of the bright intelligent spirit,
the dear little emotional soul, that had so fit a tenement and
so fitly expressed itself in motions of such exquisite grace,
in melody so sweet! Did it go out like the glow-worm's lamp,
the life and sweetness of the flower? Was its destiny not
like that of the soul, specialized in a different direction,
of the saint or poet or philosopher! Alas, they can tell us
nothing!
I could not go away leaving it in that exposed place on the
turf, to be found a little later by a magpie or carrion crow
or fox, and devoured.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 79 of 157
Words from 40870 to 41371
of 82198
