Part 10

But the lonely bird, which has neither the support of numbers nor of strength, what will become of him? What wilt thou do, poor solitary nightingale, which, like others of thy race, must confront this great adventure, but without assistance, without comrades? Thou, what art thou, friend? A voice! The very power which is in thee will be thy betrayal. In thy sombre attire, thou might well pass unseen by blending with the tints of the discoloured woods of autumn. But see now! The leaf is still purple; it wears not the dull dead brown of the later months.

Ah, why dost thou not remain? why not imitate the timorousness of those birds which in such myriads fly no further than Provence? There, sheltered behind a rock, thou shalt find, I assure thee, an Asiatic or African winter. The gorge of Ollioules is worth all the valleys of Syria.

"No; I must depart. Others may tarry; for _they_ have only to gain the East. But me, my cradle summons _me_: I must see again that glowing heaven, those luminous and sumptuous ruins where my ancestors lived and sang; I must plant my foot once more on my earliest love, the rose of Asia; I must bathe myself in the sunshine. _There_ is the mystery of life, there quickens the flame in which my song shall be renewed; my voice, my muse is the light."

Thus, then, he takes wing; but I think his heart must throb as he draws near the Alps, when their snowy peaks announce his approach to the terror-haunted gate on whose rocks are posted the cruel children of day and night, the vulture, the eagle--all the hooked and talon-armed robbers, athirst for the warm blood of life--the accursed species which inspire the senseless poetry of man--some, _noble_ murderers, which bleed quickly and drain the flowing tide; others, _ignoble_ murderers, which choke and destroy;--in a word, all the hideous forms of murder and death.

I imagine to myself, then, that the poor little musician whose voice is silenced--not his _ingegno_, nor his delicate thought--having no friend to consult, will halt to consider well before entering upon the long ambush of the pass of Savoy. He pauses at the threshold, on a friendly roof, well known to myself, or in the hallowed groves of the Charmettes,[23] deliberates and says: "If I pass during the day, they will all be there; they know the season; the eagle will pounce upon me; I die. If I pass by night, the great horn-owl (_duc_), the common owl (_hibou_), the entire host of horrible phantoms, with eyes enlarged in the darkness, will seize me, and carry me off to their young. Alas! what shall I do? I must endeavour to avoid both night and day. At the gloomy hour of dawn, when the cold, raw air chills in his eyrie the great fierce beast, which knows not how to build a nest, I may fly unperceived. And even if he see me, I shall be leagues away before he can put into motion the cumbrous machinery of his frozen wings."

The calculation is judicious, but nevertheless a score of accidents may disturb it. Starting at midnight, he may encounter in the face, during his long flight across Savoy, the east wind, which engulfs and delays him, neutralizes his exertions, and fetters his pinions. Heavens! it is morning now. Those sombre giants, already clothed in October in their snowy mantles, reveal upon their vast expanse of glittering white a black spot, which moves with terrible rapidity. How gloomy are they already, these mountains, and of what evil augury, draped in the long folds of their winter shrouds! Motionless as are their peaks, they create beneath them and around them an everlasting agitation of violent and antagonistic currents, which struggle with one another so furiously that at times they compel the bird to tarry. "If I fly in the lower air, the torrents which hurl through the shadows with their clanging floods, will snare me in their whirling vapours. And if I mount to the cold and lofty realms, which kindle with a light of their own, I give myself up to death; the frost will seize and slacken my wings."

An effort has saved him. With head bent low, he plunges, he falls into Italy. At Susa or towards Turin he builds a nest, and strengthens his pinions. He recovers himself in the depth of the gigantic Lombard _corbeille_, that great nursery of fruits and flowers where Virgil listened to his song. The land has in nowise changed; now, as then, the Italian, an exile from his home, the sad cultivator of another's fields,[24] the _durus arator_, pursues the nightingale. The useful insect-devourer is proscribed as an eater of grain. Let him cross then, if he can, the Adriatic, from isle to isle, despite the winged corsairs, which keep watch on the very rocks; he will arrive perhaps in the land ever consecrated to birds--in genial, hospitable, bountiful Egypt--where all are spared, nourished, blessed, and kindly welcomed.

Still happier land, if in its blind hospitality it did not also shelter the murderer. The nightingale and dove are gladly entertained, it is true, but no less so the eagle. On the terraces of sultans, on the balconies of minarets, ah, poor traveller, I see those flashing dreadful eyes which dart their gaze this way. And I see that they have already marked thee!

Do not remain here long. Thy season will not last. The destructive wind of the desert will dry up, and destroy, and sweep away thy meagre nourishment. Not a gnat will be left to sustain thy wing and thy voice. Bethink thyself of the nest which thou hast left in our woods, remember thy European loves. The sky was gloomy, but there thou madest for thyself a sky of thine own. Love was around thee; every soul thrilled at thy voice; the purest throbbed for thee. There is the real sun, there the fairest Orient. True light is where one loves.

MIGRATIONS: CONTINUED.

THE SWALLOW.

Undoubtedly the swallow has seized upon our dwellings without ceremony; she lodges under our windows, under our eaves, in our chimneys. She does not hold us in the slightest fear.

It might have been said that she trusted to her unrivalled wing, had she not placed her nest and her children within our reach. The true reason why she has become the mistress of our house is, that she has taken possession not only of our house, but of our heart.

In the rural mansion where my father-in-law educated his children, he would hold his class during summer in a greenhouse in which the swallows rested without disturbing themselves about the movements of the family, quite unconstrained in their behaviour, wholly occupied with their brood, passing out at the windows and returning through the roof, chattering very loudly with one another, and still more loudly when the master would make a pretence of saying, as St. Francis said, "Sister swallows, can you not be silent?"

Theirs is the hearth. Where the mother has built her nest, the daughter and the grand-daughter build. They return there every year; their generations succeed to it more regularly than do our own. A family dies out or is dispersed, the mansion passes into other hands; but the swallow constantly returns to it, and maintains its right of occupation.

It is thus that our traveller has come to be accepted as a symbol of the permanency of home. She clings to it with such fidelity, that though the house may be repaired, or partially demolished, or long disturbed by masons, it is still retaken possession of, re-occupied by these faithful birds of persevering memory.

She is the _bird of return_. And if I bestow this title upon her, it is not alone on account of her annual return, but on account of her general conduct, and the direction of her flight, so varied, yet nevertheless circular, and always returning upon itself.

She incessantly wheels and _veers_, indefatigably hovers about the same area and the same locality, describing an infinity of graceful curves, which, however varied, are never far distant from one another. Is it to pursue her prey, the gnat which dances and floats in the air? Is it to exercise her power, her unwearying wing, without going too far from her nest? It matters not; this revolving flight, this incessantly returning movement, has always attracted our eyes and heart, throwing us into a reverie, into a world of thought.

We see her flight clearly, but never, or scarcely ever, her little black face. Who, then, art thou, thou who always concealest thyself, who never showest me aught but thy trenchant wings--scythes rapid as that of Time? But Time goes forward without pause; thou, thou always returnest. Thou drawest close to my side; it seems as if thou wouldst graze me, wouldst touch me?--So nearly dost thou caress me, that I feel in my face the wind, almost the whirr of thy wings. Is it a bird? Is it a spirit? Ah, if thou art a soul, tell me so frankly, and reveal to me the barrier which separates the living from the dead.

But let us not anticipate, nor let loose the waters of bitterness. Rather let us trace this bird in the people's thoughts, in the good old popular wisdom, close akin, undoubtedly, to the wisdom of Nature.

The people have seen in her only the natural dial, the division of the seasons, of the two great _hours of the year_. At Easter and at Michaelmas, at the epochs of family gatherings, of fairs and markets, of leases and rent-paying, the black and white swallow appears, and tells us the time. She comes to separate and define the past and the coming seasons. At these epochs families and friends meet together, but not always to find the circle complete; in the last six months this friend has disappeared, and that. The swallow returns, but not for all; many have gone a very long journey, longer than _the tour of France_. To Germany? No; further, further still.

Our _companions_, industrious travellers, followed the swallow's life, except that on their return they frequently could no longer find their nest. Of this the pendant bird warns them in an old German saying, wherein the narrow popular wisdom would fain retain them round the roof-tree of home. On this proverb, the great poet Rückert, metamorphosing himself into a swallow, reproducing her rhythmical and circular flight, her constant turns and returns, has founded a lyric at which many will laugh, but more than one will weep:--

"De la jeunesse, de la jeunesse, Un chant me revient toujours-- Oh! que c'est loin! Oh! que c'est loin Tout ce qui fut autrefois;

"Ce que chantait, ce que chantait Celle qui ramène le printemps, Rasant le village de l'aile, rasant le village de l'aile. Est-ce bien ce qu'elle chante encore?

"'Quand je partis, quand je partis, Etaient pleins l'armoire et le coffre. Quand je revins, quand je revins, Je ne trouvai plus que le vide.'

"O mon foyer de famille, Laisse-moi seulement une fois M'asseoir à la place sacrée Et m'envoler dans les songes!

"Elle revient bien l'hirondelle, Et l'armoire vidée se remplit. Mais le vide du coeur reste, mais reste le vide du coeur, Et rien ne le remplira.

"Elle rase pourtant le village, Elle chante comme autrefois-- 'Quand je partis, quand je partis, Coffre, armoire, tout était plein. Quand je revins, quand je revins Je ne trouvai plus que le vide.'"

_Imitated_:--

From childhood gay, from childhood gay, E'er breathes to me a strain, How far the day, how far the day Which ne'er may come again!

And is her song, and is her song-- She who brings back the spring, The hamlet touching with her wing, the hamlet touching with her wing-- Is it true what she doth sing?

"When I set forth, when I set forth, Both barn and chest were brimming o'er; When I came back, when I came back, I found a piteous lack of store."

Oh, my own home, so dearly loved, Kind Heaven grant that I may kneel Again upon thy sacred hearth, While dreams the happy past reveal!

The swallow surely will return, Coffer and barn will brim once more; But blank remains the heart, empty the heart remains, And none may the lost restore!

The swallow skims through the hamlet, She sings as she sang of yore:-- "When I set out, when I set out, Both barn and chest were brimming o'er; When I came back, when I came back, I found a piteous lack of store."

The swallow, caught in the morning, and closely examined, is seen to be a strange and ugly bird, we confess; but this fact perfectly well agrees with what is, _par excellence_, the _bird_--the being among all beings born for flight. To this object Nature has sacrificed everything; she has laughed at _form_, thinking only of _movement_; and has succeeded so well that this bird, ugly in repose, is, when flying, the most beautiful of all.

Scythe-like wings; projecting eyes; no neck (in order to treble her strength); feet, scarcely any, or none: all is wing. These are her great general features. Add a very large beak, always open, which, in flight, snaps at its prey without stopping, closes, and again re-opens. Thus she feeds while flying; she drinks, she bathes while flying; while flying, she feeds her young.

If she does not equal in accuracy of line the thunderous swoop of the falcon, by way of compensation she is freer; she wheels, makes a hundred circles, a labyrinth of undefined figures, a maze of varied curves, which she crosses and re-crosses, _ad infinitum_. Her enemy is dazzled, lost, confused, and knows not what to do. She wearies and exhausts him; he gives up the chase, but leaves her unfatigued. She is the true queen of the air; the incomparable agility of her motions makes all space her own. Who, like her, can change in the very moment of springing, and turn abruptly? No one. The infinitely varied and capricious pursuit of a prey which is ever fluttering--of the gnat, the fly, the beetle, the thousand insects that waver to and fro and never keep in the same direction--is, undoubtedly, the best training school for flight, and renders the swallow superior to all other birds.

Nature, to attain this end, to achieve this unique wing, has adopted an extreme resolution, that of suppressing the foot. In the large church-haunting swallow, which we call the martin, the foot is reduced to a mere nothing. The wing gains in proportion; the martin, it is said, accomplishes eighty leagues in an hour. This astounding swiftness equals even that of the frigate-bird. The foot, remarkably short in the latter, is but a stump in the martin; if he rests, it is on his belly; so that he never perches. With him it is the reverse of all other beings; movement alone affords him repose. When he darts from the church-towers, and commits himself to the air, the air cradles him amorously, supports, and refreshes him. If he would cling to any object, he has only his own small and feeble claws. But when he rests, he is infirm, and, as it were, paralyzed; he feels every roughness; the hard fatality of gravitation has resumed possession of him; the chief among birds seems sunk to a reptile.

To take the range of a place is a great difficulty for him: so, if he fixes his nest aloft, at his departure from it he is constrained to let himself fall into his natural element. Afloat in the air he is free, he is sovereign; but until then he is a slave, dependent on everything, at the disposal of any one who lays hand upon him.

The true name of the genus, which is a full explanation in itself, is the Greek _A-pode_, "Without feet." The great race of swallows, with its sixty species which fill the earth, charms and delights us with its gracefulness, its flight, and its soft chirping, owes all its agreeable qualities to the deformity of a very little foot; it is at once the foremost among the winged tribes by the gift of the perfect art of flight, and the most sedentary and attached to its nest.

Among this peculiar genus, the foot not supplying the place of the wing, the training of the young being confined to the wing alone and a protracted apprenticeship in flying, the brood keep the nest for a long time, demanding the cares and developing the foresight and tenderness of the mother. The most mobile of birds is found fettered by her affections. Her nest is not a transient nuptial bed, but a home, a dwelling-place, the interesting theatre of a difficult education and of mutual sacrifices. It has possessed a loving mother, a faithful mate,--what do I say?--rather, young sisters, which eagerly hasten to assist the mother, are themselves little mothers, and the nurses of a still younger brood. It has developed maternal tenderness, the anxieties and mutual teaching of the young to the younger.

The finest thing is, that this sentiment of kinship expands. In danger, every swallow is a sister; at the cry of one, all rush to her aid; if one be captured, all lament her, and torture their bosoms in the attempt to release her.

That these charming birds extend their sympathy to birds foreign to their own species one easily conceives. They have less cause than any others to dread the beasts of prey, from their lightness of wing, and they are the first to warn the poultry-coops of their appearance. Hen and pigeon cower and seek an asylum as soon as they hear the swallow's warning voice.

No; man does not err in considering the swallow the best of the winged world.

And why? She is the happiest, because the freest.

Free by her admirable flight.

Free by her facility of nourishment.

Free by her choice of climate.

Also, whatever attention I have paid to her language (she speaks amicably to her sisters, rather than sings), I have never heard her do aught but bless life and praise God.

_Libertà! molto e desiato bene!_ I revolved these words in my heart on the great piazza of Turin, where we never wearied of watching the flight of innumerous swallows, hearing a thousand little joyous cries. On their descent from the Alps they found there convenient habitations all prepared for their reception, in the apertures left by the scaffold-beams in the very walls of the palaces. At times, and frequently in the evening, they chattered very loudly and cried shrilly, to prevent us from understanding them. Often they darted down headlong, just skimming the ground, but rising again so quickly that one might have thought them loosened from a spring or shot from a bow. Unlike man, who is incessantly called back to earth, they seem to gravitate above. Never have I seen the image of a more sovereign liberty. Their tricks, their sports, were infinite.

We travellers regarded with pleased eyes these other travellers, which bore their pilgrimage so gaily and so lightly. The horizon, nevertheless, was heavy, and ringed by the Alps, which at that hour seemed close at hand. The black pine-woods were already darkened and overshadowed by the evening; the glaciers glittered again with a ghastly whiteness. The sorrowful barrier of these grand mountains separated us from France, towards which we were soon about to travel slowly.

HARMONIES OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE.

Why do the swallow and so many other birds place their habitation so near to that of man? Why do they make themselves our friends, mingling with our labours, and lightening them by their songs? Why is that happy spectacle of alliance and harmony, which is the end of nature, presented only in the climates of our temperate zone?

For this reason, that here the two parties, man and the bird, are free from the burdensome fatalities which in the south separate them, and place them in antagonism to one another.

That which enervates man, on the contrary, excites the bird, endows him with ardent activity, inquietude, and the vehemence which finds vents in harsh cries. Under the Tropics both are in complete divergence, slaves of a despotic nature, which weighs upon them differently.

To pass from those climates to ours is to become free.

_Here_ we dominate over the nature which _there_ subjugated us. I quit willingly, and without one wistful glance, the overwhelming paradise where, a feeble child, I have languished in the arms of the great nurse who, with a too potent draught, has intoxicated while thinking to suckle me.

This milder nature was made for me, is my legitimate spouse--I recognize her. And, above all, she resembles me; like me, she is grave, she is laborious, she has the instinct of work and patience.

Her renewed seasons share among themselves her great annual day, as the workman's day alternates between toil and repose. She gives no fruit gratuitously; she gives what is worth all the fruits of earth--industry, activity.

With what rapture I find there to-day my image, the trace of my will, the creations of my exertions and my intelligence! Deeply laboured by me, by me metamorphosed, she relates to me my works, reproduces to me myself. I see her as she was before she underwent this human creative work, before she was made man.

Monotonous at the first glance, and melancholy, she exhibited her forests and meadows; but both strangely different from those which are seen elsewhere.

The meadow, the rich green carpet of England and Ireland, with its delicate soft sward constantly springing up afresh--not the rough fleece of the Asiatic steppes, not the spiny and hostile vegetation of Africa, not the bristling savagery of American savannahs, where the smallest plant is woody and harshly arborescent--the European meadow, through its annual and ephemeral vegetation, its lowly little flowers, with mild and gentle odours, wears a youthful aspect; nay, more, an aspect of innocence, which harmonizes with our thoughts and refreshes our hearts.

On this first layer of humble yielding herbage, which has no pretensions to mount higher, stands out in bold contrast the strong individuality of the robust trees, so different from the confused vegetation of meridional forests.

Who can single out, beneath such a mass of lianas, orchids, and parasitical plants, the trees, themselves herbaceous, which are there, so to speak, engulphed? In our ancient forests of Gaul and Germany stand, strong and serious, slowly and solidly built, the elm or the oak--that forest hero, with kindly arms and heart of steel, which has conquered eight or ten centuries, and which, when felled by man and associated with his labours, endows them with the eternity of the works of nature.

As the tree, so the man. May it be given us to resemble it--to resemble that mighty but pacific oak, whose powerful absorption has concentrated every element, and made of it the grave, useful, enduring individual--the solid personality--of which all men confidently demand a support, a shelter; which stretches forth its helpful arms to the divers animal tribes, and shelters them with its foliage! With a thousand voices they gratefully enchant, by day and night, the still majesty of this aged witness of the years. The birds thank it from their hearts, and delight its paternal shades with song, love, and youth.

Indestructible vigour of the climates of the West? Why doth this oak live through a thousand years? Because it is ever young.

It is the oak which chronicles the commencement of spring. For us the emotion of the new life does not begin when all nature clothes itself in the uniform verdure of the meaner vegetation. It commences only when we see the oak, from the woody foliage of the past, which it still retains, gathering its fresh leaves; when the elm, permitting itself to be outstripped by inferior trees, tints with a light green the severe delicacy of its airy branches, clearly defined against the sky.