To an Early Swallow - An 1869 Poem

By Alice Cary.

My little bird of the air,

If thou dost know, then tell me the sweet reason

Thou comest always, only in thy season

To build and pair.

For still we hear thee twittering round the eaves,

Ere yet the attentive cloud of April lowers,

Up from their darkened hearth to call the flowers,

Where, all the rough, hard weather,

They kept together

Under their low brown roof of withered leaves.

 

And for a moment still

Thy ever tuneful bill,

And tell me, and I pray thee tell me true,

If any cruel care they bosom frets

The while thou slittest plough-like through the air —

Thy wings as swift and slim,

Turned downward, darkly dim,

Like furrows on a ground of violets.

 

Nay, tell me not, my swallow,

But have thy pretty way,

And prosperously follow

The leading of the sunshine all the day,

Thy virtuous example

Maketh my foolish questions answer ample —

It is thy large delights keep open wide

Thy little mouth; thou hast no pain to hide;

And what thou leavest all the green-topped woods

Pining below, and with melodious floods

Flatterest the heavy clouds, it is, I know,

Because, my bird, thou canst not choose but go

Higher and ever higher

Into the purple fire

That lights the morning meadows with hearts'-ease,

And sticks the hillsides full of primroses.

 

But tell me, my good bird,

If thou canst tune thy tongue to any word,

Werewith no answer — pray thee tell me this:

Where gottest thou thy song,

Still shrilling all day long,

Slivered to fragments by its very bliss!

Not, as I guess,

Of any whistling grain

Sown in his furrow; nor, I further guess,

Of any shepherdess,

Whose tender heart did drag

Through the dim hollows of her golden flag

After a faithless love — while far and near

The waterfalls, to hear,

Clung by their white arms to the cold deaf rocks,

And all the unkept flocks

Strayed idly. Nay, I know,

If ever any love-lorn maid did blow

On such a pitiful pipe, thou didst not get

In such sad wise thy heart to music set.

 

So lower not down to me

From the high home thy ever-busy wing;

I know right well thy song was shaped for thee

By His unwearying power

Who makes the days about the Easter flower

Like gardens round the chamber of a king.

 

And whether when the sobering year hath run

His brief course out, and thou away dost hie

To find thy pleasant summer company,

Or whether, my brown darling of the sun,

When first the South, to welcome up the May;

Wings wide her saffron gate,

And thou, from the uprising of the day

Till eventide I shadow round thee close,

Pourest thy joyance over field and wood,

As if thy very blood

Were drawn from out the young hearts of the roses —

 

'Tis all to celebrate

And all to praise

The careful kindness of His gracious ways

Who builds the golden weather

So tenderly about thy homeless brood —

Thy unfledged, homeless brood, and thee together.

 

Ah! these are sweet reasons,

My little swimmer of the seas of air,

Thou comest, guest, duly in thy seasons;

And furthermore, that all men every where

Nay learn from thy enjoyment

That which maketh life most good and fair

Is heavenly employment.

April 29, 1869. Highland Weekly News 33(1): 1. From Harper's Magazine.