A TRAGEDY IN BIRDLAND
A little maiden blue-jay,
Fresh from her April morning bath,
Sat on the limb of a weeping willow,
Preening her shining feathers
And dreaming of a song
To which she had listened
On the afternoon of the preceding day.
A wild joy was in her heart
And yet it took all the sunshine and song
From a hundred other throats
To withstand the gloom
That seemed hovering just above her.
She was conscious of the threatening cloud,
But her heart beat furiously
And hope thrilled her bird-being
With an unwonted light.
And yet she knew,
When she dared to think at all,
That it was a hopeless hope
That flooded her soul with love—
A hope that must ere long
Change to a black despair.
She lifted her crested head
And looked toward the old beech tree
Where her blue-jay lover now sat
In melancholy gloom.
Why not raise her voice
And gladden his heart?
He had been true and faithful
For many weeks,
And his suit would long since
Have won another's love.
Why had she thrilled
At the alien voice of another throat?
She had been a foolish maiden
To have entertained so wild a thought.
But hark! Again the song!
On the topmost spire
Of yonder Gothic poplar
Sits a cardinal fop,
In a coat of matchless red,
And a beak of shining ivory.
He lifts his sumach plume
Into the glinting sunlight
And sends a Cupid shaft
From his beaded eye
Into the trembling breast
Of little maiden blue-jay.
Poor little mademoiselle!
Once more the notes
Come whistling and glittering
Like a shower of pearls
Through the sunshine:
"Oh! my true love is a little blue-jay—
Mademoiselle, my bird gazelle,
My little gazelle, and I love her well.
Fresh and sweet from her morning spray
She sits on the willow and her crest is gay—
Mademoiselle, my little gazelle I love so well."
Down from his commanding height
Flashed the cardinal flame
And perched on another limb
Of the weeping willow.
And then he strutted and pranced
And capered and danced
And shot his fiery glances
Toward the modest little maiden
Whose heart was now fluttering
Beyond all control. Master blue-jay
Over on the beech bough
Saw the terrible tragedy
That would follow in the wake of betrayal
And was desperate to save this Psyche
To whom he had often poured out his soul
In amorous vows,
Swearing by all the gods in birdland
That there was none other beside her.
But like many another lover
Of larger experience and better advantage,
He forgot that the very way
To lose his loved one
Was to berate his rival,
And lifting his reed
To the upper register of a clarinet,
He almost screamed:
"He's a liar, he is, by the god of all birds,
A master of villainous art—
A hypocrite, a varlet, believe not his words,
This dandy, this fop, deceiver, betrayer,
A coward, seducer, a murderous slayer—
He'll crush thy innocent heart."
Poor little maiden blue-jay
Heard his screams of anger and despair
But heeded not the warning.
She only fluttered over
To where the cardinal sat
And threw herself under his protecting arm,
Declaring her perfect faith
In his undying love.
The red prince lifted
His burning plume triumphantly
Into the sunlight,
And shot a contemptuous glance
Toward the old beech tree.
Master Blue-Jay unable
Longer to control himself,
Darted like a lance of blue steel
At the red coat.
But the high churchman was a skilled fencer,
And stepped aside just in time
To send his antagonist
With terrible momentum
Into the thorn tree
Beyond the willow,
Where a moment later he writhed and fluttered,
Pinioned through his body
By a sword-like thorn
That projected from the trunk of the spiny tree.
It was a sight to touch the heart
Of the most abandoned denizen of birdland.
But Mademoiselle Blue-Jay,
Who would ordinarily have wept
At so sad a fate of one of her kind,
Was just now too happy
In the love of her wooer
To notice another;
And unmindful of the ebbing life-blood
That was fast turning her unfortunate lover's coat
Of bright and shining blue
To one of dark and dull maroon,
She nestled close
To the false-hearted ecclesiastic
And sighed the lovelorn sigh
That has come from the maiden heart
Since the foundation of the world.
The low cedar
In which Madam Blue-Jay-Cardinal now sat
On such a nest of eggs
As no blue-jay had ever brooded over before,
Wondering, fearing, doubting, longing—
Was only a rod or so from the spiny thorn
Where the dried body of the fated lover
Still hung.
But where now was the supercilious fop
Whose seductive vows of love
Had won the little maiden's confidence
And robbed her true and faithful lover
Of that incense that belonged of right
Only to him?
For more than a week
She had not seen him.
Surely he would return on the morrow,
For he must remember
That soon the little brood
Would need his protecting love.
Yes, he would return again
To praise her slender form and shining crest
And call her once more his little gazelle.
But the cardinal came not.
The brood had hatched,
And the little birds were covered now
With tiny feathers.
Strange sight!
All the blue-jays in the woods around
Had gathered to witness
What no mortal bird had ever seen before—
Little birdling blue-jays
With crimson stains on wings and breasts!
And the poor little mother,
Madam Blue-Jay-Cardinal,
No longer mademoiselle, the bird gazelle,
But an outcast and disgraced mother
Of a mongrel offspring,
Left alone in this hour of shame,
Remembered now the words of him
Who had warned against this sad hour.