“There are gardens in every desert,” he said, as she sank down upon the grassy bank, “but this is ours.”
They sat for a while, gazing contentedly at the clusters of elder blossoms which hung above them, filling the air with a rich fragrance which was spiced by the tang of sage. A ruby-throated humming-bird flashed suddenly past them and was gone; a red-shafted woodpecker, still more gorgeous in his scarlet plumage, descended in uneven flights from the 236 sahuaros that clung against the cliff and, fastening upon a hollow tree, set up a mysterious rapping.
“He is hunting for grubs,” explained Hardy. “Does that inspire you?”
“Why, no,” answered Lucy, puzzled.
“The Mexicans call him pajaro corazon––páh-hah-ro cor-ah-sóne,” continued the poet. “Does that appeal to your soul?”
“Why, no. What does it mean––woodpecker?”
Hardy smiled. “No,” he said, “a woodpecker with them is called carpintero––carpenter, you understand––because he hammers on trees; but my friend up on the stump yonder is Pajaro Corazon––bird of the heart. I have a poem dedicated to him.” Then, as if to excuse himself from the reading, he hastened on: “Of course, no true poet would commit such a breach––he would write a sonnet to his lady’s eyebrow, a poem in memory of a broken dream, or some sad lament for Love, which has died simultaneously with his own blasted hopes. But a sense of my own unimportance has saved me––or the world, at any rate––from such laments. Pajaro Corazon and Chupa Rosa, a little humming-bird who lives in that elder tree, have been my only friends and companions in the muse, until you came. I wouldn’t abuse Chupa Rosa’s confidence by reading my poem to her. Her lover has turned out a worthless fellow and left her––that 237 was him you saw flying past just now, going up the cañon to sport around with the other hummers––but here is my poem to Pajaro Corazon.”
He drew forth his bundle of papers and in a shamefaced way handed one of them to Lucy. It was a slip of yellow note paper, checked along the margin with groups of rhyming words and scansion marks, and in the middle this single verse.
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“Pajaro Corazon! Bird of the Heart! Some knight of honor in those bygone days Of dreams and gold and quests through desert lands, Seeing thy blood-red heart flash in the rays Of setting sun––which lured him far from Spain–– Lifted his face and, reading there a sign From his dear lady, crossed himself and spake Then first, the name which still is thine.” |
Lucy folded the paper and gazed across at him rapturously.