“In linkèd sweetness long drawn out.”
Down in Maine they call him the Peabody-bird, because his notes sound to them like Old mān—Péabody, péabody, péabody. In New Brunswick the Scotch settlers say that he sings Lōst—lōst—Kénnedy, kénnedy, kénnedy. But here in his northern home I think we can understand him better. He is singing again and again, with a cadence that never wearies, “Sweet—sweet—Cánada, cánada, cánada!” The Canadians, when they came across the sea, remembering the nightingale of southern France, baptised this little gray minstrel their rossignol, and the country ballads are full of his praise. Every land has its nightingale, if we only have the heart to hear him. How distinct his voice is—how personal, how confidential, as if he had a message for us!
There is a breath of fragrance on the cool shady air beside our little stream, that seems familiar. It is the first week of September. Can it be that the twin-flower of June, the delicate Linnæa borealis, is blooming again? Yes, here is the threadlike stem lifting its two frail pink bells above the bed of shining leaves. How dear an early flower seems when it comes back again and unfolds its beauty in a St. Martin’s summer! How delicate and suggestive is the faint, magical odour! It is like a renewal of the dreams of youth.
“And need we ever grow old?” asked my lady Greygown, as she sat that evening with the twin-flower on her breast, watching the stars come out along the edge of the cliffs, and tremble on the hurrying tide of the river. “Must we grow old as well as gray? Is the time coming when all life will be commonplace and practical, and governed by a dull ‘of course’? Shall we not always find adventures and romances, and a few blossoms returning, even when the season grows late?”
“At least,” I answered, “let us believe in the possibility, for to doubt it is to destroy it. If we can only come back to nature together every year, and consider the flowers and the birds, and confess our faults and mistakes and our unbelief under these silent stars, and hear the river murmuring our absolution, we shall die young, even though we live long: we shall have a treasure of memories which will be like the twin-flower, always a double blossom on a single stem, and carry with us into the unseen world something which will make it worth while to be immortal.”
1894.