“And says,—what says he? Caw!”
The young impatient askers, the subtle and patient tracers of truth’s hidden vein, will chafe at his sedate utterances, and in time take their confidences elsewhere. But he can get on without them, and will never want for company of his kind. Raised above all intellectual excitements, and never in a hurry, the rooks step side by side with stately dignity over the scarred earth; or wing a heavy and cautious flight towards the trees; or sail serene in the still sky. For though there may be times when
“The rooks are blown about the skies,”
this haste is involuntary, and must no doubt for the time much discomfort the methodical and stately traveller. And no doubt such characters are as useful ballast in the world, and well counterbalance the full excited sails, and the mad fluttering pennons above them. Commonplace, unruffled, happy Christians are these; with some they gain reputation for wisdom, with some for folly; but they go evenly on; not much troubled by sunshine or storm; not caring to enter into the dusks and gleams of the more passionate songsters and thinkers; ever with one quiet and not unmelodious answer: a life rather of deeds than of words. Caw, to all your spasms and heart-searchings,—and then I must just away to my work. Up in the tall trees, bending and swaying to break off the twigs for the nest; practical, if not colloquial; early at work in the morning, and at home in good time in the evening; a life not excited nor greatly eventful, but that has its own quiet, serene lesson.
A day or two hence we might hear a notable and distinguished visitor to the woods and shrubberies. Even now, I have once or twice paused, half-fancying that I heard his voice, and ready to do honour to such a guest. For, while you are momently expecting to hear the Blackcap, the warbling of the meditative Robin has, here and there, a note which puzzles you. You follow out the voice, and there, on an elm branch, is the dark eye, and the warm breast, and the comfortable shape; and you feel half ashamed to have mistaken such a familiar friend for a stranger.
The Blackcap is indeed a wonderful little warbler. So small and so energetic, thrilling song and swelling throat; brown body and whitish chest and jetty head. There are those who trace a resemblance to the nightingale’s song in its quick joyous utterances. If so, certainly the melody is but a suggestion here and there, and not a sustained and continuous resemblance. Shall I be unkind to the sweet little songster, if here I write that its song has its counterpart in the life of unequal Christians? Many there are who, now and then, in thought, word, or deed, seem to touch some perfect chord, and then disappoint the intent listener by sinking down to the more commonplace again.
A moment, and there seemed a strain of angelic utterance, but it was not sustained, and you turn away disappointed at a more homely song which would otherwise have pleased you well. You do not look for Seraph notes in the hedge-sparrow’s song, or the wren’s chatting, and so you are well content with these. But high hopes unfulfilled become disappointment, and you feel an injury in having to resign the exalted idea which you had taken up; until, at last you see yourself in the sweet, but unequal and inadequate song; and learn to reverence and to love the ever-failing and unsustained effort after higher things. Thus, ay thus, do you aim high, and ever fall below your aim; there is one touch of heaven, and a hundred of earth, in the broken and unsustained song of your life; and yet you would rather strive with hopeless yearning after the nightingale’s music, than acquiesce content with the lesser warblings, which accomplish the less that they attempted. Sing on, then, little bird, to an answering heart! In your song I read the rises and falls, the endeavours and failings, the aspirings and rare glimpses of attainment, which are the sweet exceptions, and the commonplace and every-day Christianity, which is the rule, of a life that would fain become the song of an Angel, but that scarce reaches the homeliest warble of the simplest wayside bird. Let us aim high, if we still fall below our passionate striving; let us never acquiesce quietly in less than Perfection; hereafter—who knows? who knows?
It is evening now, as we wend our way home. A thin sickle of light is barred by the slender topmost ash twigs, and the sky is deepening to that cold, clear dusk, that foreruns twilight. We hear a quiet song, far away—the Woodlark’s note always seems far away—you would have asked me the name of the not-generally-familiar songster, but I have just given it. “That, the woodlark? Well, I never heard, or never noticed it before” I dare say. But if is a quiet, saintly song; a heavenly voice, serene and clear, never passionate: a twilight, still, calm song, removed far away from the world’s bustle, and deeply imbued with wisdom and melody from a Land far beyond this eager fevered strife. It is not glad, nor sorrowful; nor so much thoughtful as spiritual. It images to us that life which, separated from the world, is yet not ascetic; unobtrusive, yet fascinating when once perceived and heeded; simple, somewhat as is the language of St. John, but with unfathomable suggestions and revelations when you come to study and learn it. Quite away from controversy and strife, there is in it a divine peace, an entranced contemplation, a serene and peaceful uplifting of the soul. Perhaps the writings of Archbishop Leighton best give words to my ideal of the woodlark’s song.
But those throbbing coos must stay our foot ere we quite leave the wood. The Dove—its voice is, of course, the embodiment of love; troubled, but not passionate; earnest, but not of earth merely. It has a melancholy vehemence, a sobbing urging of its cause, that is rather the voice of one seeking the good of another than its own delight. There is a tremulousness, a trembling fulness that might be that of one bidding farewell in death to some very dear friend whom he fain would win to the right and happy path, but for whom he sadly stands in doubt. There is such abundance from which to speak, such love and such mournfulness in saying it, that you smile with the tears near your eyes, on suddenly recollecting whither fancy was leading you, and that it is, after all, but the old old story being beautifully and melodiously told. For you caught a sight of the ash-blue wing, the mild eye, and swelling crop, and of the mate on a branch close by; and so your fancy was overturned.