United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There sounds a robin's note, and spring seems here again; through the night comes a white-throat's chirp, and we see again the fog-dimmed fields of a Nova Scotian upland; a sandpiper "peets" and the scene in our mind's eye as instantly changes, and so on. What a revelation if we could see as in daylight for a few moments!
One evening we notice the juncos and tree sparrows in the tangled, frost-burned stubble, and the next day, although our eye catches glints of white from sparrow tails, it is from vesper finches, not from juncos, and the weed spray which a few hours before bent beneath a white-throat's weight, now vibrates with the energy which a field sparrow puts into his song.
Far more appropriate the words applied by Elizabeth Akers Allen to an unknown singer, possibly this very bird, embodied in her beautiful poem "The Sunset Thrush." For whatever bird it was intended, the syllables and arrangement correspond to the white-throat's utterance, and the words are, "Sweet! sweet! sweet! Sorrowful! sorrowful! sorrowful!"
I waited for a while, strolling about the deserted garden, where a few poppies turned their crimson disks towards the setting sun, and a peony lay dead and smelling rank, with the ants crawling all over it. In the mellow light the stillness was absolute, save when a distant white-throat's silvery call, long drawn out, floated from the forest's darkening edge.
My thoughts wandered and the yellow page faded to a glimmer amid pale spots of sunshine waning when some slow cloud drifted across the sun. Again my eyes returned to the printed page, and again thought parted from its moorings, a derelict upon the tide of memory. Far in the forest I heard the white-throat's call with the endless, sad refrain, "Weep-wee-p! Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy!"
"Whistling Jack," he answered; a new name to me, and a good one; it would take a nicer ear than mine to discriminate with certainty between a white-throat's voice and a school-boy's whistle. The morning had promised well, but before we emerged from the forest as we neared the summit we drove into a cloud, and, shortly afterward, into a pouring rain.
It was a simple song, with just a hint of our northern white-throat's sweet and plaintive melody, and of the opening bars of our song-sparrow's pleasant, homely lay.
Word Of The Day