Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more
The feathered gleaners follow to your door?

"What! would you rather see the incessant stir
Of insects in the windrows of the hay,
And hear the locust and the grasshopper
Their melancholy hurdy gurdies play?
Is this more pleasant to you than the whir
Of meadow lark, and her sweet roundelay,
Or twitter of little fieldfares, as you take
Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake?

"You call them thieves and pillagers; but know,
They are the wingèd wardens of your farms,
Who from the cornfields drive the insidious1 foe,
And from your harvest keep a hundred harms;
Even the blackest of them all, the crow,

Renders good service as your man at arms,

135

140

145

150

Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail,
And crying havoc on the slug and snail.

"How can I teach your children gentleness, And mercy to the weak, and reverence For Life, which, in its weakness or excess,

Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence,

155

Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less
The selfsame light, although averted hence,
When by your laws, your actions, and your speech,
You contradict the very things I teach?"

160

1 Insidious, secret, wily.

With this he closed; and through the audience went A murmur, like the rustle of dead leaves; The farmers laughed and nodded, and some bent Their yellow heads together like their sheaves; 165 Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment

170

Who put their trust in bullocks and in beeves. The birds were doomed; and, as the record shows, A bounty offered for the heads of crows.

There was another audience out of reach,

Who had no voice nor vote in making laws, But in the papers read his little speech,

And crowned his modest temples with applause.. They made him conscious, each one more than each, He still was victor, vanquished in their cause. 175 Sweetest of all the applause he won from thee, O fair Almira, at the Academy!

180

And so the dreadful massacre began;

O'er fields and orchards, and o'er woodland crests, The ceaseless fusillade 1 of terror ran.

Dead fell the birds, with bloodstains on their breasts, Or wounded crept away from sight of man,

While the young died of famine in their nests;
A slaughter to be told in groans, not words,
The very St. Bartholomew of Birds!

1 Fusillade, many shots together.

2 St. Bartholomew, from a certain "St. Bartholomew's Day," when many people were put to death in France.

The summer came, and all the birds were dead;
The days were like hot coals; the very ground
Was burned to ashes; in the orchards fed
Myriads of caterpillars, and around
The cultivated fields and garden beds

Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found
No foe to check their march, till they had made
The land a desert without leaf or shade.

Devoured by worms, like Herod,2 was the town,
Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly

Slaughtered the Innocents. From the trees spun down

The cankerworms upon the passers by,

Upon each woman's bonnet, shawl, and gown,

Who shook them off with just a little cry; They were the terror of each favorite walk, The endless theme of all the village talk.

The farmers grew impatient, but a few

Confessed their error, and would not complain,

For, after all, the best thing one can do
When it is raining is to let it rain.

Then they repealed the law, although they knew
It would not call the dead to life again;
As schoolboys, finding their mistake too late,
Draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate.

1 Myriads, tens of thousands.

2 Herod, the king of the Jews in the time of Jesus.

185

190

195

200

205

210

That year in Killingworth, the autumn came
Without the light of his majestic look,

The wonder of the falling tongues of flame,

The illumined pages of his Dooms-Day Book.1

A few lost leaves blushed crimson with their

shame,

And drowned themselves despairing in the brook, 215 While the wild wind went moaning everywhere, Lamenting the dead children of the air.

But the next spring a stranger sight was seen,
A sight that never yet by bard was sung,
As great a wonder as it would have been
220 If some dumb animal had found a tongue!
A wagon, over-arched with evergreen,

Upon whose boughs were wicker cages hung,
All full of singing birds, came down the street,
Filling the air with music wild and sweet.

From all the country round these birds were 225 brought,

230

By order of the town, with anxious quest,
And, loosened from their wicker prisons, sought
In woods and fields the places they loved best,
Singing loud canticles, which many thought

Were satires to the authorities addressed.
While others listening in green lanes averred
Such lovely music never had been heard.

1 Dooms-Day Book, book of judgment.

But blither still and louder caroled they
Upon the morrow, for they seemed to know
It was the fair Almira's wedding day,

And everywhere, around, above, below,
When the Preceptor bore his bride away,
Their songs burst forth in joyous overflow,
And a new heaven bent over a new earth
Amid the sunny farms of Killingworth.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

235

240

QUESTIONS FOR STUDY

Explain line 6; lines 11, 12; 96; 193–195; 204; 211, 212; 213, 214.

Describe the Squire, lines 43-48; the Parson, lines 49-56; the Preceptor, lines 59-64; the Deacon, lines 65-72.

How many of the birds named by the poet do you know?

Are birds friends or foes of the farmer?

Do you know of any exceptions? If you think you do, discuss them.

What was the schoolmaster's main argument? Was this the argument that finally appealed to the farmers?

Memorize lines 126-128.
What do they mean?