The morning of Sabbath; a city at rest,
But waking serenely and donning its best,
For the warm March sun already is high.
Above, the arch of a white-blue sky;
Brown earth, with a touch of green, below;
Elm-boughs, uptost with a lift superb;
The melting ice and grimy snow
Playing meadow from curb to curb,
With small mud-rills in place of brooks,
And a sewer for sea!
Ah, hold, my friend,
I grant how childish-foolish it looks,
But perhaps they’ve faith for the very end,—
For streams and sewers, greatest and least,
Find ocean at last, in the misty East.
The good people all are off to the churches,
While I, left here in the idlest of lurches,
Must seek a preacher to preach me a sermon,
Ordained with open-air dews of Hermon;
A discourse conservative, grave, edifying,
And—come, sir, no laughing! I really am trying
To find, if I can, the road steep and narrow;
Ah, here he comes, flying, a straw in his bill!
I’ll beg him take pulpit; now hear, if you will,
A sermon preached by a sparrow.
“My text”—hear the bird!—“I take
From the street,”—that’s better,—“and make
Application as follows:
Down there where my comrades are basking,
There’s food to be had for the asking,—
Understand me,—no shirking,
Our asking means working,—
Each swallows
The meal that’s laid on his plate,
Content with enough. There’s my mate,
Her feathers a-fluff in the sun.
That brownest, prettiest one—
Your pardon! I ought to be preaching.
This, sir, is the gist of my teaching:
We sparrows take things as they come,
From four A. M. until six,
We work (using straw without bricks);
We stop now and then for a crumb
Thrown down by a child; full of cheer,
We twitter throughout the whole year,
Investing in no loans of trouble
Where the borrower always pays double.”
But your text was the Street, my good bird.
This sounds like the Bible!—
“I’ve heard
That life was the same, sir, in each;
And, though you want me to preach,
You’ll find that men, fowls, and book,
If you look,
Are all connected together,—
In short, are birds of a feather;
And from a genuine sermon
You’ll learn, sir,—this I’m firm on,—
The same Hand guides and governs all
Which holds us sparrows when we fall.”
No more. Before I could even remind him
Of lack of an adequate exhortation,
Proper pauses, and peroration,
He was off, his straw streaming far behind him.
His advice—well, certainly not very new,
Yet perhaps worth trying, I think—don’t you?