Letter XLVIII

Now of all this I had an instance in the village the day before yesterday.
At the corner house by the post-office, as I went by, a bird opened his
bill and sang a note, and down, down, down, down he went over a golden
scale: pitched afresh, and dropped down another; and then up, up, up, over
the range of both. Then he flung back his shaggy head and laughed. "In all
my father's realm there are no such bells as these!" It was the laughing
jackass. "Who gave you your name?" "My godfathers and my godmothers in my
baptism." Well, his will have that to answer for, however safely for
the rest he may have eschewed the world, the flesh, and the devil. Poor
bird, to be set to sing to us under such a burden:--of which, unconscious
failure, he knows nothing.

Here I have remembered for you a bit of a poem that took hold of me some
while ago and touched on the same unkindness: only here the flower is
conscious of the wrong done to it, and looks forward to a day of juster
judgment:-"What have I done?--Man came
(There's nothing that sticks like dirt),
Looked at me with eyes of blame,
And called me 'Squinancy-wort!'
What have I done? I linger
(I cannot say that I live)
In the happy lands of my birth;
Passers-by point with the finger:
For me the light of the sun
Is darkened. Oh, what would I give
To creep away, and hide my shame in the earth!
What have I done?
Yet there is hope. I have seen
Many changes since I began.
The web-footed beasts have been
(Dear beasts!)--and gone, being part of some wider plan.
Perhaps in His infinite mercy God will remove this man!"