ELEGY VI:

HE LAMENTS THE DEATH OF THE PARROT HE HAD GIVEN TO HIS MISTRESS.

OUR parrot, winged mimic of the human voice, sent from farthest Ind, is dead. Come ye in flocks, ye birds, unto his obsequies. Come, ye pious denizens of the air; beat your bosoms with your wings and with your rigid claws, score furrows on your dainty heads. Even as mourners rend their hair, rend ye your ruffled plumes. Since the far-sounding clarion is silent, sing ye a doleful song. Wherefore, O Philomel, mourn ye the dark deed of the Ismarian tyrant? Time should have ended that lament. Keep it to mourn for the passing of the rarest of thy kind. The fate of Itys was once a mighty theme of sorrow; but all that was long ago. All ye who float with outspread wings in the liquid air, and thou before all others, loving turtle, breathe forth your mournful plaint. He was, all his life long, a faithful friend to thee and never did he waver in his loyalty. What young Pylades the Phocian was to Argive Orestes, such, my parrot, was the turtle-dove to thee, so long as thou didst live.

But how did this fidelity bestead thee, and what availed the brilliant colours of thy plumage rare? or that voice so skilled in mimicking the tones of human speech? What did it boot thee to win the affection of my mistress from the very moment thou wast given her? O hapless one, thou wast the glory of birds, and now thou art no more! With thy wondrous plumage, thou couldst outshine the green fire of the emerald, and the hue of thy beak was of the richest red. No bird on earth could speak so well as thou, so great thy skill in imitating, with thy nasal tones, the sounds that thou hadst heard.

Now envious death hath stricken thee; never wast thou at war with any bird. Thou wast garrulous and didst love the piping times of peace. See, the quails are for ever at war; that, perchance, is why they live so long. Thou didst ask for very little; and sith you loved so much to gossip, your beak had very little time for food. A nut was all thy dinner, a poppy-seed or two would bring thee sleep, and with a sip of water thou wouldst quench thy thirst. The hungry vulture lives, and the kite that weaves his circles in the air, and the rain-foretelling daw. The raven, whom the panoplied Minerva hates, lives on--nine generations will hardly see it die. But he is dead, this bird, this babbling echo of the human voice, this gift so rare brought from the utmost limits of the world. 'Tis nearly always so; the greedy hands of death strike first at what is best upon the earth, and things of little worth accomplish to the full their destined tale of years. Thersites beheld the melancholy obsequies of Protesilaus. Hector came to dust and ashes while yet his brothers lived.

What boots it to recall how, with fear at her breast, my mistress prayed for thee--prayers caught up by the swift wingèd South and carried o'er the seas? The seventh day had come, the seventh, and thy last. Fate had unwound thy thread of days. Howbeit even then thou spakest, crying, with thy dying breath, "Corinna, fare thee well!"

There, in Elysium, on a hill-side's gentle slope there stands a forest of broad, shady oaks, and over the moist soil the rich grass spreads its coverlet of green. Here, if the fabled tale we may believe, abide all innocent birds, and here no fowl of evil omen ever comes. Here range the harmless swans, and here the one undying Phœnix dwells. Here doth the peacock proudly show his gorgeous plumage and the crooning dove showers kisses on her eager mate. Here in their midst, here in these pleasant woody places, our parrot speaks and calls around him all birds of gentle soul. His bones a mound doth cover, a little mound as doth befit his size, and on it is a little stone that bears this little legend: