The Blackbird that Blighted My Life \ 80 



The tendoicst cIcNotion lavisiicd on him only excited his 

 coiitenipi. He despised it even while he took advantage of it. 



lie ne\(;r sang when anyone was in his presence. He 

 feared it might gi\ e pleasure, I think. But I hav-e caught 

 him whistling in a 1(jw key to himself— a hymn of hate, and 

 ihisi 1 fancy was the burden of his s(jng : 



He is no friend of mine, thank (',od; no friend of mine." 



And yet how kind I was to him! 



Sometimes I wonder if he really is a bird or only 

 some unhappy soul that for a {umisliment was doomed to put 

 on feathers and pass through the world expressing hate per- 

 sonified, 



()ncc, for an experiment. I put him all night in my 

 bedro(jm. He was quiet, until the lights were out and then 

 giving a weird chuckle he ran up and down the cage; off 

 one perch on to another all through the night until I began to 

 think \\v. must be a white rat and not a white Blackbird, and 

 changed hi^ form at night I 



I got up and peered at him. 



Perhaps I broke the spell. He was a bird still — there 

 was tile gleaming red eye and snapping" beak; he was waiting, 

 always waiting, for The Day. 



(It conies to all, my Blackbird, who know how to wait. 

 It will come to you — why not?). Yes, he blighted my life! 

 Did he bring luck, you ask? 



Well, one must not talk lightly of fortune. Some say 

 he did — he does. For myself I say nothing. Arc not all 

 Totum^ unpleasant ? 



It may be that like the Tailor's Starlin_g he owed the 

 world a grudge, and was bent on paying it back. 



Outside in the garden others of his kind refused to 

 fraternise with him. He ne\'er seemed to iiifnd. iNTever ap- 

 peared lonely. 



There he sat " nursing his wrath to keep it warm." 

 A feathered Ishmael lookuig forward to The Day I 



