SCREECH OWL 173 



SCREECH OWL 



Aug.^ 1845. After the evening train has gone by 

 and left the world to silence and to me, the whip-poor- 

 will chants her vespers for half an hour. And when all 

 is still at night, the owls take up the strain, like mourn- 

 ing women their ancient ululu. Their most dismal 

 scream is truly Ben -Jon son i an. Wise midnight hags ! 

 It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the poets, 

 but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, — 

 but the mutual consolations of suicide lovers remem- 

 bering the pangs and the delights of supernal love in 

 the infernal groves. And yet I love to hear their wail- 

 ing, their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside, 

 reminding me sometimes of music and singing birds, 

 as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the 

 regrets and sighs, that would fain be sung. The spirits, 

 the low spirits and melancholy forebodings, of fallen 

 spirits who once in human shape night-walked the earth 

 and did the deeds of darkness, now expiating with their 

 wailing hymns, threnodiai, their sins in the very scen- 

 ery of their transgressions. They give me a new sense 

 of the vastness and mystery of that nature which is 

 the common dwelling of us both. " Oh-o-o-o-o that I 

 never had been bor-or-or-or-orn ! " sighs one on this 

 side of the pond, and circles in the restlessness of 

 despair to some new perch in the gray oaks. Then, 

 "That I never had been bor-or-or-or-orn!" echoes one 

 on the further side, with a tremulous sincerity, and 

 "Bor-or-or-or-orn" comes faintly from far in the Lin- 

 coln woods. 



