The Pipit

Out in the fields, one autumn, when easy southern breezes1 blew, I blew into straw-blades, blissfully making whistles. Later a brute wind blustered, bracing men to face danger. They made me sit inside then, sullen, dull, with the women. I feared the freezing blizzard, fretted about my pet ram and Toppa too, my stripling two-year-old colt, my jewel. These were my joys, my gentle jealously treasured pleasures; I thought they both, that bitter biting cold night, might perish. By dawn the wind had dwindled. Day broke, brilliant but chilly. We suited up and set out to search the blowing snowfields. My ram and tripping Toppa, the two I loved unduly, fetching but foolish creatures, floundered around the ice-slopes. I felt at fault. I needed to feed my pets, to lead them --- both of my youthful beauties --- back unharmed to the farmstead. What happened next? I'm happy to hail our frail endowments: men have, though hopelessly evil, a heart that God imparted. I saw, deep in a snowdrift somewhere among the hummocks --- cowering --- an olive-colored crippled meadow pipit. Frozen fast to the mosses, flight and hiding denied it, the weary creature watched me, wary with fear and terror. If God had suddenly sent me psalm-singing angels who promised rams by the ton and twenty Toppas, I swear, declaring: Out in Iceland, a little ardent boy could hardly aim at imitating Abraham's brave behavior. But now, zealously kneeling, knees in the freezing snowdrifts, he lay down flat and let his lips brush the thin, cold pinions. Unfaltering mercy melted the maiming, laming fetters those ranting winds of winter had wound around our darling. Surely "our darling" --- surely! for sheer affection yearly hurries the happy pipits, heading back to our meadows. --- Bolting aloft, it lilted its love to God above me; down below, but not downcast --- deep in joy! --- I sat weeping. ------- Frozen in fate's dark blizzard, felled to the earth --- quite mirthless --- I'd flourish were my Father's informing breath to warm me!