Birds Of Passage.

FLIGHT THE FIRST     . . come i gru van cantando lor lai,     Facendo in aer di se lunga riga. -- DANTE     BIRDS OF PASSAGE     Black shadows fall     From the lindens tall,     That lift aloft their massive wall         Against the southern sky;     And from the realms     Of the shadowy elms     A tide-like darkness overwhelms         The fields that round us lie.     But the night is fair,     And everywhere     A warm, soft vapor fills the air,         And distant sounds seem near,     And above, in the light     Of the star-lit night,     Swift birds of passage wing their flight         Through the dewy atmosphere.     I hear the beat     Of their pinions fleet,     As from the land of snow and sleet         They seek a southern lea.     I hear the cry     Of their voices high     Falling dreamily through the sky,         But their forms I cannot see.     O, say not so!     Those sounds that flow     In murmurs of delight and woe         Come not from wings of birds.     They are the throngs     Of the poet's songs,     Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,         The sound of winged words.     This is the cry     Of souls, that high     On toiling, beating pinions, fly,         Seeking a warmer clime,     From their distant flight     Through realms of light     It falls into our world of night,         With the murmuring sound of rhyme.