The Stork

We have all kinds of birds, and man

Prefers one for its plumage bright
Or for the song wherewith it can

The human heart fill with delight.
The bird I love best can not sing.

Is not a gaudy feathered thing
But like myself, is back and white,

Without a beauteous tail or wing.

The stork 's my favorite, like me
He dwells upon his lowland's planis, —

My own dear home- — Still it might be
That it my heart's best love enchains
Because I've known him long. When I

Yet, in my cradle whined, his cry
I heard, my mind e'en now retains,

His crackling call when he rose high.

My childhood's years were his. My mind

Was serious e'en when a lad.
While chums of mine would pleasure find

To drive the herd, I felt most glad
When from a nearby hay stack viewed
The trials of the stork's young brood,

As they their flying lessons had
To rise to higher altitude.

The thought arose then in my brain,

I cogitated long and deep:
Why did not providence ordain

That man too 'through the air may sweep.
Like birds. True, we can walk, but I
Aspired on wings to rise and .fly, - , ,.

Instead upon the earth to creep, ;
I" longed to reach, the starry sky.
I longed to reach the starry hight:
I envied e'en the sun who spread

A covering of brightest light
Over our own earth's hoary head.

His heart's blood pours out every eve-
What mean reward. — it made me grieve —
To stab those who light's pathways tread

Fair autumn season's golden days

The children joyously salute.
Good motherlike the season lays

Into their baskets luscious fruit.
The autumn is no friend of mine
I told him "keep your fruit and wine

And scare not off my stork, you brute!"
I felt depressed when I then saw
Them gather and begin their flight;

As for my wasted youth, with awe
Looked after them and felt contrite.
Upon the roof the empty nest
With melancholy filled my breast,
As if some mystic breath the sight
Of my own future would suggest.
With winter gone, earth casts away
Its heavy coat of snowy white.
It dons for spring a waistcoat gay,
Embroidered green and light and bright:
In springtide's days my own soul too
Will clad itself in vestments new.
To meet the stork. I with delight,

Went forth into the distant blue.

When later on, the spark afire:
The boy a youth-to-be had grown.

Beneath my feet the earth 's a pyre.
And I resolve not to lie prone:
I mount a horse, as if the pace
For blowing wind I'd make, I race,

The reins e'en of my horse I've thrown,
My swift run 's o'er the puszta's face.

I love the puszta; 't is where I

Feel always home, where I am free,
Where when I cast about my eye
Naught will impede its sight. I see
No mighty cliffs and rocks which look
Like threatening ghosts, hear not the brook
A-murmuring roll down when she

The course to freedom's regions took.

Say not the puszta is not fair,

It is, but like a modest maid
Prefers to hide from vulgar stare

Her beauty with a dense veil's aid.
Of course, does comrades, friends she hail,
She promptly casts away the veil

Spellbound they look and see displayed
A beauty from some fairy tale-

I love the puszta! Venturesome

I cross it oft on my swift steed.
When to remotest spots I come

To which no footprints of men lead:
Dismounting, lie down in the grass,
As o'er the scene my view I pass,

I see my stork in near-by reed.

Within the puszta's very heart

The stork and I our day dreams weaved
The pond's depth seemed to be his part,

The mirage my close heed received.
And thus we two, the stork and I
The best years of my youth see fly.

He was my friend; I felt bereaved
Did I not find him always nigh-
E'en now I love that bird, to me
That stork appears to be the one

Reality we do not see
Only in dreams by fancy spun.

And eagerly, year after year
I wait that he again appear,