"
"But how can they find the way?" asked Frank.
"All that we know about that, Frank, is, that He who created the
martins has given to them the knowledge that guides them right. In
their long way through the pathless air, they never make a mistake.
Our great vessels and our skilful captains sometimes get lost in the
wide ocean; but these little birds always know the way, and arrive
with unerring certainty at their place of destination.
Our great poet, Bryant, has written some beautiful lines to a water-
fowl, which express this idea. I will repeat these lines to you if
you like to hear them.
'Whither, 'midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly limned upon the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,--
The desert and illimitable air,--
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
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