The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-06-06
ARABS OF THE AIR.
Wud Geese and Their Wonderfully e1s.
tanned Flights.

Wild Geese and Their Wonderfully eu0.
tanned Flights.
The annual migratory fight Of wild
geese is spectacle to inspire the mind
and Imagination of every beholdsr.
Byron thus apostrophizes:
Natures noblest gift. my gray goose quill
Slave Of my tho'ts. obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent bird to form pen,
That mighty instrument OF little men.
But he says nothing of that noble
bird, the goose itself Not the tame
and ignoble barn-yard fowl, but the
wild goose OF vast and inaccessible soli-
tudes-the Ishmaelite of the feathered
tribe - the incarnation of wild
ness and the antipodes of civil
ization. What is the flight of
the American eagle-that bird OF
Jove, and the reputed king of the skies,
in comparison to the sustained fight of
this wintry wanderer, who carries the
season on his prov? It is not for the
eagle to cross wintry oceans-trackless
deserts and boundless continents, cleav-
ing the vaulted palace of the skies at
an acute angle, in line drawn by in
scrutable instinct through the frma-
ment. And see with what ease, steadi-
way, and how undertaking 10 their
course TO the sunny south.
And the cry of the wild goose--how it
stirs the imagina ton and reminds one
of Longfellow's hymn: LAS loud that
clarion voice exclaims excelsior" 1t
has some peculiar quality of nearness
and remoteness-a penetrating power
beyond the influence of distance and
space. Something clear, cold and in
cisive in its melody that seems not of
earth.
The apparent boundlessness and I'M
certainty of their excursion and des-
tination add another element of facina-
ton to their fight, which is ':bold and
forth on, leaving no track behind 4" AS
one gazes upon them as they grow Iim
in the distance he feels that men are in
deed but q kneaded clod-decidedly of
the earth earthly.
Were man entirely destitute of i'm.
agination and aspiration-had he
Never a thought Ger the boundary flying,
Never thought as the clouds swing by.
the clarion cry Of the wild geese would
not strike like an Eollian harp an an
swering cord to something kindred in
his own nature.
And then TO think of the tireless and
sustained energy of their fight! God
has been called eternal energy, and
much Of this quality seems to enter
into this Arab of the desert of the air
As the poet Bryant sings:
ALI day thy wings have famed
AT that far height the cold. thin atmosphere
Yet stoop not weary, to the welcome land.
Tho the dark night is near.
Although so inspiring theme might
be supposed to have awakened song in
many poets, yet comparatively few have
written upon it. Longfellow, in a. poem
called ''The Birds of Killingsworth, :"
makes this allusion:
Across the sound.the birds OF passage sailed
Speaking some unknown language strange and
sweet,
OF tropic isles remote and passing. hailed,
The village with cheers of all their fleet.
ltwould seem that the language of the
sweet singer of Israel in the Psalms
might most appropriately be applied to
this trackless and tireless wanderer OF
the air:
He did dy upon the wings Of the wind: yea,
he who made darkness his secret place, and his
pavilion around about him were dark waters
and thick clouds CT the skies
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