in all the city there is no more beautiful sight than that which is contributed by the flight of pigeons. you may see them flying in one place and another, here over the towering stacks of some tall factory, there over the low roofs of some workaday neighborhood; the yard of a laborer, the roof of some immense office building, the eaves of a shed or barn furnishing them shelter and a point of rendezvous from which they sail. i have seen them at morning, when the sky was like silver, turning in joyous circles so high that the size of a large flock of forty was no more than a hand’s breadth. i have seen them again at evening, wheeling and turning in a light which was amethystine in its texture, so soft that they seemed swimming in a world of dream. in the glow of a radiant sunset, against the bosom of lowering storm clouds, when the turn of a wing made them look like a handful of snowflakes, or the shafts of the evening sunlight turned their bodies to gold, i have watched them soaring, soaring, soaring, running like children, laughing down the bosom of the wind, wheeling, shifting, rising, falling, the one idyllic note in a world of commonplace—or, perhaps more truthfully, the key central of what is a heavenly scene of beauty.

the flight of pigeons

i do not know what it is that makes pigeons so interesting to me, unless it is that this flight of theirs into75 the upper world is to me the essence of things poetic, the one thing which i should like to do myself. the sunny sides of the barnyard roofs they occupy, the quiet beauty of the yards in which they live, their graceful and contented acceptance of the simple and the commonplace, their cooing ease, the charm of the landscapes over which they fly and against the outlines of which they are so often artistically engraved, are to me of the essence of the beautiful. i can think of nothing better. if i were to have the privilege of reincarnation i might even choose to be a pigeon.

and, in connection with this, i have so often asked myself what there is in pure motion which is so delightful, so enchanting, and before the mystery of which, as manifested by the flight of pigeons my mind pauses, for it finds no ready solution. the poetry of music, the poetry of motion, the arch-significance of a graceful line in flight—these are of psychic, perhaps of chemic subtlety (who knows?), blending into some great scheme of universal rhythm, of which singing, dancing, running, flying, the sinuous curvings of rivers, the rhythmic wavings of trees, the blowings and restings of the winds, and every other lovely thing of which the earth is heir, are but integral parts.

nature has many secrets all her own. we peer and search. with her ill moods we quarrel. over her savageries we weep or rage. in her amethystine hours of ease and rest we rest also and wonder, moved to profound and regal melancholy over our own brief hours in her light, to unreasoned joy and laughter over her beauty in her better moods, their pensive exaltation.

76 as for myself, i only know that whenever i see these birds, their coats of fused slate and bright metallic colors shielding them so smoothly, their feet of coral, their eyes of liquid black, smooth-rimmed with pink, and strutting so soberly at ease on every barn roof or walk or turning, awing, in some heavenly light against a sky of blue or storm-black—i only know that once more a fugue of most delicate and airy mood is being fingered, that the rendition of another song is at hand.

to fly so! to be a part of sky, sunlight, air! to be thus so delicately and gracefully organized as to be able to rest upon the bosom of a breeze, or run down its curving surface in long flights, to have the whole world-side for a spectacle, the sunny roof of a barn or a house for a home! not to brood over the immensities, perhaps, not to sigh over the too-well-known end!

fold you your hands and gaze.... they speak of joy accomplished. fold your hands and gaze. as you look you have that which they bring—beauty. it is without flaw and without price.