When shall we 3 meet again
Originally uploaded by JJay
Last Saturday I picked up a book called "Gilbert White's Journals" in our local Oxfam shop for £1.99. It's a transcription of the diaries that the Reverend Gilbert White kept from 1768 until his death in 1793. He used some of them as reference material whilst writing his bestseller "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne".
Here is the entry for 14th September 1791:
Hop-picking goes on without the least interruption. Stone-curlews cry late in the evenings. The congregating flocks of hirundines on the church and tower are very beautiful, and amusing! When they fly-off altogether from the roof, on any alarm, they quite swarm in the air. But soon they settle in heaps, and preening their feathers, and lifting up their wings to admit the sun, seem highly to enjoy the warm situation. Thus they spend the heat of the day, preparing for their emigration, and, as it were consulting when and where they are to go. The flight about the church seems to consist chiefly of house-martins, about 400 in number: but there are other places of rendezvous about the village frequented at the same time. The swallows seem to delight more in holding their assemblies on trees.
"When Autumn scatters his departing gleams,
Warn'd of approaching winter gathered play
The Swallow people; and toss'd wide around
O'er the calm sky in convolution swift,
The feather'd eddy floats: rejoicing once
Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire,
In clusters clung beneath the mouldring bank,
And where, unpierced by frost, the cavern sweats.
Or rather into warmer climes convey'd,
With other kindred birds of season, there
They twitter chearful, till the vernal months
Invite them welcome back: - for thronging now
Innumerous wings are in commotion all."
I'm fairly sure that the poem is an excerpt from "Autumn" by James Thomson. It refers to the uncertainty about where summer migrants, such as swallows, spend the winter.
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