COLORADO SNOW-BIRDS

I’ll tell you how the snow-birds come,
Here in our Winter days;
They make me think of chickens,
With their cunning little ways.
birds in snow
We go to bed at night, and leave
The ground all bare and brown,
And not a single snow-bird
decoration149decorationTo be seen in all the town.
But when we wake at morning
The ground with snow is white,
And with the snow, the snow-birds
Must have travelled all the night;
For the streets and yards are full of them,
The dainty little things,
With snow-white breasts, and soft brown heads,
And speckled russet wings.
Not here and there a snow-bird,
As we see them at the East,
But in great flocks, like grasshoppers¹,
By hundreds, at the least,
They push and crowd and jostle,
And twitter as they feed,
And hardly lift their heads up,
For fear to miss a seed.
What ’tis they eat, nobody seems
To know or understand;
The seeds are much too fine to see,
decoration150decorationAll sifted² in the sand.
But winds last Summer scattered³ them,
All thickly on these plains;
The little snow-birds have no barns,
But God protects their grains.
. . . . . . .
Some flocks count up to thousands,
I know, and when they fly,
Their tiny wings make rustle⁴,
As if a wind went by.
They go as quickly as they come,
Go in a night or day;
Soon as the snow has melted off,
The darlings fly away,
But come again, again, again,
All winter with each snow;
Brave little armies, through the cold;
Swift back and forth⁵ they go.
I always wondered where they lived
decoration151decorationIn summer, till last year
I stumbled on them in their home,
High in the upper air;
’Way up among the clouds it was,
A many thousand feet,
But on the mountain-side gay flowers
Were blooming fresh and sweet.
birds on ground in forest
Great pine trees’ swaying branches
Gave cool and fragrant⁶ shade;
And here, we found, the snow-birds
decoration152decorationTheir summer home had made.
“Oh, lucky little snow-birds!”
We said, “to know so well,
In summer time and winter time,
Your destined⁷ place to dwell—
“To journey, nothing doubting,
Down to the barren plains,
Where harvests are all over,
To find your garnered⁸ grains!
“Oh, precious little snow-birds!
If we were half as wise,
If we were half as trusting
To the Father in the skies,—
“He would feed us, though the harvests
Had ceased throughout the land,
And hold us, all our lifetime,
In the hollow of his hand!”
—Helen Hunt Jackson.

1 grasshoppers   

n.蚱蜢( grasshopper的名词复数 )；蝗虫；蚂蚱；（孩子）矮小的

参考例句：

• Grasshoppers die in fall. 蚱蜢在秋天死去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• There are usually a lot of grasshoppers in the rice fields. 稻田里通常有许多蚱蜢。 来自辞典例句

2 sifted   

v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 )；筛滤；细查；详审

参考例句：

• She sifted through her papers to find the lost letter. 她仔细在文件中寻找那封丢失的信。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She sifted thistles through her thistle-sifter. 她用蓟筛筛蓟。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

4 rustle   

v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声

参考例句：

• She heard a rustle in the bushes.她听到灌木丛中一阵沙沙声。
• He heard a rustle of leaves in the breeze.他听到树叶在微风中发出的沙沙声。

5 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

6 fragrant   

adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的

参考例句：

• The Fragrant Hills are exceptionally beautiful in late autumn.深秋的香山格外美丽。
• The air was fragrant with lavender.空气中弥漫薰衣草香。

7 destined   

adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的

参考例句：

• It was destined that they would marry.他们结婚是缘分。
• The shipment is destined for America.这批货物将运往美国。

8 garnered   

v.收集并（通常）贮藏（某物），取得，获得( garner的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Mr. Smith gradually garnered a national reputation as a financial expert. 史密斯先生逐渐赢得全国金融专家的声誉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He has garnered extensive support for his proposals. 他的提议得到了广泛的支持。 来自辞典例句