Two pigeons loved each other tenderly. One grew, however, bored at home, and yearned to undertake a voyage to a land far-off.
The other pigeon asked him, “Why? It’s cruel to leave me: absence makes the heart grow anguished. Reconsider—for yourself, if not for me—the tribulations, risks, and dangers of a journey. Wait at least till spring! There’s evil omens in the air; I heard a crow caw recently. My dreams will all be nightmares if you leave—of hawks, and nets, and fatal strife with baneful things! What if it rains? What will you eat? Where sleep? Oh, do not go!”
This protestation shook the hearer’s heart; but his desire to see and to experience was stronger than his pity.
“Please,” he said, “don’t cry. Three days at most will satisfy me. Then, when I return, I will regale you with the tales of my adventures. Who has nothing seen can nothing tell. We’ll while away the hours with stories, marvels, wonders! ‘I was such and such a place,’ I’ll say, ‘and such and such a thing occurred.’ I’ll paint a picture just like life; you’ll think you’re there yourself.”
At last, with tears in both their eyes, they said goodbye.
The traveller had not gone far before a storm cloud splitted open, forcing him to seek what shelter was provided by the meager foliage of the only tree in view. When finally the sky had cleared, the pigeon irritably dried his wings as best he could by flapping them about; then onward he continued.
Soon he spied some scattered wheat upon the ground. “I’ll have a little snack,” he thought, and landed; but the grain concealed a trap, which—“Treachery!”—ensnared his foot. The trap was old and worn, however, and by gnawing it and clawing it, and relinquishing some feathers, he was able to escape—still trailing string and apparatus like a convict.
Which, alas, attracted the attention of a vulture, who swooped down and seized the poor defenseless pigeon in his talons. Then, amazingly, there dropped, on outstretched wings, an eagle from the sky. While these two thieves were arguing, their booty flew away.
The pigeon on a shanty perched to catch his breath, believing his travails at last were ended. They were not. A pitiless young rascal shot him with a sling.
Half dead, half lame, and cursing curiosity and wanderlust, he limply staggered home.
The pleasures of reunion well repaid him for the pains of travel.
Lovers, if you wayfare, let it be together—and near home. You each can be the other’s world: as lovely, as diverse, as ever-new.
I too was once in love. And I would not have traded, not for all the treasures in the Louvre, nor all the splendor of the heavens, the humble fields and forests sanctified and gladdened by my lover’s gaze and steps.
I wonder if my heart can ever be rekindled. Will I never feel again those frightening delights that flabbergast the young? Is love for me forever past?