THE SEA-BIRD'S SONG. Who watches their course who so mildly, 43 "T is the sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird, &c. Who hovers on high o'er the lover, My eye is the light of the billow, My wing on the wake of the waveI shall take to my breast-for a pillowThe shroud of the fair and the braveI'm the sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird, &c. My foot on the ice-berg has lighted My eye when the bark is benighted The sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird, The only witness there. Whose music up the deep and dewy air Swells to the clouds, and calls on Echo there, Till a new melody is born Wake, wake again, the night Is bending from her throne of beauty down, With still stars burning on her azure crown, Intense, and eloquently bright. Night, at its pulseless noon! When the far voice of waters mourns in song, And some tired watch-dog, lazily and long, Barks at the melancholy moon. Hark! how it sweeps away, Soaring and dying on the silent sky, As if some sprite of sound went wandering by, With lone halloo and roundelay! THANATOPSIS. Swell, swell in glory out! Thy tones come pouring on my leaping heart, And my stirred spirit hears thee with a start As boyhood's old remembered shout. Oh! have ye heard that peal, From sleeping city's moon-bathed battlements, Or from the guarded field and warrior tents, Like some near breath around you steal? Or have ye in the roar Of sea, or storm, or battle, heard it rise, Go, go-no other sound, No music that of air or earth is born, THANATOPSIS. BY W. C. BRYANT. To him who in the love of nature holds 45 46 THANATOPSIS Into his darker musings, with a mild Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, To Nature's teachings, while from all around- Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thy eternal resting place Shalt thou retire alone-nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world-with kings The powerful of the earth the wise, the good, THANATOPSIS Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 47 That make the meadows green; and poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, The flight of years began, have laid them down |