Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
The Little Beach-Bird
By Richard Henry Dana, Sr. (17871879)T
Why takest thou its melancholy voice,
And with that boding cry
Why o’er the waves dost fly?
O, rather, bird, with me
Through the fair land rejoice!
As driven by a beating storm at sea;
Thy cry is weak and scared,
As if thy mates had shared
The doom of us: Thy wail,—
What doth it bring to me?
Restless and sad; as if, in strange accord
With the motion and the roar
Of waves that drive to shore,
One spirit did ye urge—
The Mystery—the Word.
Old Ocean! A requiem o’er the dead
From out thy gloomy cells
A tale of mourning tells,—
Tells of man’s woe and fall,
His sinless glory fled.
Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring
Thy spirit never more;
Come, quit with me the shore,
And on the meadows light
Where birds for gladness sing!