Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
VI. Animate NatureThe Little Beach Bird
Richard Henry Dana, Sr. (17871879)T
Why takest thou its melancholy voice?
Why with that brooding cry
O’er the waves dost thou 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 does it bring to me?
Restless and sad; as if, in strange accord
With motion and with roar
Of waves that drive to shore,
One spirit did ye urge—
The Mystery—the Word.
Old ocean, art! 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 nevermore.
Come, quit with me the shore,
For gladness and the light,
Where birds of summer sing.