FLIGHT OF THE WILD GEESE. RAMBLING along the marshes, Whether I was in the right, Toiling to lift Time's curtain, And if I burnt the strongest light; Suddenly, High in the air, I heard the travelled geese Their overture prepare. Stirred above the patent ball, Nor near so wild as that doth me befall, Or, swollen Wisdom, you. In the front there fetched a leader, As it was near night, When these air-pilots stop their flight. Cruising off the shoal dominion Depending not on their opinion, Pulled with twilight down in fact, Spectators at the play below, Cannot land and map the stars Nor taste the sweetmeats in odd jars, "Up, my feathered fowl, all," . My toes are nipped, let us render A WET sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast, And fills the white and rustling sail, And bends the gallant mast. And bends the gallant mast, my boys, While, like the eagle free, Away the good ship flies, and leaves Old England on the lee. There's tempest in yon hornèd moon, And lightning in yon cloud; And hark, the music, mariners! The wind is wakening loud. The wind is wakening loud, my boys, The lightning flashes free; The hollow oak our palace is, Our heritage the sea. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. DEEP in the wave is a coral grove, Where the purple mullet and goldfish rove; Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue, That never are wet with falling dew, But in bright and changeful beauty shine Far down in the green and glassy brine. The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift, And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow: From coral rocks the sea-plants lift Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow; The water is calm and still below, For the winds and the waves are absent there, And the sands are bright as the stars that glow In the motionless fields of upper air: There with its waving blade of Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks, That lift the deep upon their backs, He gave us this eternal spring And throws the melons at our feet; chime, With falling oars they kept the time. A. MARVELL. |