Classic Poem

Far from his breezy home of cliff and billow,
Yon sea-bird folds his wing;
Upon the tremulous bough of this stream-shading willow
He stays his wandering.

Fanned by fresh leaves, and soothed by blossoms closing,
His lullaby the stream,
A stranger, in bewildered loneliness reposing,
He dreams his ocean-dream: —

His dream of ocean-haunts, and ocean-brightness,
The rock, the wave, the foam,
The blue above, beneath, the sea-cloud's trail of whiteness,
His unforgotten home.

And he would fly, but cannot, for the shadows
Of night have barred his way;
How could he search a path across these woods and meadows
To his far sea-home spray?

Dark miles of thicket, swamp, and moorland dreary,
Forbid his hopeless flight;
With plumage soiled, eye dim, heart faint, and wing all weary,
He waits for sun and light.

And I, in this far land, a timid stranger,
Resting by Time's lone stream,
Lie dreaming, hour by hour, beset with night and danger,
The Church's Patmos-dream:

The dream of home possessed, and all home's gladness,
Beyond these unknown hills,
Of solace after earth's sore days of stranger-sadness,
Beside the eternal rills.

Life's exile past, all told its broken story;
Night, death, and evil gone;
This more than Egypt-shame exchanged for Canaanglory,
And the bright city won!

Come then, O Christ! earth's Monarch and Redeemer,
Thy glorious Eden bring,
Where I, even I, at last, no more a trembling dreamer,
Shall fold my heavy wing.