THE STRANGER SEA-BIRD.

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.

130

THE STRANGER SEA-BIRD.

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.

THE STRANGER SEA-BIRD.

131

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.

HOPE DEFERRED.

How oft the morn has cheated us,
As with unsleeping eye,

We lay upon our silent couch,

And watched the changing sky.

How often, as the heavy hours
Stole by with endless haste,
We've said, Ah now the dawn begins,
The weary night is past.

Hours went and came, but yet no streak

On eastern cloud or hill,

We looked in vain, no sign appeared, 'Twas night and silence still.

'Twas but the starlight, not the sun,

The moonlight, not the day;

We thought it was the dawn, but now That dawn seems far away.

HOPE DEFERRED.

'Tis thus, beguiled with fond desire,
And sick with hope deferred,
The watching Church, with eager ear,
The well-known cry has heard :-

"He whom you look for is at hand,
Both hope and fear are done!"
No, 'tis not yet, and still she waits
The still unrisen sun.

Age after age, in love and faith,

She has with longing eye

Been watching every streak of dawn

In yon perplexing sky.

And shall she now give up her trust,

And turn her eye away,

As if there were no sun for her,
No hope of light and day?

She will not, for she knows how sure
The promise of her Lord;

She will not, for she knows how true

Is the unchanging word.

133