I've watch'd the sea bird calmly glide
Unruffled o'er the ocean tide;
Unscared she heard the waters roar
In foaming breakers on the shore.
Fearless of ill, herself she gave
To rise upon the lifting wave,
Or sink, to be awhile unseen -
The undulating swells between -
Till, as the evening shadows grew,
Noiseless, unheard, aloft she flew;
While, soaring to her rock-built nest,
A sunbeam lighted on her breast,
A moment glitter'd in mine eye,
Then quickly vanish'd through the sky.
While by the pebbly beach I stood,
That sea-bird, on the waving flood,
Pictured to my enraptured eye,
A soul at peace with God:—Now high,
Now low, upon the gulf of life,
Raised or depress'd, in peace or strife,
Calmly she kens the changeful wave,
She dreads no storm—she fears no grave:
To her, the world's tumultuous roar,
Dies like the echo on the shore.
"Father," she cries, "Thy pleasure all fulfill,
I gladly yield me to thy sovereign will
Let earthly joys, let comforts ebb or rise,
Tranquil on thee, my God, my soul relies."
Then, as advance the shades of night,
Long-plumed, she takes her heavenward flight;
But, as she mounts, I see her fling
A beam of glory from her wing -
A moment-to my aching sight
Lost in the boundless fields of light!