Page:Poems Cook.djvu/72

Ye are content with the groves and the hills,
Ye feed in the valleys and drink at the rills;
But what are the joys of the forest and plain
To those we find on the fresh, wide main?

Birds of the land, ye rear your broods
In the lofty tree or tangled woods,
Where the branch may be reft by the howling wind,
Or the prowling schoolboy seek and find.
But we roost high on the beetling rock,
That firmly stands the hurricane's shock;
Our callow young may rest in a home
Where no shot can reach, and no footstep come.

Birds of the land, ye shrink and hide
As the tempest-cloud spreads black and wide;
Your songs are hush'd in cowering fear
As the startling thunder clap breaks near.
But the brave gull soars while the deluge pours,
While the stout ship groans and the keen blast roars:
Oh! the Sea-Gull leads the gayest life
While the storm-fiends wage their fiercest strife.

We lightly skim o'er the breaker's dash,
Where timbers strike with parting crash;
We play round the dark hull, sinking fast,
And find a perch on the tottering mast:
More loud and glad is our shrieking note
As the planks and spars of the wreck'd bark float:
There live we in revelling glee,
'Mid the whistling gale and raging sea.

We are not caught and caged to please
The fondled heirs of wealth and ease;
The hands of beauty never come
With soft caress or dainty crumb:

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