RESTLESS forms of living light Quivering on your lucid wings, Cheating still the curious sight With a thousand shadowings; Various as the tints of even, Gorgeous as the hues of heaven, Reflected on your native streams In flitting, flashing, billowy gleams! Harmless warriors, clad in mail Of silver breast-plate, golden scale; -- Mail of Nature's own bestowing, With peaceful radiance mildly glowing, -- Fleet are ye, as fleetest galley Or pirate rover sent from Sallee; Keener than the Tartar's arrow, Sport ye in your sea so narrow. Was the sun himself your sire? Were ye born of vital fire? Or of the shade of golden flowers, Such as we fetch from eastern bowers, To mock this murky clime of ours? Upwards, downwards, now ye glance, Weaving many a mazy dance; Seeming still to grow in size When ye would elude our eyes. Pretty creatures! we might deem Ye were happy as ye seem, -- As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe, As light, as loving, and as lithe, As glady earnest in your play, As when ye gleam'd in far Cathay. And yet, since on this hapless earth There's small sincerity in mirth, And laughter oft is but an art To drown the outcry of the heart; It may be, that your ceaseless gambols, Your wheelings, dartings, divings, rambles, Your restless roving round and round The circuit of your crystal bound, -- Is but the task of weary pain, An endless labor, dull and vain; And while your forms are gayly shining, Your little lives are inly pining! Nay! but still I fain would dream That ye are happy as ye seem, Deck'd in Oriental pride, By homely British fire-side. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY [DECEMBER 16, 1773] by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES THE SUPPLIANTS: PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE. CHORUS by AESCHYLUS FRIDAY NIGHT by ISIDORE G. ASCHER TO THE GALLIC EAGLE by BERNARD BARTON FALSE LOVE AND TRUE LOGIC by SAMUEL LAMAN BLANCHARD |