Classic and Contemporary Poetry
LINES TO A SEAGULL, by GERALD JOSEPH GRIFFIN Poet's Biography First Line: White bird of the tempest! O beautiful thing! Last Line: She smiles like a victor, serene on the world! Subject(s): Birds; Gulls; Seagulls | ||||||||
WHITE bird of the tempest! O beautiful thing! With the bosom of snow and the motionless wing, Now sweeping the billow, now floating on high, Now bathing thy plumes in the light of the sky, Now poising o'er ocean thy delicate form, Now breasting the surge with thy bosom so warm, Now darting aloft with a heavenly scorn, Now shooting along like a ray of the morn, Now lost in the folds of the cloud-curtained dome, Now floating abroad like a flake of the foam, Now silently poised o'er the war of the main, Like the spirit of Charity brooding o'er pain, Now gliding with pinion all silently furled, Like an angel descending to comfort the world! Thou seem'st to my spirit, as upward I gaze, And see thee, now clothed in mellowest rays, Now lost in the storm-driven vapours that fly Like hosts that are routed across the broad sky, Like a pure spirit true to its virtue and faith, 'Mid the tempests of Nature, and passion, and death! Rise, beautiful emblem of purity, rise! On the sweet winds of Heaven to thine own brilliant skies; Still higher -- still higher -- till lost to our sight, Thou hidest thy wings in a mantle of light; And I think, how a pure spirit gazing on thee, Must long for the moment -- the joyous and free -- When the soul disembodied from nature shall spring Unfettered at once to her Maker and King; When the bright day of service and suffering past, Shapes fairer than thine shall shine round her at last, While, the standard of battle triumphantly furled, She smiles like a victor, serene on the world! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JUST AS MORNING TWILIGHT AND THE GULLS, GLOUCESTER, MAY 1966 by CHARLES OLSON A POEM BY GARNIE BRAXTON by JAMES WRIGHT GULLS by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS A GULL GOES UP by LEONIE ADAMS UNDER THE WHARF by IDA COLE BARTLATT THE SEAGULL by HERBERT BASHFORD EILEEN AROON by GERALD JOSEPH GRIFFIN ADARE by GERALD JOSEPH GRIFFIN GILLE MACHREE (BRIGHTENER OF MY HEART) by GERALD JOSEPH GRIFFIN |
|