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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE PETREL, by JOHN BANISTER TABB Poet's Biography
First Line: A wanderer o'er the sea-graves ever green
Last Line: Returning, ghost-like, to the restless sea.
Alternate Author Name(s): Father Tabb
Subject(s): Petrels
First Line: A wanderer o'er the sea-graves ever green
Last Line: Returning, ghost-like, to the restless sea.
Alternate Author Name(s): Father Tabb
Subject(s): Petrels
A WANDERER o'er the sea-graves ever green,
Whereon the foam-flowers blossom day by day,
Thou flittest as a doomful shadow gray
That from the wave no sundering light can wean.
What wouldst thou from the deep unfathomed glean,
Frail voyager? and whither leads thy way?
Or art thou, as the sailor legends say,
An exile from the spirit-world unseen?
Lo! desolate, above a colder tide,
Pale Memory, a sea-bird like to thee,
Flits outward where the whitening billows hide
What seemed of Life the one reality, --
A mist whereon the morning bloom hath died,
Returning, ghost-like, to the restless sea.
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!
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ODE TO MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKEN by THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON
LINES TO THE STORMY PETREL by ANONYMOUS
RIDERS OF THE STORM by DORYS CROW GROVER
ANONYMOUS by JOHN BANISTER TABB
AT BETHLEHEM: 1. THE CHILD by JOHN BANISTER TABB
AT BETHLEHEM: 3. TO HIS MOTHER by JOHN BANISTER TABB
EVOLUTION by JOHN BANISTER TABB