Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FISH-HAWK, by JOHN HALL WHEELOCK


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FISH-HAWK, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: On the large highway of the awful air that flows
Last Line: Heaven, crowded with stars, trembled from rim to rim.
Subject(s): Birds; Hawks


On the large highway of the awful air that flows
Unbounded between sea and heaven, while twilight screened
The majestic distances, he moved and had repose;
On the huge wind of the Immensity he leaned
His steady body in long lapse of flight, and rose

Gradual, through broad gyres of ever-climbing rest,
Up the clear stair of the eternal sky; and stood
Throned on the summit! Slowly, with his widening breast
Widened around him the enormous Solitude,
From the gray rim of ocean to the glowing west.

Headlands and capes forlorn of the far coast, the land
Rolling her barrens toward the south, he, from his throne
Upon the gigantic wind, beheld: he hung -- he fanned
The abyss for mighty joy, to feel beneath him strown
Pale pastures of the sea, with heaven on either hand,

The world with all her winds and waters, earth and air,
Fields, folds, and moving clouds. The awful and adored
Arches and endless aisles of vacancy, the fair
Void of sheer heights and hollows hailed him as her lord
And lover in the highest, to whom all heaven lay bare!

Till from that tower of ecstasy, that baffled height,
Stooping, he sank; and slowly on the world's wide way
Walked, with great wing on wing, the merciless, proud Might,
Hunting the huddled and lone reaches for his prey
Down the dim shore -- and faded in the crumbling light.

Slowly the dusk covered the land. Like a great hymn
The sound of moving winds and waters was; the sea
Whispered a benediction, and the west grew dim
Where evening lifted her clear candles quietly . . .
Heaven, crowded with stars, trembled from rim to rim.





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