Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Sea Bird
How joyously the young sea-mew
Lay dreaming on the waters blue,
Whereon our little bark had thrown
A little shade, the only one;
But shadows ever man pursue.
E. B. Browning—The Sea-Mew.
Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Bryant—To a Water Fowl.
Up and down! Up and down!
From the base of the wave to the billow’s crown;
And amidst the flashing and feathery foam
The Stormy Petrel finds a home,—
A home, if such a place may be,
For her who lives on the wide, wide sea,
On the craggy ice, in the frozen air,
And only seeketh her rocky lair
To warm her young and to teach them spring
At once o’er the waves on their stormy wing!
Barry Cornwall—The Stormy Petrel.
Between two seas the sea-bird’s wing makes halt,
Wind-weary; while with lifting head he waits
For breath to reinspire him from the gates
That open still toward sunrise on the vault
High-domed of morning.
Swinburne—Songs of the Spring Tides. Introductory lines to Birthday Ode to Victor Hugo.