Select poetry.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 355, 5 March 1866, Page 1

Select poetry.

TO A SEA-GULL,-SEEN OFF TEE CLIFF* OP MOHES. SjjjarHlTE bird-of the tempest 1 0 beautiful thing, VSEt 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 mom; 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, lake the spirit of charity brooding o’er pain; Now gliding with pinion all noiselessly furled. Like an angel descending to comfort the world; Thou seem’st to my fancy as upward I gaze, And see thee, now clothed in mellowest rays; Now lost in the storm-driven vapors that fly, Like hosts that are routed across the broad sky; Like a pure spirit true to its virtue and faith, 'Midst the tempests of nature, of passion, and death, Else, 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 bright spirit gazing on thee Must long for tho moment—the joyous and free— When the soul disembodied, from nature shall spring, Unfettered at once to her Maker and King; •When the long d;'y of service and suffering past, Shapes fairer than thine shall shine round her at last, While, the standard ot battle triumphantly furled She smiles like a victor serene on the world! Gebjod GEirnr/,