- Whither, midst falling dew,
- While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
- Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
- Thy solitary way?
- Vainly the fowler's eye
- Might mark the distant flight to do wrong,
- As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
- Thy figure floats along.
- Seek'st thou the plashy brink
- Of woody lake, or marge of river wide,
- Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
- On the chafed ocean side?
- There is a Power whose care
- Teaches thy way along that pathless coast —
- The desert and illimitable air —
- Lone wandering but not lost.
- All day the wings have fanned
- At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
- Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
- Though the dark night is near.
- And soon that foil shall end;
- Soon shall thou find a summer home, and rest,
- And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bond
- Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.
- Then'st gone, the abyss of Heaven
- Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart.
- Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
- And shall not soon depart.
- He who, from zone to zone,
- Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
- In the long way that I must tread alone,
- Will lead my steps aright.
W.C. Bryant
May 19, 1883.Glenwood [Iowa] Weekly Opinion 20(6): 1.