Part 2 — TO A SWALLOW

THAT DROPPED ON DECK DURING A STORM AT SEA.

———

BY WILLIAM FALCONER.

———

Spent are thy wings, poor wanderer on the deep,

Minion of spring, frail wrestler with the breeze,

Led by young hope o’er ever-spreading seas

Where the wing’d storms their prowling vigils keep,

Mayhap ’twas thou that built thy clayey nest

Last springtide at my lattice arched with flowers⁠—

Thy tiny wing that beat the morning hours

And woke my fair girl from her dewy rest.

But no! for ’mid a thousand, were I blind,

Methinks I’d know that bird, by instinct rare;

Yet fear not, heaven’s dark brow looks now more kind.

Repose—then flutter through the brightening air,

But when thou meet’st the sharers of my heart

Thy benefactor’s grief by mystic spell impart!