THE OSPREY FOLK
Reading edition
Alas! for the child that the Osprey Folk Circle around at birth; Never for him are the good green fields And the lap of the old brown earth And the whet of the scythe in the afternoon And the joy of the homespun mirth. But all day long at the turn of the tide At morn, at noon, or even, He hears in his ears that whistle of winds (And the winds of the seas are seven). And each one brings him the smack of the fogs And the salt in the sea winds driven.
He has never a mate like the common folk But out of the whir and wheel Of the Osprey wings is a voice that calls With the strength of a mate’s appeal. And the darkness putteth its lips to his lips When the rims of the sky line reel. O, I was born where the Osprey Folk Cross to the Finnish rocks, And the caw and the call of their throats are more Than the power of ban or locks; So never for me will the uplands be Gray with the feeding flocks.
Shrilling of wind in the cordage taut And churn of the flying spume, The pound of the waves like a cannon shot And the air like a drumming loom, And I shall go back to the Osprey Folk For this is the Osprey Doom.
