To a Waterfowl
Written by William Cullen Bryant
Whither, midst falling dove,
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 thy distant flight, to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along,
Seek’st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or merge of river wide,
Or where the rocking bellows rise and sink,
On the chafed oceans side?
There is a Power whose case
Teaches thy way along the pathless coast-
The desert and illimitable air,
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned
At that far height the cold thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop hot weary, to the welcome land
Though the dark night is near.
Yet soon thy toil shall end,
Soon thou shall find a summer home and rest
And scream among thy fellows needs shall bend
Soon, or thy shattered nest.
Thow’st gone; the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up they 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 trace alone
Will lead my steps aright.