Oh, bird of tireless wing, that flies
A black spot on the leaden skies,
When tempests loudly roar,
Where rise the rocks that are your home?
Frown they where Arctic surges foam
Along an ice-bound shore?

What mysteries of death and storm
Are held within that buoyant form?
What ship, whose waiting port
Still watches for her rising sail,
Sank down the vortex of a gale
Whereof you made but sport.

Where tropic islands gem the sea,
And over many a wide degree
The orange groves foretell
The nearing land, your lazy wing,
Shadows the coral groves that spring
Deep down in ocean's well,

When cyclones bluster where the waves
Roll high and white above the graves
Of fleets, lost long ago,
Like some lone spirit holden fast
Within the fury of the blast,
You drift amid the snow.

Where rippling seas are cool along
Wide sands, melodious with song,
Your sable pinions hold
Their onward way, while valleys wide
A moment in your vision bide,
Rich with rare autumn gold.

And at the last, what fate is yours?
When age grows strong, and sun allures,
Then, where the foam lies bright
In equatorial parallels,
Do you ride softly on the swells
Through summer day and night?

Oh, bird, whose trackless way has seen
The Arctic glaciers, and the green
Of far off orient lands,
Full oft has blown the wind that bore
Us outward from the stormy shore,
Where lie our shrouding sands.