I watch you with a patient satisfaction,
Well pleased to discount your predestined luck;
The float that figures in your sly transaction
Will carry back a goose, but not a duck.
Shrewd is our bird; not easy to outwit him!
Sharp is the outlook of those pin-head eyes;
Still, he is mortal and a shot may hit him;
One cannot always miss him if he tries!
O Thou who carest for the falling sparrow,
Canst Thou the sinless sufferer's pang forget?
Or is thy dread account-book's page so narrow
Its one long column scores thy creature's debt?
Poor, gentle guest, by nature kindly cherished,
A world grows dark with thee in blinding death;
One little gasp,—thy universe has perished,
Wrecked by the idle thief who stole thy breath!
From "My Aviary," by O. W. Holmes.
THE SANDPIPER.
Across the narrow beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I,
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit,—
One little sandpiper and I.
Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud black and swift across the sky;
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white lighthouses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach,
I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach,—
One little sandpiper and I.