As the changing tides thou dost come and go
And the shifting wind thy strange course guards.
The seaman well knows the signs thou canst show
Of weather, and luck of the fishing grounds;
And the whaler smiles when the sea abounds
With thy thousands that come as the falling snow.
Yet stranger those thoughts that arise in me,
As I watch thee wheel of thy shining wings,
Of thy life o’er the depths where the ocean flings
From the frozen Pole to the Tropic sea.