My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though [wroth]
[The tempest rushes] through the sky;
For are we not God’s children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and I?
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
Biography. Celia Thaxter (1835-1894), whose father was a lighthouse keeper on White Island, one of the rocky isles known as the “Isles of Shoals,” off the coast of New Hampshire, had the ocean for her companion in her early years. She studied the sunrise and the sunset, the wild flowers, the birds, the rocks, and all sea life. This selection shows how intimate was her friendship with the bird life of the ocean.
Discussion. 1. The poet and the sandpiper were comrades; in the first stanza, what tells you this? 2. Which lines give you a picture that might be used to illustrate this poem? 3. What common experiences did the poet and the bird have? 4. Give a quotation from the poem that describes the sandpiper and his habits. 5. What effect have the repetitions of the second line of the poem at the end of the first and second stanzas and the variations of it at the end of the third and fourth stanzas? 6. Which lines express confidence in God’s care for His children? 7. What classes of “God’s children” do “little sandpiper” and “I,” respectively, represent? 8. Pronounce the following: stanch; loosed; wroth.
Phrases