Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The Stormy Petrel. a sea-change Into something rich and strange. On board the Steamer in which Professor Foot came to this country he kept a Diary, and on April 3rd, 1872 wrote :— "We have been followed for days by Stormy Petrels ; but they:are too few, and too small, and too far, for us to see them very distinctly. But the Second Officer tells me they are not much larger in body than a walnut; and consist of a bundle of feathers round a bag of small bones. They receive their name, which is simply 'Little Peters,' from their appearing to walk on the water, over which they lightly skim. Whether they are often seen ashore I can find no Darwin on board to inform me, and I remember nothing on the subject in his chapters on birds in the 'Descent of Man." As I am unable to naturalize I am constrained to idealize ; and my thoughts ultimately shape themselves in this fashion :— Glad spirit of the foam, Whither away ? O, wherefore lightly roam, By night and day, Making thy wand'ring home Where wild waves play ? Now Ihou dost bravely leap The billow's crest; Anon, thy pinions sweep The Ocean's breast, Which heaves in gentle sleep And lulls to rest. Safe, through the chilling storm I see thee fly ; Where tropic suns glow warm, Where soft winds sigh, Thy airy-feather'd form I still descry. Thou followest our bark As Noah's dove, When floods beneath were dark And skies above, Flutter'd around the Ark For life and love. In vain I stretch my hand At dusk and dawn ; The breeze thy wings have fann'd Still bears us on ; We touch the welcome land— And thou art gone ! Gone, like a wayward boy, Thou weary bird ; Gone, like a maiden coy, Unseen, unheard ; Gone, like a thought of joy, Or winged word. I kno... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.