And the Southern exiles yearn for flight Like dead men
in their graves.
Through the cane-fringed swamp the ibis moves, Wild longing in its veins, It turns to the sun-scorched land it loves And the sand of the desert plains.
The bright flamingoes twine and twist, Rose-flushed upon the wind, They fly like flow'rs, thro' the creeping mist, That summer has left behind.
Their wings are urged by a migrant force That turns their blood to flame, With resistless power it shapes their course To the strange land whence they came.
Grey mists on the marsh to-night By the smooth Ligurian seas, But the air is astir with the viewless flight Of hurrying refugees. They flutter and fly like shivering ghosts From a world that has cast them forth, Down, down, from the bitter coasts Of the lands of the piercing North!
The lapwing flees from the forest snow, The tern from the frozen lake, The gull from the starved and ice-ribbed floe, The swan from the stiffened brake.
The redstart comes from the bleak hillside, The jay from a pine-clad shore, The mallard flies from the frost-bound tide, And the robin from the moor.
Grey mists on the marsh to-night- The iris faded lies, The maple flames with autumnal light, The pungent sea-rush dies.
The wild birds come, the wild birds go, On the far Ligurian fen, But the law that urges them to and fro Is hid from the eyes of men.
MART BRADFORD WHITING.
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