Requiem for a Seagull - Oil painting by
Michael
Strang
| I found her out there on a slope few see, that falls westwardly to the salt edged air, where the ocean breaks on the purple strand and the hurricane shakes the solid land. I brought her here, and have laid her to rest in a noiseless nest, no sea beats near. She will never be stirred from her loamy cell by the waves long heard and loved so well. So she does not sleep by those haunted heights the Atlantic smites and the blind gale sweep, At Dundagel's famed head, while the dipping blaze dyed her face fire red. And would sigh at the tale of sunk Lyonesse, as a wind-tugged tress flapped her cheek like a flail; Or listen at whiles with a thought-bound brow, to the murmuring miles she is far from us now. Yet her shade, maybe, will glide underground till it catch the sound of that Western sea as it swells and sobs where she once domiciled, and joy in it throbs with the heart of a child. |