New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-05-27
Flying-Fish: An Ode
From The Poetry JourrdD

The mornings hue Is misty like pearls
AS lightly through the severing swells we
plough,
To right and left the widening foam-wedge
curls.
stand and watch alone;
No slantng sail, no black and stalwart hull,
Not even one stray gull
To fleck the anguid oceans monotone;
Nothing but sky and sea
And, vague with mystery,
Yon distant island, fairy-like, unknown.
But what is that? Scarce fifty yards away
A flock of birds where bird before was none,
Swimming across the smooth industrious gray
On wings that CLINT so oddly in the sun!
No sooner seen than lost,
Melted like scudding snowfakes as they
touch
The surface, not so much
As one black bobbing head of all that host.
Yet see! once more they rise
And, like strange dragonfies,
Along our bow-fung breakers deftly coast.
know you now, ye birds that may not soar,
Ye fashers in two elements. Your flight
So low, so little veering, and the four
Short filmy wings that, quivering, catch the
light
THESE TOLD me WndC you Wcfc.
Audacious truants from your parent sea,
Half-fabulous are ye
Oh flying fish, oh sylph-like beings rare,
That, needless quite Of earth,
Spring toward nobler berth
From the dim waters to the radiant air!
How must it be to swim among your kind,
Dull with the cold and dreary with the dark,
Enclosed above, beneath, before, behind
In green uncertainty, from which shark
At any time may dash
And doom you like some huge demonic fate
With lust insatiate =
His fins and tail the swirling waters lash.
What use to dart aside?
Those great jaws, grinning wide,
Will close your frolic as the long teeth clash.
But have then forgot? The bonds that hold
The others of your race are loosed for you,
For you alone. The silver dolphin bold
Curves like spray haired comet from the
blue,
But may not poise or fit
As you do. What II but minutes space
Hardly q longer grace
Has poet, saint or lover. Nor whit
Less sure to sink are we;
Our wings Of ecstasy
No loftier, no longer Joy permit
Yet Joy it is! to scorn the dread of death,
To dwell for shining moments In the sun
OF Beauty and sweet Love, to drink one
breath
OF diviner element-though but one;
To reach a higher state
OF being to explore a new domain;
To leap, and leap again,
Unheeding the dark Presence that doth wait
And follow till we fall:
For-hshes, men and all
The grim old Shark will have us soon or late.
Then tell me, comrades, does your little fight
Thrill with the foretaste of a life to be?
Is your ethereal revel in the light
The promise of some fair eternity;
Where you msy roam at will,
Safe from the terror of the world you knew,
On wings Of rainbow hue?-
How vain to question! I may ask my fill.
One life is all you wish;
You fly, and are but fish,
Your gift a trick of blind instructive skill.
And who ask,-have a certain sign
That these poor flights (Which seemingly
exalt
My soul into an element more fns)
Prove me immortal! Reason stops, at fault.
But still by hope I'm led;
And III but hope the more, II hope be all,
Nor shall cen Death sppall!
start and look: the hying-fsh have fed;
Have got them to their kind,
Or tamely dropped behind.
The ship drives on; Bermuda looms ahead.
CHARLES WHARTON STORK.