Louisa P. Smith

FLY on! nor touch thy wing, bright bird,

Too near our shaded earth,

Or the warbling, now so sweetly heard

May lose its note of mirth.

Fly on—nor seek a place of rest,

In the home of “care-worn things,”

’T would dim the light of thy shining crest,

And thy brightly burnish’d wings,

To dip them where the waters glide

That flow from a troubled earthly tide.

The fields of upper air are thine,

Thy place where stars shine free,

I would thy home, bright one, were mine,

Above life’s stormy sea.

I would never wander—bird, like thee,

So near this place again,

With wing and spirit once light and free—

They should wear no more, the chain

With which they are bound and fetter’d here,

For ever struggling for skies more clear.

There are many things like thee, bright bird,

Hopes as thy plumage gay,

Our air is with them for ever stirr’d,

But still in air they stay.

And happiness, like thee, fair one!

Is ever hovering o’er,

But rests in a land of brighter sun,

On a waveless, peaceful shore,

And stoops to lave her weary wings,

Where the fount of “living waters” springs.