The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir :: :: University of Virginia Library

Now day with darkness for the mastery strove:
The stars had waned away—all, save the last
And fairest, Lucifer, whose silver lamp,
In solitary beauty, twinkling, shone
'Mid the far west, where, through the clouds of rack
Floating around, peep'd out at intervals
A patch of sky;—straightway the reign of night
Was finish'd, and, as if instinctively,
The ocean flocks, or slumbering on the wave
Or on the isles, seem'd the approach of dawn

To feel; and, rising from afar, were heard
Shrill shrieks and pipings desolate—a pause
Ensued, and then the same lone sounds return'd,
And suddenly the whirring rush of wings
Went circling round us o'er the level sands,
Then died away; and, as we look'd aloft,
Between us and the sky we saw a speck
Of black upon the blue—some huge, wild bird,
Osprey or eagle, high amid the clouds
Sailing majestic, on its plumes to catch
The earliest crimson of the approaching day.