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The bard, and minor poems

By John Walker Ord ... Collected and edited by John Lodge
  

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LINES TO A GLED-HAWK,

FLYING IN REGENT'S PARK, LONDON.

What brings thee here, proud mountain-bird,
From thy dwelling far and free?
What dost thou here, whose joy it was
'Mid the towering hills to be?
The cloudlet is thy dwelling-place,
The wilderness thy home,
And soaring through the heaven it is
Thy privilege to roam.

117

No charm these prison-walls can wear,
Nought gladdens here thine eye,
Whose heart is with the desert place,
And with thy native sky.
Thine eyrie is the cliff afar,
The pine-tree forest there,—
These are the slumbering memories
That greet thee in the air.
O for thy wings, glad mountain-bird,
This beauteous summer day;
The hills of childhood then were mine,
The valley far away!
 

From the Rev. Dudley Ryder's “Gift for all Seasons.”