Now floating on the blue lagoon behold them;
The Sire and Dam in swanlike beauty steering,
Their Cygnets following through the foamy wake,
Picking the leaves of plants, pursuing insects,
Or catching at the bubbles as they broke:
Till on some minor fry, in reedy shallows,
With flapping pinions and unsparing beaks,
The well-taught scholars plied their double art,
To fish in troubled waters, and secure
The petty captives in their maiden pouches;
Then hurry with their banquet to the shore,
With feet, wings, breast, half-swimming and halfflying.
But when their pens grew strong to fight the storm, And buffet with the breakers on the reef,
The Parents put them to severer proof:
On beetling rocks the little ones were marshall'd;
There, by endearments, stripes, example urged
To try the void convexity of heaven
And plough the ocean's horizontal field.
Timorous at first, they flutter'd round the verge,
Balanced and furl'd their hesitating wings,
Then put them forth again with steadier aim;
Now, gaining courage as they felt the wind
Dilate their feathers, fill their airy frames
With buoyancy that bore them from their feet,
They yielded all their burden to the breeze,
And sail'd and soar'd where'er their guardians led;
Ascending, hovering, wheeling, or alighting,
They search'd the deep in quest of nobler game
Than yet their inexperience had encounter'd;
With these they battled in that element,
Where wings or fins were equally at home,
Till, conquerors in many a desperate strife,
They dragg'd their spoils to land, and gorged at leisure.
Thus perfected in all the arts of life,
That simple Pelicans require,-save one,
Which mother-bird did never teach her daughter,
The inimitable art to build a nest;
Love, for his own delightful school, reserving
That mystery which novice never fail'd
To learn infallibly when taught by him:
Hence that small masterpiece of Nature's art,
Still unimpair'd, still unimproved, remains
The same in site, material, shape, and texture.
While every kind a different structure frames,
All build alike of each peculiar kind:
The nightingale, that dwelt in Adam's bower,
And pour'd her stream of music through his dreams;
The soaring lark, that led the eye of Eve
Into the clouds, her thoughts into the heaven
Of heavens, where lark nor eye can penetrate;
The dove, that perch'd upon the Tree of Life,
And made her bed among its thickest leaves;
All the wing'd habitants of Paradise,
Whose songs once mingled with the songs of Angels,
Wove their first nests as curiously and well
As the wood-minstrels in our evil day,
After the labours of six thousand years,
In which their ancestors have fail'd to add,
To alter or diminish, any thing
In that, of which Love only knows the secret,
And teaches every mother for herself,
Without the power to impart it to her offspring:
Thus perfected in all the arts of life,
That simple Pelicans require, save this,
Those Parents drove their young away; the
Gaily forsook their parents. Soon enthrall'd
With love-alliances among themselves,
They built their nests, as happy instinct wrought
Within their bosoms, wakening powers unknown,
Till sweet necessity was laid upon them;
They bred, and rear'd their little families,
As they were train'd and disciplined before.
Thus wings were multiplied from year to year, And ere the patriarch-twain, in good old age, Resign'd their breath beside that ancient nest, In which themselves had nursed a hundred broods, The isle was peopled with their progeny.
MEANWHILE, not idle, though unwatch'd by me,
The coral architects in silence rear'd
Tower after tower beneath the dark abyss.
Pyramidal in form the fabrics rose,
From ample basements narrowing to the height,
Until they pierced the surface of the flood,
And dimpling eddies sparkled round their peaks.
Then (if great things with small may be compared)
They spread like water-lilies, whose broad leaves.
Make green and sunny islets on the pool,
For golden flies, on summer-days, to haunt,
Safe from the lightning-seizure of the trout;
Or yield their laps to catch the minnow springing
Clear from the stream to 'scape the ruffian pike,
That prowls in disappointed rage beneath,
And wonders where the little wretch found refuge.
One headland topt the waves, another follow'd; A third, a tenth, a twentieth soon appear'd,
Till the long barren gulf in travail lay
With many an infant struggling into birth.
Larger they grew and lovelier, when they breathed
The vital air, and felt the genial sun;
As though a living spirit dwelt in each,
Which, like the inmate of a flexile shell,
Moulded the shapeless slough with its own motion,
And painted it with colours of the morn.
Amidst that group of younger sisters, stood
The Isle of Pelicans, as stands the moon
At midnight, queen among the minor stars,
Differing in splendour, magnitude, and distance.
So look'd that archipelago; small isles,
By interwinding channels link'd yet sunder'd;
All flourishing in peaceful fellowship,
Like forest oaks that love society:
-Of various growth and progress; here, a rock
On which a single palm-tree waved its banner;
There, sterile tracts unmoulder'd into soil;
Yonder, dark woods whose foliage swept the water,
Without a speck of turf, or line of shore,
As though their roots were anchor'd in the ocean.
But most were gardens redolent with flowers,
And orchards bending with Hesperian fruit,
That realised the dreams of olden time.
Throughout this commonwealth of sea-sprung
lands,
Life kindled in ten thousand happy forms,
Earth, air, and ocean were all full of life.
Still highest in the rank of being, soar'd
The fowls amphibious, and the inland tribes
Of dainty plumage or melodious song.
In gaudy robes of many colour'd patches,
The parrots swung like blossoms on the trees,
While their harsh voices undeceived the ear.
More delicately pencill'd, finer drawn
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