I watch him as he skims along, Uttering his sweet and mournful cry: He starts not at my fitful song, Nor flash of fluttering drapery. He has no thought of any wrong, He scans me with a fearless eye; Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong, The little sandpiper and I. Comrade, where wilt thou be tonight, When the loosed storm breaks furiously? My driftwood fire will burn so bright! To what warm shelter canst thou fly? I do not fear for thee, though wroth The tempest rushes through the sky; For are we not God’s children both, Thou, little sandpiper, and I? NOTES AND QUESTIONS =Biography.= Celia Thaxter (1835-1894), whose father was a lighthouse keeper on White Island, one of the rocky isles known as the “Isles of Shoals,” off the coast of New Hampshire, had the ocean for her companion in her early years. She studied the sunrise and the sunset, the wild flowers, the birds, the rocks, and all sea life. This selection shows how intimate was her friendship with the bird life of the ocean. =Discussion.= 1. The poet and the sandpiper were comrades; in the first stanza, what tells you this? 2. Which lines give you a picture that might be used to illustrate this poem? 3. What common experiences did the poet and the bird have? 4. Give a quotation from the poem that describes the sandpiper and his habits. 5. What effect have the repetitions of the second line of the poem at the end of the first and second stanzas and the variations of it at the end of the third and fourth stanzas? 6. Which lines express confidence in God’s care for His children? 7. What classes of “God’s children” do “little sandpiper” and “I,” respectively, represent? 8. Pronounce the following: stanch; loosed; wroth. =Phrases= silent ghosts in misty shrouds, 47, 11 close-reefed vessels, 47, 14 my fitful song, 48. 3 flash of fluttering drapery, 48, 4 loosed storm breaks furiously, 48, 10 wroth the tempest rushes, 48, 13 THE THROSTLE ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON “Summer is coming, summer is coming, I know it, I know it, I know it. Light again, leaf again, life again, love again!” Yes, my wild little Poet. Sing the new year in under the blue. Last year you sang it as gladly. “New, new, new, new!” Is it then so new That you should carol so madly? “Love again, song again, nest again, young again!” Never a prophet so crazy! And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend, See, there is hardly a daisy. “Here again, here, here, here, happy year!” O warble unchidden, unbidden! Summer is coming, is coming, my dear, And all the winters are hidden. NOTES AND QUESTIONS