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Thy head droops low on thy breast, half hid in thy ruffled feathers,
The grove is lone for thy singing, O bird of the silver voice!
‘Man, man has bereft me, stolen my nestlings from me,
Wrecked the soft home we built ’mid the budding blossoms of spring.
My mate’s brown wings grow red in vain beating the bars of her prison;
With heart so full of longing and mourning, how can I sing?’

Seal, in the cliff’s shadow, why are thine eyes so mournful?
Come from the gloom and the echo of the sea’s sighs in the cave,
Sink down into deeper waters ’mid the hidden flowers of the ocean,
Or seek the splash and sparkle ’neath the snowy break of the wave.
‘Man, man has bereft me, robbed me of those my loved ones;
Alone, I find no gladness; alone, where is joy for me
In the silvery flash of the fish or the wonderful gardens of coral?
My eyes grow dim with watching the desolate waste of the sea!’