Categories
1860s Poem

The Sandpiper

The Sandpiper

By Celia Thaxter
Annotations by Celia Hawley
James McNeill Whistler. The Angry Sea. Oil on wood panel, c. 1883-84, National
Museum of Asian Art, Washington, D.C.
Across the lonely beach we flit,
  One little sandpiper and I,
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
  The scattered drift-wood, bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
  The wild wind raves, the tide rides high,
As up and down the beach we flit,
  One little sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds
  Scud, black and swift, across the sky:
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
  Stand out the white light-houses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach
  I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach,
  One little sandpiper and I.
John James Audubon. Plate 344: Long-legged Sandpiper. Audubon.org.
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 will you be tonight,
  When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My drift-wood 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?
Childe Hassam. The South Ledges, Appledore. Oil on canvas, 1913, Smithsonian
American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Thaxter, celia.”The SAndpiper.” Our Young Folks: An Illustrated magazine for boys and girls 1, No. 2 (February 1865): 84-85.
Contexts

The Shoals Marine Laboratory has a brief biography of Celia Thaxter, who lived on the New England coast, where she kept an extensive garden that Shoals Marine Lab founder Dr. John M. Kingsbury reconstructed. The final image is by Childe Hassam, who was a close friend of Thaxter.

Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:

close-reefed: To reef closely, to take in all the reefs of (a sail or ship). [reef: A section of a sail, frequently each of three or four bands or strips, which can be taken in or rolled up to reduce the area exposed to the wind.]

scud: To run or move briskly or hurriedly; To sail or move swiftly on the water. Now chiefly (and in technical nautical use exclusively), to run before a gale with little or no sail; Of clouds, foam, etc.: To be driven by the wind.

stanch (staunch): Of a person: Standing firm and true to one’s principles or purpose, not to be turned aside, determined.

wroth: Stirred to wrath; moved or exasperated to ire or indignation; very angry or indignant; wrathful, incensed, irate.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections
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