The Albatross

Often to pass the time on board, the crew will catch an albatross, one of those big birds which nonchalently chaperone a ship across the bitter fathoms of the sea. Tied to the deck, this sovereign of space, as if embarrassed by its clumsiness, pitiably lets its great white wings drag at its sides like a pair of unshipped oars. How weak and awkward, even comical this traveller but lately so adoit - one deckhand sticks a pipestem in its beak, another mocks the cripple that once flew! The Poet is like this monarch of the clouds riding the storm above the marksman's range; exiled on the ground, hooted and jeered, he cannot walk because of his great wings.