To a Skylark

HAIL Birdt o thee never , blithe spirit ! That from heaven or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. TO A SKYLARK Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest: Like a cloud of fire, The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run, Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven In the broad daylight, Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delightKeen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel, that it is there. All the earth and air With they voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd. TO A SKYLARK What thou art we know not ; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers arain of melody:- Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like ahigh-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love which overflows her bower: Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view: Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflower'd, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavywingèd thieves. TO A SKYLARK Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awaken'd flowers, All that ever was, Joyous and clear and fresh-thy music doth surpass. Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine : I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Chorus hymeneal Or triumphal chaunt, Match'd with thine, would be all But an empty vauntA thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. TO A SKYLARK Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet, if we could scorn, Hate and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, Iknow not how thy joy we ever should come near. Better than all measures Ofdelightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know; Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen then as I am listening now