.
.
To a skylark
Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strain of unpremeditated art.
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 brightning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied 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 delight.
Keen 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 thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.
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 a rain 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 a high-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 aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it
from the view;
Like a rose embower'd
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower'd,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged
thieves:
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 vaunt -
A 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.
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,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures
Of delightful 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!
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