TO A SKYLARK And tune his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither! No enemy But winter and rough weather. Who doth ambition shun And loves to live i' the sun, And pleased with what he gets Come hither, come hither, come hither! Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. 139 Shakespeare. TO A SKYLARK HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert In profuse strains 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 brightening, 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, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. 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, TO A SKYLARK Till the world is wrought 141 To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love which overflows her bower: Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view: Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, Makes faint with too much sweet these heavywinged thieves. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, 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, Matched 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 cryst stream? We look before and after, And pine for what is not: THE NIGHT PIECE 143 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, 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; The world should listen then as I am listening now! Percy Bysshe Shelley. THE NIGHT PIECE HER eyes the glow-worm lend thee, And the elves also, Whose little eyes glow Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. |