TO A SKYLARK. I. HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. II. 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. III. 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. IV. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad day-light Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. V. Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. VI. All the earth and air As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. VII. 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 VIII. In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: IX. Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: X. 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: XI. Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. XII. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. XIII. 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, XIV. Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. XV. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? XVIII. 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 XIX. 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. XX. Better than all measures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! XXI. Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. ΤΟ I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, Ever to burthen thine. I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, With which I worship thine. |