501 TO A SKYLARK HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it Pourest thy full heart 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, In the white dawn clear Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is over flow'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, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, 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, 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. 502 503 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, From my lips would flow The world should listen then, as I am listening now! LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY THE fountains mingle with the river The winds of heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single, See the mountains kiss high heaven And the sunlight clasps the earth, TO THE NIGHT, SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, Out of the misty eastern cave Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear Wrap thy form in a mantle gray Blind with thine hair the eyes of day, When I arose and saw the dawn, When light rode high, and the dew was gone, Thy brother Death came, and cried Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Death will come when thou art dead, Sleep will come when thou art fled; |