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 As, when night is bare, 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, 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, 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 embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves: To a Skylark 1525 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 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, 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. Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822] THE STORMY PETREL A THOUSAND miles from land are we, The hull, which all earthly strength disdains,— Up and down!-up and down! From the base of the wave to the billow's crown, And amidst the flashing and feathery foam A home, if such a place may be For her who lives on the wide, wide sea, On the craggy ice, in the frozen air, And only seeketh her rocky lair To a Swallow To warm her young, and to teach them to spring O'er the deep!-o'er the deep! 1527 Where the whale and the shark and the swordfish sleep,Outflying the blast and the driving rain, The petrel telleth her tale-in vain; For the mariner curseth the warning bird Which bringeth him news of the storm unheard! Ah! thus does the prophet, of good or ill, Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing! Bryan Waller Procter [1787-1874] THE FIRST SWALLOW THE gorse is yellow on the heath, The banks with speedwell flowers are gay, The welcome guest of settled Spring, Come, summer visitant, attach To my reed roof your nest of clay, And let my ear your music catch, At the gray dawn of day. Charlotte Smith [1749-1806] TO A SWALLOW BUILDING UNDER OUR EAVES THOU too hast traveled, little fluttering thing,- Thou too must rest. But much, my little bird, could'st thou but tell, For thou hast passed fair places in thy flight; Of all the varied scenes that met thine eye, Did fortune try thee?-was thy little purse Ah, no! thou need'st not gold, thou happy one! What was it, then?—some mystic turn of thought, For the world's loveliness, till thou art grown Nay, if thy mind be sound, I need not ask, A well-laid scheme doth that small head contain, In truth, I rather take it thou hast got By instinct wise much sense about thy lot, And hast small care Whether an Eden or a desert be Thy home, so thou remain'st alive, and free God speed thee, pretty bird! May thy small nest |