Ode to a Skylark

“Like a poet hidden,In the light of thoughtSinging songs unbiddenTill the world is wroughtTo sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.”

Hail to thee, blithe spirit--Bird thou never wert--That from heaven or near itPourest thy full heartIn profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higherFrom 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 lightningOf 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 evenMelts around thy flight;Like a star of heaven,In the broad daylightThou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

All the earth and airWith thy voice is loud,As, when night is bare,From one lonely cloudThe 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 notDrops so bright to seeAs from thy presence showers a rain of melody:--

Like a poet hiddenIn the light of thought;Singing hymns unbidden,Till the world is wroughtTo sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

Teach us, sprite or bird,What sweet thoughts are thine:I have never heardPraise of love or wineThat panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymenealOr triumphal chaunt,Matched with thine, would be allBut an empty vaunt--A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountainsOf 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?

Teach me half the gladnessThat thy brain must know,Such harmonious madnessFrom my lips would flow,The world should listen then, as I am listening now!