Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Lark
The music soars within the little lark,
And the lark soars.
E. B. Browning—Aurora Leigh. Bk. III. L. 155.
Oh, stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay,
Nor quit for me the trembling spray,
A hapless lover courts thy lay,
Thy soothing, fond complaining.
Burns—Address to the Woodlark.
The merry lark he soars on high,
No worldly thought o’ertakes him.
He sings aloud to the clear blue sky,
And the daylight that awakes him.
Hartley Coleridge—Song.
The lark now leaves his watery nest,
And climbing, shakes his dewy wings.
He takes your window for the East
And to implore your light he sings.
Sir William Davenant—The Lark now Leaves his Watery Nest.
The pretty Lark, climbing the Welkin cleer,
Chaunts with a cheer, Heer peer—I neer my Deer;
Then stooping thence (seeming her fall to rew)
Adieu (she saith) adieu, deer Deer, adieu.
Du Bartas—Weekes and Workes. Fifth Day.
Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!
Then, when the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms
Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place—
O, to abide in the desert with thee!
Hogg—The Skylark.
Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed.
Hurdis—The Village Curate. L. 276.
None but the lark so shrill and clear;
Now at heaven’s gate she claps her wings,
The morn not waking till she sings.
Lyly—Alexander and Campaspe. Act V. Sc. 1.
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull Night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise.
Milton—L’Allegro. L. 41.
And now the herald lark
Left his ground-nest, high tow’ring to descry
The morn’s approach, and greet her with his song.
Milton—Paradise Regained. Bk. II. L. 279.
The bird that soars on highest wing,
Builds on the ground her lowly nest;
And she that doth most sweetly sing,
Sings in the shade when all things rest:
In lark and nightingale we see
What honor hath humility.
Montgomery—Humility.
I said to the sky-poised Lark:
“Hark—hark!
Thy note is more loud and free
Because there lies safe for thee
A little nest on the ground.”
D. M. Mulock—A Rhyme About Birds.
No more the mounting larks, while Daphne sings,
Shall, list’ning, in mid-air suspend their wings.
Pope—Pastorals. Winter. L. 53.
The sunrise wakes the lark to sing.
Christina G. Rossetti—Bird Raptures.
O happy skylark springing
Up to the broad, blue sky,
Too fearless in thy winging,
Too gladsome in thy singing,
Thou also soon shalt lie
Where no sweet notes are ringing.
Christina G. Rossetti—Gone Forever. St. 2.
Then my dial goes not true; I took this lark for a bunting.
All’s Well That Ends Well—Act II. Sc. 5. L. 5.
Hark! hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phœbus ’gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chalic’d flowers that lies.
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;
With everything that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise!
Cymbeline. Act II. Sc. 3. Song. L. 21.
Some say, that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 158.
It was the lark, the herald of the morn.
Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 5. L. 6.
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 5. L. 27.
Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty.
Venus and Adonis. L. 853.
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.
Shelley—To a Skylark. St. 1.
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Shelley—To a Skylark. St. 20.
Up springs the lark,
Shrill-voiced, and loud, the messenger of morn;
Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings
Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts
Calls up the tuneful nations.
Thomson—The Seasons. Spring. L. 587.
The lark that shuns on lofty boughs to build
Her humble nest, lies silent in the field.
Edmund Waller—Of the Queen.
Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
Wordsworth—Poems of the Imagination. To a Skylark.
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine:
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine:
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam:
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!
Wordsworth—Poems of the Imagination. To a Skylark.