Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Percy Bysshe Shelley. 17921822608. 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. | 5 |
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. | 10 |
In the golden light’ning | |
Of the sunken sun, | |
O’er which clouds are bright’ning, | |
Thou dost float and run, | |
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. | 15 |
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— | 20 |
Keen as are the arrows | |
Of that silver sphere | |
Whose intense lamp narrows | |
In the white dawn clear, | |
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. | 25 |
All the earth and air | |
With thy voice is loud, | |
As when night is bare, | |
From one lonely cloud | |
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow’d. | 30 |
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:— | 35 |
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: | 40 |
Like a high-born maiden | |
In a palace tower, | |
Soothing her love-laden | |
Soul in secret hour | |
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: | 45 |
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: | 50 |
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 those heavy-wingèd thieves. | 55 |
Sound of vernal showers | |
On the twinkling grass, | |
Rain-awaken’d flowers— | |
All that ever was | |
Joyous and clear and fresh—thy music doth surpass. | 60 |
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. | 65 |
Chorus hymeneal, | |
Or triumphal chant, | |
Match’d with thine would be all | |
But an empty vaunt— | |
A thin wherein we feel there is some hidden want. | 70 |
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? | 75 |
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. | 80 |
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? | 85 |
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. | 90 |
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. | 95 |
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! | 100 |
Teach me half the gladness | |
That thy brain must know; | |
Such harmonious madness | |
From my lips would flow, | |
The world should listen then, as I am listening now. | 105 |