Sunday 27 October 2013

Chime.


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 widgets,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

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.

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.

Better than all measures 
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, though sorter of ground!

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. 

 from Shelley's Ode to a Skylark