# Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900/To a Skylark

​608. 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 wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
 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.
 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—
 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.
 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.
 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,  Soothing her love-laden  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 aërial hue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:
 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 these heavy-wingèd thieves
 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.
 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 chant,  Match'd 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  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, thou scorner of the 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.
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