Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1881-06-01
the LARK ASCENDING,
BIZ GEORGE MEREDITH,

he rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound.
OF many links without break
In ch1rrup, whistle, slur and shake,
Al 1ntervolyed and spreading wide,
Like water-dimples down tide
Where ripple ripple overcurls
And eddy into eddy whirls:
A press OF hurried notes that run
So deet they scarce are more than one.
Yet changingly the trills repeat
And finger ringing while they deet,
Sweet to the quick o. the ear, and dear
70 her beyond the handmade ear,
Who sits beside our inner springs,
Too often dry for this he brings,
which seems the very Jet Of earth
At sight OF sun, her music's mirth,
As up he wings the spiral stair,
song of light, and pierces air
With fountain ardor, fountain play,
To reach the shining tops Of day,
And drink in everything discerned,
An ecstasy to music turned,
Impelled by what his happy bill
D1sperses; drinking, showering stil1,
Unthinking save that he may give
His voice the outlet, there to live
Renewed IN endless notes of glee,
So thirsty of his voice is he;
For all to hear and all to know
That he Is Joy, awake, aglow,
The tumult of the heart to hear
Through pureness filtered crystal-clear,
ana Know the pleasure sprinkled bright
BY simple singing of delight,
Shrill, irredective, unrestrained,
Rapt, ringing, on the Jet sustained
Without break, without fall,
Sweet silvery, sheer lyrical,
Perennial, quavering up the chord
Like myriad dews of sunny sward
That trembling into fullness shine,
And sparkle dropping argentine;
Such wooing IS the ear receives,
From zephyr caught in chOric leaves
OF aspens when their chattering net
Is flushed to white with shivers wet:
And such the water-spirit's chime
Too ountain heig hts in mornings prime,
Too animals sweet to seem excess,
But wider over maH&y 2 . stress;
The starry voice ascending SID.
Awakening, as it wakes thin,
The best in US to him akin;
And every face to watch him raised.
Puts on the light of children praised,
80 rich our human pleasure ripes
When sweetness on sincereness pipes.
Ihough naught be promised from the seas,
But only soft ruff1ing breeze
sweep Offering on still content,
Serenity in ravishment.
For singing till his heaven fills,
lis love of earth that he instiIls,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup;
AND ne the wine which Over1oWs
To lift us with him as he goes,
But not from earth is he divorced,
He joyfully to fly enforced;
The woods and brooks, the sheep and kline,
He Is, the hills, the human line,
The meadows green, the fallows brown.
The dream of labor in the town;
He sings the sap, the quickened veins,
The wedding song Of sun and rains
He is, the dance of children, thanks
oh01S IS
And eye Of violets while they breathe:
AL these the circling song will wreathe,
And you shall hear the herb and tree,
The better heart Of men shall see,
Shall feel celestally, as long
AS you crave nothing save the sorg.
Was never voice Of ours could say
Our Utmost in the sweetest way.
Like yonder voice aloft, and link
All hearers in the song they drink;
Our wisdom speaks from failing blood.
Our passion is too full in food,
We want the key of his wild note
VI truthful in tuneful throat,
The song graphically free
OF faint of personality,
So pure that it salutes the suns
The voice of one for millions.
In whom the millions rejoice
For giving their one spirit voice.
Yet men have we, whom we revere,
Now names, and men still housing here,
Whose lives, by many battle-dint
Detaced, and grinding wheels on flint,
Yield substance, though they sing not sweet
For song our highest heaven to greet,
W nom heavenly singing gives us new.
E.nsphereS them brilliant in our blue,
From tirmest base to furthcst leap,
Because their love Of earth ia deep,
And they are warriors in accord
With life to serve and pass reward