Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, 35 All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers So sweet the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 40 The sapless foliage of the ocean know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, IV. If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; 45 A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free I were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 50 As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! 55 A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. V. Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: 60 Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! 65 And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth The trumpet of a prophecy! O wind, 70 If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? TO A SKYLARK (1820) Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, 5 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, 10 And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run; 15 Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; In the broad day-light 20 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 25 Until we hardly see-we feel that it is there. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, 30 The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see 35 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 40 To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soul in secret hour 45 With music sweet as love,-which overflows her bower: Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Its aërial hue 50 Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view: Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, 55 Makes faint with too much sweet those heavywinged thieves: Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was 60 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 65 That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Chorus Hymenæal, Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine, would be all 70 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? 75 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; 80 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 85 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; 90 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, 95 I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. |