| |
| THOU only bird that singest as thou flyest, | |
| Heaven-mounting lark, that measurest with thy wing | |
| The airy zones, till thou art lost in highest! | |
| Upon the branch the laughing thrushes cling, | |
| About her home the humble linnet wheels, | 5 |
| Around the tower the gather’d starlings swing; | |
| These mix their songs and weave their figur’d reels: | |
| Thou risest in thy lonely joy away, | |
| From the first rapturous note that from thee steals, | |
| Quick, quick, and quicker, till the exalted lay | 10 |
| Is steadied in the golden breadths of light, | |
| ’Mid mildest clouds that bid thy pinions stay. | |
| The heavens that give would yet sustain thy flight, | |
| And o’er the earth for ever east thy voice, | |
| If but to gain were still to keep the height. | 15 |
| But soon thou sinkest on the fluttering poise | |
| Of the same wings that soard’d: soon ceasest thou | |
| The song that grew invisible with joys. | |
| Love bids thy fall begin; and thou art now | |
| Dropp’d back to earth, and of the earth again, | 20 |
| Because that love hath made thy heart to bow. | |
| Thou hast thy mate, thy nest on lowly plain, | |
| Thy timid heart by law ineffable | |
| Is drawn from the high heavens where thou shouldst reign; | |
| Earth summons thee by her most tender spell; | 25 |
| For thee there is a silence and a song: | |
| Thy silence in the shadowy earth must dwell, | |
| Thy song in the bright heavens cannot be long. | |
| —And best to thee those fates may I compare | |
| Where weakness strives to answer bidding strong. | 30 |
| |
