To a Skylark – Percy Bysshe Shelley Poem

by
  1. Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
  2. Bird thou never wert,
  3. That from Heaven, or near it,
  4. Pourest thy full heart
  5. In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
  6. Higher still and higher
  7. From the earth thou springest
  8. Like a cloud of fire;
  9. The blue deep thou wingest,
  10. And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
  11. In the golden lightning
  12. Of the sunken sun,
  13. O’er which clouds are bright’ning,
  14. Thou dost float and run;
  15. Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
  16. The pale purple even
  17. Melts around thy flight;
  18. Like a star of Heaven,
  19. In the broad daylight
  20. Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
  21. Keen as are the arrows
  22. Of that silver sphere,
  23. Whose intense lamp narrows
  24. In the white dawn clear
  25. Until we hardly see—we feel that it is there.
  26. All the earth and air
  27. With thy voice is loud,
  28. As, when night is bare,
  29. From one lonely cloud
  30. The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.
  31. What thou art we know not;
  32. What is most like thee?
  33. From rainbow clouds there flow not
  34. Drops so bright to see
  35. As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
  36. Like a Poet hidden
  37. In the light of thought,
  38. Singing hymns unbidden,
  39. Till the world is wrought
  40. To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
  41. Like a high-born maiden
  42. In a palace-tower,
  43. Soothing her love-laden
  44. Soul in secret hour
  45. With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
  46. Like a glow-worm golden
  47. In a dell of dew,
  48. Scattering unbeholden
  49. Its aërial hue
  50. Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
  51. Like a rose embowered
  52. In its own green leaves,
  53. By warm winds deflowered,
  54. Till the scent it gives
  55. Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-wingèd thieves:
  56. Sound of vernal showers
  57. On the twinkling grass,
  58. Rain-awakened flowers,
  59. All that ever was
  60. Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
  61. Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
  62. What sweet thoughts are thine:
  63. I have never heard
  64. Praise of love or wine
  65. That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
  66. Chorus Hymeneal,
  67. Or triumphal chant,
  68. Matched with thine would be all
  69. But an empty vaunt,
  70. A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
  71. What objects are the fountains
  72. Of thy happy strain?
  73. What fields, or waves, or mountains?
  74. What shapes of sky or plain?
  75. What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
  76. With thy clear keen joyance
  77. Languor cannot be:
  78. Shadow of annoyance
  79. Never came near thee:
  80. Thou lovest—but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.
  81. Waking or asleep,
  82. Thou of death must deem
  83. Things more true and deep
  84. Than we mortals dream,
  85. Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
  86. We look before and after,
  87. And pine for what is not:
  88. Our sincerest laughter
  89. With some pain is fraught;
  90. Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
  91. Yet if we could scorn
  92. Hate, and pride, and fear;
  93. If we were things born
  94. Not to shed a tear,
  95. I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
  96. Better than all measures
  97. Of delightful sound,
  98. Better than all treasures
  99. That in books are found,
  100. Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
  101. Teach me half the gladness
  102. That thy brain must know,
  103. Such harmonious madness
  104. From my lips would flow,
  105. The world should listen then, as I am listening now.