To a Skylark BY Percy Bysshe Shelley

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 lightning 

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 day-light 

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 a{:e}real 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 those heavy-winged 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.