ASPIRATION IN THE SYMBOL

OF THE SKYLARK

THE SKYLARK: A SYMBOL OF ASPIRATION

A DEVOTION SELECTED FROM POETS OF OLD AND NEW ENGLAND

VERSICLES FOR INITIAL MEDITATION

And now the herald lark

Left his ground-nest, high towering to descry
The morn's approach, and greet her with his song.

Come, thou sky-climbing bird, wakener of morn,
Who springest like a thought unto the sun.

The shrill lark carols from her aerial tower.

To hear the lark begin his flight
And singing startle the dull night.

The merry lark his matins sings aloft.

Hark! Hark! The lark at heaven's gate sings!

Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.

A skylark wounded in the wing

A cherubim does cease to sing.

Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
For thy song, Lark, is strong;

Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
Singing, singing,

With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find

That spot which seems so to thy mind!

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 daylight

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

It aërial 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 these heavy-wingèd 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.

The Song
Celestial