The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar's glittering waves: And ere the day three hundred horse had met on Clifton down; And broader still became the blaze, and louder still the din, As fast from every village round the horse came spurring in : And eastward straight from wild Blackheath the warlike errand went, And roused in many an ancient hall the gallant squires of Kent. Southward from Surrey's pleasant hills flew those bright couriers forth; High on bleak Hampstead's swarthy moor they started for the north; And on, and on, without a pause, untired they bounded still: All night from tower to tower they sprang; they sprang from hill to hill: Till the proud peak unfurled the flag o'er Darwin's rocky dales, Macaulay. CONTENTION OF A BIRD AND A MUSICIAN, Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales To Thessaly I came, and living private, Without acquaintance of more sweet companions This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute, Nature's best skill'd musician, undertakes The challenge; and, for every several strain The well-shaped youth could touch, she sang her own; He could not run division with more art Upon his quaking instrument, than she, The Nightingale, did with her various notes Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes, To end the controversy, in a rapture So many voluntaries, and so quick, CONTENTION OF A BIRD AND A MUSICIAN. That there was curiosity and cunning, The bird (ordain'd to be Music's first martyr) strove to imitate These several sounds: which when her warbling throat And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness, To weep a funeral elegy of tears. He looked upon the trophies of his art, Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes, then sigh'd, and cried, 'Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge This cruelty upon the author of it. Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood, I suddenly stept in. 61 Ford (paraphrased from Strada). TO A SKYLARK. Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, 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 deep blue thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever, singest. In the golden lightening Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, 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, Inthe broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, From one lonely cloud 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, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a glowworm golden In a dell of dew, Its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view. Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, 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. TO A SKYLARK. Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphal chant, Matched 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? We look before and after, And pine for what is not: 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 could come near. Better than all measures Of delight and 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, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. Shelley. 63 |