I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again. TO A SKYLARK HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit! 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; To a Skylark | the, Harvard MS. cancelled. Published with Prometheus Unbound, 1820. Composed at Leghorn, 1820. 14 Thou dost || Thy wings, Harvard MS. cancelled. Like a star of heaven In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill de light, Keen as are the arrows 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 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 Poet hidden In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: 20 shrill | blithe, Harvard MS. cancelled. 21 Keen as are || Thy notes, like, Harvard MS. cancelled. 33 rainbow clouds there || the rainbows, Harvard MS. cancelled. Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous and clear and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Teach us, Sprite or Bird, What sweet thoughts are thine; 45 sweet as love, which || which is love—and, Harvard MS. cancelled. 53 warm | the, Harvard MS. cancelled. 55 faint rich, Harvard MS. cancelled; those, Harvard MS. || the, Harvard MS. cancelled, these, Shelley, 1820. I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 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? 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. Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? We look before and after, And pine for what is not; 72 happy drunken, Harvard MS. cancelled. 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, 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. ODE TO LIBERTY Yet Freedom, yet, thy banner torn but flying, I A GLORIOUS people vibrated again BYRON. The lightning of the Nations; Liberty, From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, 104 would, Shelley, 1820 || should, Harvard MS. Ode to Liberty. Published with Prometheus Unbound, 1820. |