Chorus hymeneal,{7} Or triumphal chaunt, 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 Langour 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:{8} 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 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, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. NOTES. This is perhaps the most perfect lyric of its kind in the English language. Every verse is worthy of careful study, and it should be read and reread until its exquisite melody is felt and the subtle thoughts which it embodies fully understood. Yet there is little in the poem which requires annotation--the lark's song itself admits of no explanation. "For sweetness the 'Ode to a Skylark' is inferior only to Coleridge, in rapturous passion to no man. It is like the bird it sings,--enthusiastic, enchanting, profuse, continuous, and alone,--small, but filling the heavens."--_Leigh Hunt._ "Has any one, since Shakespeare and Spenser, lighted on such tender and such grand ecstasies?"--_Taine._ The skylark is very generally distributed over the northern portions of the Old World, but is not found in America. Its song in the morning may often be heard when the bird is so high as to be entirely out of sight, and although not finely modulated is remarkably cheerful and prolonged. A person who is accustomed to the song can tell by its variations whether it be ascending, stationary, or descending. 1. =profuse.= Accent here on the first syllable. From Lat. _profundo_, to pour forth.