The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, The plain-song cuckoo gray, Whose note full many a man doth mark And dares not answer nay.[200] [Sidenote: _The Lark_] Of the birds recounted in this song, Shakespeare’s favourite, if we may judge from the frequency and appreciation with which he mentions it, was the LARK. He makes this bird a rival to Chanticleer in the honour of setting the day agoing. He calls it “the morning lark,” “the herald of the morn,” specially associated with the brightness and glory of dawn. Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast The sun ariseth in his majesty.[201] Again The busy day, Waked by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows.[202] The blithe sound of the bird’s carol is commemorated in the line The merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks. How joyfully does this feeling find expression in the exquisite song in _Cymbeline_: Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings, And Phoebus ’gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes; With every thing that pretty is, My lady sweet arise: Arise, arise![203] The bird-melodies of night and morning were never more delicately commingled than in the garden scene where Juliet, from her window above, would fain persuade her lingering lover that it was not yet near day: _Jul._ Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate-tree: Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. _Rom._ It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale; look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east: Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops: I must be gone and live, or stay and die. _Jul._ Yond light is not day-light, I know it, I: It is some meteor that the sun exhales, To be to thee this night a torch-bearer, And light thee on thy way to Mantua: Therefore stay yet; thou needst not to be gone. _Rom._ Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death; I am content, so thou wilt have it so. I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye, ’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow. Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads: How is’t my soul? let’s talk: it is not day.