The triumphal arch through which I march,

With hurricane, fire, and snow,

[chair,

When the powers of the air are chained to my

Is the million-coloured bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, While the moist earth was laughing below.

VI.

I am the daughter of earth and water,

I

And the nursling of the sky:

pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

[gleams,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain, [the tomb, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from I arise and unbuild it again.

TO A SKYLARK.

I.

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

II.

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.

III.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

IV.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad day-light

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

V.

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.

VI.

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.

VII.

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.

VIII.

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:

Its aërial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it

from the view.

XI.

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,

By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavywinged thieves.

XII..

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was

Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth sur

pass.

XIII.

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.

XIV.

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphal chaunt,

Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt—

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden

want.

XV.

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?

XVI.

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.

XVII.

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?

XVIII.

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught; [thought.

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest