_Spenser_.
This is the season when the birds seem almost intoxicated with delight
at the departure of the dismal and cold and cloudy days of winter and
the return of the warm sun. The music of these little May musicians
seems as fresh as the fragrance of the flowers. The Skylark is the
prince of British Singing-birds--the leader of their cheerful band.
LINES TO A SKYLARK.
Wanderer through the wilds of air!
Freely as an angel fair
Thou dost leave the solid earth,
Man is bound to from his birth
Scarce a cubit from the grass
Springs the foot of lightest lass--
_Thou_ upon a cloud can'st leap,
And o'er broadest rivers sweep,
Climb up heaven's steepest height,
Fluttering, twinkling, in the light,
Soaring, singing, till, sweet bird,
Thou art neither seen nor heard,
Lost in azure fields afar
Like a distance hidden star,
That alone for angels bright
Breathes its music, sheds its light
Warbler of the morning's mirth!
When the gray mists rise from earth,
And the round dews on each spray
Glitter in the golden ray,
And thy wild notes, sweet though high,
Fill the wide cerulean, sky,
Is there human heart or brain
Can resist thy merry strain?
But not always soaring high,
Making man up turn his eye
Just to learn what shape of love,
Raineth music from above,--
All the sunny cloudlets fair
Floating on the azure air,
All the glories of the sky
Thou leavest unreluctantly,
Silently with happy breast
To drop into thy lowly nest.
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