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. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY A LARK SINGING IN A RAINBOW. Fraught with a transient, frozen shower THOMAS WARTON, 1728-1790. THE SKYLARK. FROM "THE FARMER'S BOY." When music waking, speaks the skylark nigh, His form, his motion, undistinguish'd quite, The gazer sees * * ROBERT BLOOMFIELD, 1766-1823. THE MOORS OF JUTLAND. FROM THE DANISH. I lay on my heathery hills all alone, The storm-winds rush'd o'er me in turbulence loud; My eyes wandered starward from cloud unto cloud. There wandered my eyes, but my thoughts onward passed, Gloomy and gray are the moorlands, where rest My fathers, yet there doth the wild heather bloom; And amid the old cairns the lark buildeth her nest, And sings in the desert, o'er hill-top, and tomb! Translation of MRS. HOWITT. BLICKER. THE RISING OF THE LARK. For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and, soaring upward, sing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more and more at every breath of the tempest than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings; till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was over, and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing, as if it had learned music and motion from an angel, as he passed sometimes through the air about his ministries here below: so is the prayer of a good man. JEREMY TAYLOR, 1618-1667. THE LARK. Bird of the wilderness, Blithesome and cumberless, Sweet be thy matins o'er moorland and lea! Blest is thy dwelling-place O to abide in the desert with thee! Far in the downy cloud ; Love gives it energy-love gave it birth : Thy lay is in heaven-thy love is on earth. O'er fell and fountain sheen, O'er the red streamer that heralds the day Over the rainbow's rim, Musical cherub, soar, singing, away! Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be! Blest is thy dwelling-place O to abide in the desert with thee! JAMES HOGG. Ꮮ Ꭺ Ꭱ Ꮶ . To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mount, daring warbler! that love-prompted strain ("Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain; Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; Of harmony, with rapture more divine; WORDSWORTH. LINES. So when the lark, poor bird! afar espyeth VI. May. HAT, alas! will become of those luckless wights-the WHAT future poets of Caffreland and New Zealand, of Patagonia and Pitcairn's Island-when they suddenly awake to the miserable reality that there is no May in their year. May! The very word in itself is charming; pleasing to the eye, falling sweetly on the ear, gliding naturally into music and song, dowered with innumerable images of beauty and delight, imaginary bliss, and natural joy. What, we ask again, will be the melancholy consequences to the southern hemisphere when they become fully conscious that they have lost the "merry month," the "soote season," from their calendar -that with them January must forever linger in the lap of May. Conceive of Hottentot elegies and Fejee sonnets enlarging upon the balmy airs and soft skies of November; raving about the tender young blossoms of December, and the delicate fruits of January. Will the world ever become really |