The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave comes to the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.
The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder heights;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delights.
JOHN BURROUGHS.
ODE TO A SKYLARK.
"Ode to a Skylark," by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), is usually
assigned to "grammar grades" of schools. It is included here out of
respect to a boy of eleven years who was more impressed with these
lines than with any other lines in any poem:
"Like a poet hidden,
In the light of thought
Singing songs unbidden
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not."
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.
Pages:
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278