360 THE SKY-LARK. 



When ascending there is a wild impatience in its notes — a 

 quiet composure, with brief pauses, when hovering at its 

 height, and a gradual sinking of the strain when descending, 

 quite unmistakable, which Tennyson, perhaps unconsciously, 

 alludes to in three different poems. When rising, he says — 



" And morn by morn the lark 

 Shot up and thrilled in flickering gyres." 



When at its height, he as truly says — 



" Now rings the woodland loud and long, 



The distance takes a lovelier hue, 



And, drowned in yonder living blue, 



The lark becomes a sightless song." 



And, when descending, he exquisitely tells us that — 



" The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy, 

 But shook his song together, as he neared 

 His happy home, the ground." 



He also makes his " Miller's Daughter " say — 



" Each morn my sleep was broken thro' 

 By some wild sky-lark's matin song." 



All who have heard the sudden outburst of the sky-lark's 

 song at earliest dawn when all is still — not even the bleating of 

 a lambkin heard — can appreciate this happy allusion, only 

 equalled by this in one of his later poems — 



" The lark first takes the sunlight on his wing, 

 But you, twin sister of the morning star, 

 Forelead the sun." 



And regarding the cheerfulness of the lark's song Wordsworth 



says — 



" Fancy, who leads the pastime of the glad, 

 Full oft is pleased a wayward dart to throw, 

 Sending sad shadows after things not sad ; 

 But ne'er coidd Fancy bend the buoyant lark 

 To melancholy service." 



Which he intensities by saying — 



" Hearing thee, or others of thy kind, 

 As full of gladness and as free of heaven, 

 I, with my lot contented, will plod on, 

 And hope for higher raptures when Life's day is done." 



When alone with Mature in his " Excursion" he alludes to the 



lark as — 



" Boldly seeking pleasure nearer heaven, 

 On wings that navigate cerulean skies." 



